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1. Trace URC’s success story. What are the factors that contributed to its success?
Trace URC’s success story.
Universal Robina Corporation (URC) traced its beginnings all the way back to
1954. John Gokongwei, Jr. was doing very well then as a trader/importer. He had learned
the trade when his father died before the war, and had worked hard through the war and
postwar years to prosper. However, while he thrived, he took a long hard look at his
company, and correctly predicted that trading would remain a low-margin business.
On the other hand, a successful manufacturer controlling its own production and
distribution would command more profitable margins. Mr. John decided to construct a
corn milling plant to produce glucose and cornstarch, Universal Corn Products (UCP),
the first building block of the company that would become URC.
For a time, business was good. However, Mr. John was still looking ahead, working with
an eye towards the future. While the business was doing very well, it was producing
essentially a commodity, which a customer could easily access elsewhere. To stay ahead
in the game, Mr. John had to diversify by producing and marketing his own branded
consumer foods, similar to the multinational companies in the Philippines like Nestle and
Procter & Gamble. In a sense, he wanted to put up the first ‘local’ MNC, borne out of
their best practices.
Thus, in 1961, Consolidated Food Corporation was born. Their first ‘home run’ product
was Blend 45, the first locally-manufactured coffee blend, dubbed as the “Pinoy coffee”.
This became the largest-selling coffee brand in the market, even beating market leaders
Café Puro and Nescafe. After coffee came chocolates. Nips, a panned chocolate similar to
M&Ms, was a staple of Filipino childhood.
In 1963, Robina Farms started operations, beginning with poultry products. This was also
the beginning of the vertical integration of the Gokongwei businesses, as the farms would
be able to purchase feeds from UCP in the future. Later that decade, Robichem
Laboratories would be put up, to cater to the veterinary needs of the farms businesses.
Robina Farms expanded as it entered the hogs business in the latter part of the 70s.
1966 saw the establishment of Universal Robina Corporation, which pioneered the savory
snacks industry in the Philippines through its Chiz Curls, Chippy, and Potato Chips,
under the “Jack ‘n Jill” brand. Other snack products would follow over the years, as the
company successfully introduced market leaders like Jack 'n Jill Pretzels (pretzels),
Piattos (fabricated potato chips), and Maxx (hard candy).
The coming decades saw more acquisitions and expansion. In the early 1970s, the
Gokongwei family entered the commodities business through the formation of
Continental Milling Corporation, for flour milling and production. The late 1980s
brought the acquisition of three sugar mills and refineries, under URC Sugar. These two
businesses provided stable cash flows, and allowed for further vertical integration in the
supply chain, to help URC weather any volatility in the cyclical commodities markets. In

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line with this strategy, the late 1990s saw the entry of URC into the plastics business,
through URC Packaging.
As the businesses became more diversified, the companies were slowly integrated in
order to streamline operations and minimize costs. In 2005, the present structure of the
group was completed. All the different companies are now organized under Universal
Robina Corporation, divided into three focused groups:
the Branded Consumer Foods Group, composed of BCFG Domestic (including
packaging) and URC International, for the production and sale of snacks, beverage, and
grocery products,
the Agro-Industrial Group, composed of Universal Corn Products, Robina Farms,
and Robichem, for the production and sale of animal feeds, day-old chicks, hogs, and
veterinary medicine,
and the Commodity Foods Group, with the Sugar and Flour divisions, for the
production of flour and sugar, and for sugar milling and refining services.
URC is a core subsidiary of JG Summit Holdings, Inc. (JGSHI) which is one of the
largest business conglomerates listed in the Philippine Stock Exchange.
[1]
URC owned the Philippine Basketball Association franchise Great Taste Coffee
Makers which played from the inaugural 1975 season to 1992 when the company sold the
team to Sta. Lucia Realty. The Coffee Makers won 6 PBA championships.
What are the factors that contributed to its success?
(1) Managing and developing people - People today want some direction and
structure, but they also want freedom and encouragement to develop their skills and
knowledge. Effectively managing people requires balancing constraining forces
(providing direction, structure, organization, some rules) with liberating forces
(encourage personal growth, development and creativity). If you as manager/leader err
too much in one direction or the other, your organization will be either too rigid or too
chaotic. To make it more complicated, each person has a different set of needs for
structure vs. freedom, order vs. opportunity, logic vs. personal values, factual information
vs. meaning and connections, and so on. Effective managers do not manage all people the
same, except for some basic rules. They manage each person according to what he or she
needs, what motivates them to do their best. This can be complicated but is essential for
success.

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1. Trace URC’s success story. What are the factors that contributed to its success? Trace URC’s success story. Universal Robina Corporation (URC) traced its beginnings all the way back to 1954. John Gokongwei, Jr. was doing very well then as a trader/importer. He had learned the trade when his father died before the war, and had worked hard through the war and postwar years to prosper. However, while he thrived, he took a long hard look at his company, and correctly predicted that trading would remain a low-margin business. On the other hand, a successful manufacturer controlling its own production and distribution would command more profitable margins. Mr. John decided to construct a corn milling plant to produce glucose and cornstarch, Universal Corn Products (UCP), the first building block of the company that would become URC. For a time, business was good. However, Mr. John was still looking ahead, working with an eye towards the future. While the business was doing very well, it was producing essentially a commodity, which a customer could easily access elsewhere. To stay ahead in the game, Mr. John had to diversify by producing and marketing his own branded consumer foods, similar to the multinational companies in the Philippines like Nestle and Procter & Gamble. In a sense, he wanted to put up the first ‘local’ MNC, borne out of their best practices. Thus, in 1961, Consolidated Food Corporation was born. Their first ‘home run’ product was Blend 45, th ...
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