Company Name: Coca-Cola FEMSA Philippines
Company Owner: Fabricio Ponce
Company Address: 4/F Kings Court 2, 2129 Chino Roces Avenue Makati City, NCR - Second District 1550, Pasig City, Metro Manila, Philippines
Official Contact #: 09238455930
Company Website: http://www.coca-cola.com.ph
Company Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CocaColaPhilippines/
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Product/Services: Beverages and powdered juices
Corporate Social Responsibility
Quezon City teams up with Coca-Cola for livelihood skills for women
March 15, 2016 - As the largest city in Metro Manila, Quezon City has its sizeable share of poor communities but is also a thriving environment for a micro-enterprise – carinderias, street food carts, and the staple sari-sari stores.
With females comprising more than half of its 2.8 million people, Quezon City actually represents a very optimistic case for alleviating poverty by enlarging the participation of women in small-scale businesses. Quezon City Mayor Herbert Bautista has found a way to seize this opportunity via a partnership with Coca-Cola Philippines.
A Memorandum of Agreement was recently signed between Coca-Cola Philippines, the Quezon City Government, and the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority, that will bring entrepreneurial training and know-how to the women engaged in micro-enterprise in the area.
The Sari-Sari Store Training and Access to Resources (STAR) Program of Coca-Cola Philippines, which is being conducted by TESDA, will be made available for the women of Quezon City through the channels of the local government. Through this, the program will be more accessible to the women of Quezon City.
“This is a good program that will benefit the women in our city, especially the sari-sari store owners in the Batasan, Novaliches, and Balintawak areas. The office of the city mayor can also help in facilitating the women entrepreneurs who will be part of the training program,” Bautista said. “The city government will also provide access to micro-financing and post-training monitoring.”
“At Coca-Cola, we recognize the significant role of women as potential engines of economic and social development of a community. Together with equally passionate program partners, we are providing that enabling environment to women micro-entrepreneurs through the STAR Program,” said Adel Tamano, Coca-Cola Philippines Vice President for Public Affairs and Communications.
The 5by20 STAR Program in partnership with the TESDA, aims to economically empower 200,000 women in the Philippines. The 5by20 STAR Program is in line with the aim of The Coca-Cola Company to empower 5 million women around the world by 2020.
The STAR program trains the women, organizes them into a cohesive business network, and links them to enterprise opportunities. As of this year, the program has reached more than 47,000 beneficiaries in the Philippines and has been rolled out for women OFWs.
The economics of women empowerment: Why Coca-Cola Philippines is investing in women to grow its business
To a lot of Filipino women, the sari-sari store has become a symbol of economic empowerment which strikes the balance between being able to augment the financial needs of the family and being able to care for the children and the household.
In the retail industry, the sari-sari store retail sector takes center stage, especially for fast moving consumer goods that are targeted towards the broad market base or the masa. This is particularly true for Coca-Cola products, from its timeout, kasalo, and litro glass and PET bottles. Consumers can easily buy these from sari-sari stores in every street or corner. They are essentially the hands that extend products to consumers.
Sari-sari stores and carinderias are mostly owned and managed by women. These micro entrepreneurs are the pillars of the communities where we operate in and are critical to our local and global business success. However, they encounter barriers to growing their businesses such as lack of entrepreneurial skills training and business resources.
Launched in 2011, the Coca-Cola STAR Program is the Company’s flagship program for women economic empowerment in the Philippines. The Program aims to provide an enabling environment that can help women micro entrepreneurs overcome the barriers they face to business success. In partnership with government and various microfinance institutions, Coca-Cola Philippines was able to implement the Coca-Cola STAR Program on a nationwide scale. The Program is implemented in 47 cities and provinces across the country with over 52,000 women micro-entrepreneurs engaged in its various components. By year 2020, the program intends to reach 200,000 women retailers.
The Coca-Cola STAR Program is comprised of three major components: (1) Access to Training; (2) Access to Resources; and (3) Access to Peer Mentoring support. To effectively deliver on these program components, Coca-Cola Philippines forged a partnership with the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA) at the national level and formed partnerships with four reputable microfinance institutions across the regions: Alalay sa Kaunlaran, Inc. for North Luzon, ASA Philippines for NCR and South Luzon; Negros Women for Tomorrow Foundation for Visayas and First Community Cooperative for Mindanao.
“The impact of helping women achieve economic empowerment will be far and wide. As women are most likely to invest their earnings back to the growth of their families, especially children, which paves the way for a better future generation,” said Atty. Adel Tamano, Vice President for Public Affairs and Communications of Coca-Cola Philippines.
Coca-Cola Philippines also established the STAR Center for Excellence facility at the TESDA Women’s Center to enhance and diversify the program in order to address changing needs and challenges in the retail sector. The center serves as a venue for the training and accreditation of facilitators to be deployed throughout the country. To date, the Coca-Cola STAR program has 340 accredited facilitators teaching and training women retailers to become better entrepreneurs.
The Coca-Cola STAR Program is part of the global initiative of The Coca-Cola Company to enable the empowerment of 5 million women within its value chain by the year 2020. From women fruit and sugarcane farmers, to distributors, to retailers up to recyclers, who are involved in the sourcing, manufacturing, distribution, selling and repurposing of Coca-Cola product packaging, they are an integral part of the Company. The 5by20 global initiative, present in almost 60 countries to date, opens opportunities for women to explore micro-enterprising opportunities by leveraging the important role they play in the Coca-Cola value chain through various programs initiated in different countries, including the Philippines.
Coca-Cola enrolls first batch of women OFWs in entrepreneurship program
April 30, 2016 – The 2013 Labor Force Survey of the Philippine Commission on Women estimates that 14.8 million Filipino women are part of the country’s labor force. This does not count women who are working abroad as overseas Filipino workers (OFWs).
For a lot of working Filipino women, the need to provide for the family is their top priority. To earn an extra keep, these women often resort to having a second career, doing “sidelines”, and for some, putting up a sari-sari store in their homes.
However, having businesses on the side oftentimes turn into monetary drains instead of supplementing the family budget. The many challenges women face can often lead to business failures.
Such is the story of Dubai OFW Maria Jazmin Felicio. Dabbling in various jobs since her return to the country, Felicio continued to face challenges in providing for the family. During her stint as a home-based researcher, she decided to open her own sari-sari store.
Despite her background selling homemade yema during her youth and inventory management training in her career, there were still a handful of obstacles in running her store.
“We are now on the fourth session of the training, and I am learning a lot of concepts and skills on how to better improve the way we are running the sari-sari store,” said Felicio.
In 2011, Coca-Cola Philippines rolled out the STAR Program in partnership with the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA). Designed for women micro-entrepreneurs who own and manage sari-sari stores or carinderias, the Program hopes to address the barriers these women face by helping them achieve business success. The STAR Program has three components: access to training, access to resources, and access to peer mentoring.
“Coca-Cola is very much part of communities. So if we grow, our growth must be inclusive. This is the reason why we continue to pursue initiatives that have both social and business impact. The STAR Program is shared value in action. Through our core business of selling Coca-Cola products, we can address one of the key social issues of our time which is women economic empowerment,” said Diego Granizo, President and General Manager of Coca-Cola Philippines.
Coca-Cola Philippines also established the STAR Center for Excellence facility at the TESDA Women’s Center as the center for innovation to continuously find ways on how to enhance and scale the STAR Program. The center also serves as a venue for the training and accreditation of facilitators to be deployed throughout the country. To date, the STAR Program has 340 accredited facilitators teaching and training women retailers to become better entrepreneurs. The STAR Program is being implemented in over 47 locations nationwide and has reached more than 52,000 women.
Marking the fifth year of the 5by20 STAR Program, the program is being expanded to include women OFWs like Felicio. The Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) and Coca-Cola Philippines have agreed to provide enabling mechanisms that can potentially help women OFWs explore possible economic opportunities when they come home. The Women Entrepreneurs Reintegrated and Economically Active at Home (WOMEN REACH!) program aims to economically empower women OFWs by providing them access to business skills and life training, and access to business enhancement or start-up capital assets.
The program aims to mitigate the social cost of women migration for work. It is targeted towards our returning women OFWs, especially our domestic workers and caregivers. The program shall equip them with the right support to build their entrepreneurial confidence so they can establish or enhance their own micro-enterprises within their own localities and eliminate the need for them to go abroad again.
While there is economic benefit from women OFWs, it comes with a very high social cost – the separation of family as a unit, which often led to estrangement, alienation or worse, disintegration. According to the Institute of Labor Studies of the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE), the continuing feminization of migration has the most detrimental impact to the family and children, especially when the mother is the one who goes to abroad for work because along with her also goes the caregiving and nurturing responsibilities.
This public-private partnership is a combination of several program components, the Coca-Cola Philippines STAR (Sari-Sari Store Training and Access to Resources) and DOLE’s Assist WELL (Welfare, Employment, Legal and Livelihood) programs that can readily accommodate women OFWs as they return to the country.
On its first run, 34 women have been enrolled, including 29 OFWs and five others who are immediate family of OFWs. They are expected to graduate from the training program by the middle of June this year.
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