Initiatives
Global Dominion Financing
by: Patricia Poco-Palacios, CEO, Global Dominion Financing, Inc. TRAIL-ELIAS PH Fellow 2014
BIG IDEA: How do we bring Global Dominion Financing to a higher level of growth?
CO-INITIATING
2013: GDFI embarked on a Learning Journey attending The Art of the Learning Organization. People learned how to use data BOTGs and create relationships that fostered meaningful feedback and team learning. Annual sales grew with targets achieved in Oct 2014.
CO-SENSING
2014: To seek even higher levels, GDFI Leadership (GM) joined the ELIAS program and began stakeholder interviews building trust and support for future initiatives.
Embarked on Sensing Journeys -
Sen. Bam Aquino
GDFI clients
Small Businesses
Jeric, GDFI Business consultant
CARD Bank
Sol Global Forum Paris with SoL PH
CO-PRESENCING
Who is my SELF?
What is my WORK?
CO-PRESENCING
EXCOM Presentation: Secured to venture on a new project - Business services focusing on data gathering and financial reports.
Launch: July-Aug 2014
CO-EVOLVING
P300 Million. Moving Forward
Key Learnings:
Stakeholder interviews with our CEO gave me the insight that he actually supported my growth and saw me as the new generation who would bring Global into the future. The interview, I felt, built the foundation for support in the
project we proposed in the future.
Dialogue interview with existing clients. An interview with one of our existing clients showed me that relationships matter in this business. This client has no borrowing experience except with Global Dominion and stuck with us because
of his relationship with the agent who referred him to us. As a busy professional, he appears not to have the time to research on other options when the need for cash arises.
Dialogue Interview. Jeric heads the GDFI Accounting Department but as a side business, he helps businesses organize their financial reports and assists them with their taxes. Recently, he has offered business advisory services to small
businesses. According to him, there is a growing demand for such services – specially from small entrepreneurs who have no finance background.
Small Business owners. These entrepreneurs are creative and hardworking, but fail due to lack of financial literacy and understanding of basic financial recording. Several we have encountered cannot get financing from banks due to lack
of financial statements. They have then resorted to borrowing from “5- 6” - loan sharks that lend at exorbitant rates - leaving them drowning in debt, barely keeping afloat, and very frustrated.
Shadowing. Meeting Sen. Bam Aquino gave me a new sense of what GDFI’s role in society should be. It also strengthened my resolve to pursue this project.
I learned here about the market space that is available for GDFI – which is the “Small Entrepreneur Space” who have financing needs from Php150,000 to 3M. This market is too small to be served by banks, and too big to be served by
micro-finance lenders.
They also need three things: Money, Mentorship, and Marketing (market linkages). These are areas that GDFI can support – to a certain degree – as well. With GDFI’s competency in financial reporting, this opens up new opportunities for
GDFI that are not only profitable, but will contribute in nation-building as well.
Visiting Places of Most Potential. Seven years after my last visit to CARD Bank, I am still inspired by Dr. Alip’s relentless commitment to inclusive growth and poverty alleviation.
A remarkable change is the shift from weekly meetings to monthly meetings (to collect loan amortizations and to share updates). This shows that the borrowers have learned good credit habits and can sustain it even with less “control”
(i.e., meetings) with CARD.
The development of SME Lending from just micro-finance lending. This also shows that SME Lending is a viable opportunity – as long as good credit habits have been established.