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April 2012
By BERNIE CAHILES-MAGKILAT
Technology has a way of converting something new into old, even making people feel old. Thus, business has to be in step with technology or else fall into oblivion. This is the case of the Directories Philippines Corp. (DPC), what used to be the only search engine we know –Yellow Pages -- is now bombarded with competition with the advent of the internet. It has to keep up with the times to stay relevant as the world is slowing shying away from page flipping phone directories to internet web browsing.
Not to be outdone, DPC president Ricardo D. Bautista is trying to reinvent the traditional Yellow Pages that we know of, not by contradicting the internet but by adding value to its advertisers through the internet and serving a niche market that the internet has failed to penetrate.
DPC
DPC was incorporated on June 20, 1989 to assume the business of the Philippine Branch of GTE Directories (GTE/DC). The former is 70% owned by Filipinos and GTE/DC (Asia) Ltd. owns the remaining 30% of the capital
stock. The company was formerly operating as Philippine Branch GTE Directories Corporation, a whollyowned
foreign corporation, and the largest publisher of yellow pages directories in the world.After the 1987 Philippine Constitution took effect disallowing whollyowned foreign corporations to be engaged in media, GTE Directories (Philippines) Corporation, a 70% Filipino corporation took over the operations of the Philippine Branch. The company was organized primarily to publish telephone directories for PLDT and Pilipino Telephone Company.
The company’s name, GTE Directories (Philippines) Corporation, was eventually changed to Directories Philippines Corporation (DPC) as approved by the Securities and Exchange Commission on April 6, 1993. As of August 1993, GTE ceased to be a stockholder of DPC from which the company evolved into a wholly owned
Filipino firm it is today.Since 1989, when DPC was organized, it has emerged as the dominant market leader in the directories advertising industry in the Philippines today. It is the leading seller of Yellow Pages advertisements. As of 2009, it
has officially published 28 directories covering LuzViMin areas.DPC is also the founder and a charter member of the Asian Directory Publishers Association, Inc. (ADPAI), which is a non-profit association, composed of 20 countries in the Asian region.
REINVENTING
“DPC serves a definite purpose when someone is looking for something. But through the years it has only become an option when it used to be the only option,” says Bautista, an alumnus of the Wharton Graduate School of Finance & Commerce.
Given this development, Bautista cannot just wait and witness his business totally being flushed down without doing anything.
“We have to reinvent the wheel because the Yellow Pages still serves a purpose, the old purpose maybe a goner but there could be value added services for the Yellow Pages,” says Bautista.
For one, he noted not everything can be found online. Google, the world’s number one search engine, only provides for the websites or webpages, but not for all the Metro Manila establishments, especially the small and medium enterprises.
“Google may give you the supplier, the manufacturer of the product but not your neighborhood store where you can readily buy, say an auto spare part,” says Bautista.
The challenge is how to bring the Yellow Pages closer and convenient to consumers.
So, Bautista has thought of joining the online game by going electronic also. Under eyp.ph advertisers in the Yellow Pages also get exposures online for free.
Not only are they listed online but these firms can put their very specific addresses so they can be viewed and
mapped by their prospective customers. It’s just like Google map, only this one is more specific.“The eyp.ph comes complete with a map because we want it to be more accessible to the clients of our advertisers,” says Bautista.
DPC also came up with the Yellow Canvas wherein a customer can place their specifications of products they want to purchase and DPC would be the one to call for the suppliers and for them to return the buyer’s call.
Calls to small enterprises can also be very frustrating because SMEs have only few people and they could not attend or answer to your queries properly, much more immediately.
DPC is fixing this problem by putting up Yellow Page Assist, a call center. The agent will get all your requirements and specifications. The YP Assist is a 24/7 operation so anyone can call anytime.
“We don’t do transactions though, we only assist,” says Bautista.
“This also comes absolutely free, we don’t get commissions out of this service. We are making it easier for customers to reach our advertisers. We’re making life easier for people,” says Bautista.
YELLOW GUARANTEE
The products and services of the advertisers in the DPC Yellow Pages are guaranteed to be reliable, and of good quality. Therefore, the buyers are assured that whatever they purchase from the advertiser will function for what it was intended for.
But DPC has gone beyond mouthing assurances when it launched the DPC Yellow Guarantee.
The Yellow Guarantee signifies that the DPC Yellow Pages places its full trust on its advertisers. This means that DPC stands by the quality of its advertisers’ products and services. In fact, such is the confidence of DPC Yellow Pages that DPC will gladly offer a replacement or a refund in the unlikely event that a buyer encounters problems with any of the advertiser’s goods or services on the day it was purchased.
An Ad item that has YP Seal on it signifies that the benefit claim in that DPC Yellow Pages Ad was verified to be factual and correct, as this was tested and validated by DPC, through a third party expert.
The DPC Yellow Pages is the only advertising medium that offers a different kind of assurance not only to its buyers but also to its advertisers.
The Yellow Guarantee gives the buyers peace of mind from the assurance that the goods and services offered by the advertiser is of the best quality. On the other hand, the advertisers benefit from DPC’s endorsement of their products and services through the Yellow Guarantee.
“We’ve been doing this since last year but we only launched it formally last month,” says Bautista.
The Yellow Guarantee simply backs up the item that it serves the purpose for what it is, but not the quality nor misunderstanding. If it is a mobile phone, then DPC will replace the phone.
“I know I am taking some risks here, but this also goes to show how confident I am of our advertisers that they are good and they are not engaged in fraudulent advertising,” says Bautista. So far, nobody has claimed any guarantee from DPC.
“90 percent of our advertisers are SMEs and I am backing them up,” says Bautista noting that buyers are normally wary of small enterprises.
“No other advertising medium can do this. There is no company as crazy as us,” adds Bautista. Even the Department of Trade and Industry has lauded this initiative, which is to protect consumers.
“So we are telling them don’t be scared because we are backing up our advertisers. Isn’t that crazy?” says Bautista.
STAYING POWER
All these efforts are meant to prove that Yellow Pages is never Jurassic.
“We remain useful than any other website because although the global search engines could be humongous, they don’t cater to the needs of the SMEs. Ours is a local search,” says Bautista.
Another innovation by DPC is the QR Code, which is like a barcode. Most smart phones can read QR Codes so they can be diverted to announcements by its advertisers. This is another service to consumers.
Advertisers in other forms of media are meant to create demand, but with DPC it is bringing ready buyers to its advertisers.
“We are handholding consumers towards our advertisers. One who opens a Yellow Page is a ready buyer. That makes us very unique,” says Bautista.
Bautista does not believe that Yellow Pages would soon become irrelevant, but admitted there could be a reduction in terms of usage but then the population is also growing.
“It will definitely stay because it has a niche market. The Yellow Page is the same search engine only it is on a different platform,” adds Bautista.
Besides, advertising can be so expensive whether on television, print and radio. But advertising in the Yellow Pages could be worth your while. Television advertisements could be P150,000 per 30 seconds.
“In the Yellow Pages, we charge as low as P300. The full page ad in the Yellow Pages is only equivalent to 7-9 days in the newspaper versus DPC’s 365 days of exposure,” says Bautista.
As the official publisher of phone giant PLDT, DPC prints 2 million copies a year. The Yellow Pages used to have over 3,000 categories, but has reduced it to 1,500 now. The White Pages part of the directory is the alphabetical list of all PLDT subscribers.
Despite the intense competition from the internet, DPC is doing well.
With its innovations, DPC grew 17 percent for fiscal year 2011. Its fiscal year ends in May. For 2012, the company expects to post a higher 27 percent increase in revenues. There are close to 2,000 advertisers in Yellow Pages, which Bautista hopes to augment further.
“We’ve been doing quite well,” says Bautista. He, however, said the company is now ready for expansion and further reinvigorating because it has tendency to plateau.
“This has been a good business to us although it is not really outstanding, but stable enough because it serves a very fundamental need of consumers. Now, I just have to make it more robust,” says Bautista.
Bautista has been the CEO of DPC for the past five years, succeeding his father.
“From the bleachers I went down to the court,” says Bautista.
EXCITING ERA
Bautista sets the direction for the business over the long term.
“My job is to create a vision and direction and how to run, execute our plans down to the rank and file, who will perform based on the vision,” says Bautista.
Behind his efforts are his people. “My biggest asset is my people. I make sure each of them understands our programs, even the janitors can explain to you what our Yellow Guarantee is all about.”
The vision is to make DPC the top of mind choice for source of information that would provide buyers and sellers with solutions or answers to their needs.
“The objective is to bring the Yellow Pages back to where it was 15 years ago when everybody uses Yellow Pages and I don’t see why not with our new innovations,” says Bautista.
Bautista could see more people being drawn into the DPC especially with their encroachment into the electronic world. Bautista, an entrepreneur on his own, has other businesses but the DPC is the biggest.
“This business is blessed because my people here know that they are my biggest asset more than anything else,” says Bautista. DPC grants dividends to its employes.
DPC employs around 300 people including its 24/7 call center operation. It is also undertaking the PLDT directory assistance for free. This is also part of its service to the phone giant.
“This is an exciting era,” says Bautista.
Bautista is bent to be at the forefront of local marketplace development, bringing sellers ever closer to their core markets and enhancing the power of choice among diverse buyers, by harnessing technology, data, business acumen and longterm relationship to constantly create convenient, efficient and costeffective information services.
