Son of owner not allowed to eat in exec lounge

RAUL Joseph Concepcion

At a young, tender age of 7, Raul Joseph Concepcion, unlike most other kids, spent his extra waking hours working for the family business.

Concepcion tells SundayBiz that he actually enjoyed those times when he was tasked to punch cards of different colors, stack them together, and after which he would use these to play monopoly.

But the harsh reality of working in a “real office” struck him hard when at the age of 11, Jojo, as he is fondly known, was sent to the company’s factory to finally get his hands dirty.

It was ironic that the present chief of Concepcion-Carrier Air Conditioning (CCAC), one of the country’s leading provider of cooling solutions, then had to work with two conditions under his father’s explicit orders: one, he cannot work in an air-conditioned room and second, he cannot eat in the executive floor so he can truly mingle with their factory workers.

Son of owner

“The monicker really given to people like myself is we are SOO [son of the owner]. But in my father’s case, you have to earn the title, for you to be a COO or CEO,” Concepcion explains, adding that they all had to work hard and know the company from the bottom up. This was why all his free time in the mornings were spent in the office to learn.

Coming from a family of mostly businessmen, Concepcion relates that their dad has always been very clear about them having to work for the family business.

THE MULTI-AWARDED Concepcion-Carrier Air Conditioning Company plant.

“We were always expected to work, so that expectation level was brought up from day 1. We were expected to manage the business,” he says.

Admittedly, Concepcion says the “brainwashing” done to them by his father made it a little easier for them to accept the fact that they would soon run the business.

Food, according to him, was also one of the baits that his father used to entice them to work.

“We had an open budget, but we had to eat with the workers. We can go to the canteen and order everything we want. That was the bribe,” he relates.

When asked if he thinks that his father became too imposing for him to like the job, Concepcion notes that he didn’t see it that way as he has always wanted to work for the family’s business.

“I always dreamed of working for and leading the company. It was something really expected of me so it wasn’t very difficult for myself to adjust,” he shares.

Deemed as the family’s favorite, Concepcion admits that his parents may have spent more time nurturing him and exposing him to the business which helped him to really want to come into the family’s business.

Living abroad

Concepcion’s sheltered life, however, took a strange turn when he was sent abroad to study.

“My parents decided for us to experience the world. They wanted us to experience living alone in a less protective environment,” he says.

“The problem is in the Philippines is that you live in a very protective environment – you have your yayas, your maid, your driver so you don’t experience life,” he adds.

Concepcion relates that he had to live separately from his family for about 10 months and stay with people he didn’t know.

This setup, he claims, had helped build his confidence level and his character.

Add to that the fact that living in the US was a different experience altogether for the young Concepcion, who was then forced to learn to do things by himself –from folding his bed, doing his laundry to cleaning his area. He was likewise lumped with the other Asians since during that time, not too many Americans had seen a Filipino in their entire lives.

“This is the ’70s and the ’80s, so imagine going to that environment. It builds a lot of self-confidence in you and that experience is really what carries you through life,” Concepcion says.

He adds that his early marriage, although a challenge, has likewise helped in shaping him for who he has become today.

Honing skills

It was in 1987 that Concepcion officially joined his family’s company, Concepcion Industries Inc.

He, however, was given a different task by his father, who had then just decided to venture into agriculture, having a bought a prawn farm in Pangasinan for him to manage. From scratch, Concepcion was able to grow the business and at the same time, hone his own managing skills.

“Again, I’ve had a lot of learnings from that. Growing the farm developed my business style and philosophies. The farm taught me to work very hard. I was even then called  ‘boy putik’ because I was always muddy, but I took it as part of really learning the business, and that really brought down the philosophies and values I had in running this business,” he explains.

He then took various positions at the credit and collection, manufacturing, sales, after sales service and then finally went for the corporate, eventually landing in the position of CEO.

Challenges

According to Concepcion, there are multiple challenges in running the business, such as dealing with changes of the people and the environment.

“People tend to underestimate managing a business here in the Philippines. Demands of consumer and business are changing. The rules of the game are changing. My competition today is not locals. It’s the foreign companies, the multinationals whose companies’ total valuation is bigger than the Philippine economy,” he explains.

But one of the more daunting challenges will be from the family point of view in the generation of leadership, how is the baton passed from one generation to the next.

“When you join a company and you’re the owner, am I there because of my name or am I there because of what I can do? I think that challenge was more to myself than to the employees. Proving that you know we were worth the position that we carry. That, I tell you, is the biggest challenge faced by companies like ourselves where you have a family corporation, where you tend to tangle up family affairs and business affairs—that’s very critical,” Concepcion explains.

But Concepcion has proven his naysayers and detractors dead wrong.

As the third generation Concepcion in the airconditioning business, Jojo has diligently carried his family’s heritage, taking the joint venture between Concepcion Industries and Carrier Corp., to lead the way as the company became the country’s most trusted provider of innovative cooling solutions.

And despite the success of the company, Concepcion says he remains hands-on in the business.

“I don’t micro manage. You have to know your staff. I’m very easy to relate with. That’s the advantage – people can easily come to me, talk to me and we discuss. but I challenge them. Every time, I try to raise the bar, motivate and challenge people to do best,” Concepcion concludes.

At present, CCAC’s market leadership has been borne out of its strength in offering the market the best cooling solutions and backing this with excellent after sales services. These cooling solutions, according to CCAC, are defined by individual customer needs and are adapted to Philippine weather conditions and use.

By end-2010, CCAC registered a 32-percent growth in its total sales to P4.5 billion. With the overall AC market earning P13.8 billion last year, CCAC’s sales represented 45 percent of the overall share with 250,000 units sold during the period.