The 23rd National Retail conference (NRCE) was held last August 10 to 11 at the SMX Convention Center Manila, and part of this year's NRCE is the Stores Asia Expo 2016 which is attended by delegates and visitors.

The said event features exhibits from various businesses, free seminars, and the Stores Asia Hub which demonstrates the uses of the products shown in the exhibit floor.


Free seminars were done throughout the course of the two-day event featuring various resource speakers. On the first day, Ms. Ilyn van Opstal of Francorp Philippines showed how to franchise in an interactive seminar where she answered questions from the curious audience, while Mr. Sandeep Walia, President of Hitachi Solutions Asia Pacific showed everyone recent retail innovations.

On the second day, the APAC Sales Director of Philips Digital Displays Mr. Rob Fowler addressed the attendees "The Digital Evolution" with enthusiasm, while Mr. Michael Francis Rivera of Micropinnacle Technologies Corporation introduced Qlik which makes business intelligence easier to do and customize.

All of these happened in the whole two days of the National Retail Conference. There's more retail innovations in store in the next year's NRCE and the Stores Asia Expo.

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The Stores Asia Expo 2016 was managed by Ex-Link Management and Marketing Services Corporation. If you would like us to manage your upcoming events, send us an email at info@exlinkevents.com or call 633-0153, 643-3887 or SMS 0920-981-4376. You can also talk to us via our Facebook page.

The MSME Success Forum, an activity of the 7th Philippine Business and Entrepreneurs' Expo, will be held on Sunday, August 28, at the Megatrade Hall 1 of SM Megamall in Mandaluyong City. Please take note that the event's program is subject to change without prior notice. Find us on Facebook to know how to be part of the Forum.

More surprises are in store at the 7th Philippine Business and Entrepreneurs' Expo this August 26 to 28 at the SM Megatrade Hall 1 in Mandaluyong City. You can talk with fellow entrepreneurs, or just observe and gain knowledge to polish your business and expand it further.
This event is organized by business event organizer Ex-Link Management & Marketing Services Corporation. For inquiries and partnerships, call telephone numbers 633-01-53, 643-3887 or email info@exlinkevents.com. Ex-Link Events is also on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

Imagine this: You stepped in the nearby convenience store to get refreshments, and from the display you see this drink which has Nata de Coco inside it. It reads: "Mogu Mogu." You bought one, drank it, and felt the chewy Nata de Coco. Eventually, you got to taste the other flavors that they have.


Feeling more thirsty now? Don't fret - Mogu Mogu has more. After launching their Pink Guava and Green Melon flavors, they launched a TV campaign and introduced the Fun Collection this year.

The Mogu Mogu Fun Collection gives you four (4) bottles of Mogu Mogu (320ml) and a FREE toy that you can stick in the side of your fave cup. Check out their website for the details.

Way back the old times, Cebuana Lhuillier is simply known as a pawnshop; but the times have changed and they now offer more than just the usual pawning-lending services. They offer remittance services, e-loading and bills payment and micro-insurance services as well. The pawnshop's innovations has made them a leader in their field.


See Cebuana Lhuillier's financial services for businesses and individuals up close plus more surprises at the 7th Philippine Business and Entrepreneurs' Expo this August 26 to 28 at the SM Megatrade Hall 1 in Mandaluyong City. You can talk with fellow entrepreneurs, or just observe and gain knowledge to polish your business and expand it further.



This event is organized by business event organizer Ex-Link Management & Marketing Services Corporation. For inquiries and partnerships, call telephone numbers 633-01-53, 643-3887 or email info@exlinkevents.com. Ex-Link Events is also on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

Driver's license validity is to be lengthened up to 5 years. Passport validity to be lengthened up to 10 years. Processing is to be done online to decrease queues. Commitments in processing of documents will be delivered at a set time and date.

These are the things that President Rodrigo Duterte opened to the 17th Congress at the 2016 State of the Nation Address last Monday, and while there are some things that are not mentioned, what supposed to be a 30-minute speech went up to 100 minutes - and yet, we can say that it is mesmerizing.

President Duterte pointed out problems one at a time, and then proposed a solution. One of them is the establishment of the 8888 anti-corruption hotline, which will be connected to the Executive branch. This will complement the signed Freedom of Information executive order that he signed.

To sum his statement on the 8888 hotline, he made it clear that when he hears something wrong within his scope (Executive branch), "even a whisper," he'll take charge, go visit the person involved and ask why. "[...] hiwalay-hiwalay na tayo [...]," as he says it, should deter those who will try to do so.

The relation, or perhaps the benefit, of the 8888 hotline is that it is set up to help streamline the process of documents and to mitigate red tape that has been hampering the development of most Filipinos, including in the MSME industry. Once the hotline is set up in the succeeding weeks, we'll see how things will work - for the better, we really hope.

In what is dubbed as the "saddest US$5 [actually US$4.8] billion deal in tech history," the core assets of Yahoo!, Inc. (once an internet giant before Google and Facebook took over; and also the place where most Filipinos signed up for email) has been sold to the biggest wireless telco in the U.S., Verizon. Now what happens after this?

First, let's describe the assets that are sold to: Yahoo!'s email, sports, news, finance, real estate and advertising tools aside from some patents. Let's put a big emphasis on email: Coming back from what we said earlier, most of us (if not all) have Yahoo! email addresses. Now that a major US telco will soon own Yahoo! Mail and Yahoo! Finance, should we be bothered? Not at all.

In the words of Forbes' Brian Solomon, "It’s an ironic end. While the opening of the consumer web made the portal an early online superpower, now Yahoo will be eaten by a company that enables more users to access the Internet every day, from anywhere, than Yahoo’s founders [Jerry Yang and David Filo] ever could have dreamed when they first launched."

Moreover, Solomon also mentioned that Yahoo! will be reunited with another then-giant, America Online (AOL). Yahoo! and AOL were the big ones in content, and not to mention AOL's assets include websites catering to news and tech which has a big following.

While the present time of Yahoo! is definitely turbulent - shout-out to that deal they had with Tumblr - some are optimistic that the deal will bring life back to it. Maybe this will be the next thing that people will remember in the future, after the search engine and the Yahoo! yodel. Who knows?

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The Customer Love Fest will feature key resource speakers and the latest concepts in Customer Experience Management, Customer Relationship Management, and Customer Loyalty and Rewards. Join in on the fun and don't be left out.


This event is produced and organized by Ex-Link Management and Marketing Services Corporation, a business organizer in the Philippines. 

To be part of the Customer Love Fest, call telephone numbers 633-01-53, 643-38-87, mobile number 0920-981-4376 or send an email at info@exlinkevents.com. Ex-Link Events is also on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

Today marks the opening of the 17th Congress of the Republic of the Philippines, and as stated in the constitution, the Congress will open with a State of the Nation Address led by the president of the republic. This year, the State of the Nation Address will be done by President Rodrigo Roa Duterte, dubbed as the first president elected from the Mindanao region.

Last week, we did a quick survey among our peers on what are the 10 things that we would like to hear in President Duterte's first SONA:

1. No tax for employees earning below ₱25,000 - so that employees will have less burden budgeting their monthly allowances.
2. Increase in SSS Pension benefits - senior citizens depend on pension more to sustain themselves.
3. Make food prices affordable and accessible - more food bought for a set budget means more nourished families.
4. Ease transportation - less time spent on traffic means more time to spend on being productive
5. Increase and unify the minimum wage - so that businesses won't need to adjust wages if they are going to branch out to multiple locations across the country.
6. Abolish contractualization - secured jobs mean secured futures.
7. Improved healthcare services - If everyone can benefit from the government's healthcare services, the better.
8. Ease of doing government transactions - reducing the days alloted to business registration saves time, money and sweat.
9. Telecommunications infrastructure - faster connections mean faster processing of transactions.

The Internet of Things (IoT). Drones. Web 3.0. Startups. These are some of the buzzwords that describe how technology has helped (and for those who are wary of it, taken over) society as we know it. Just imagine your business integrating with the latest technology:

• You can make full use of drones to show your store's facade
• You can develop applications that will also serve as your virtual store
• Your website can have the best-pleasing design and yet still serve customers
• You can describe yourself as a startup

Simply taking your business online is one step of integrating the latest technologies into it. Imagine the number of debit card holders who does their transactions online now from those in the next five to ten years. Imagine how many people are using mobile phones now, and how many of them have set up their virtual debit cards; or has their coupons inside it. We are merely estimating that a few utilize these new technologies, and we can predict that in that time frame it will reach to a quarter or third of the populace.

This is just a nutshell in a plethora of reasons why businesses should enhance themselves using technology, and there will be more reasons in the future. Let's use the available resources that we can use now and play with it, for it will sure help us one way or another for the next wave of technologies.

Facebook has released its insights on what people seek for the most on the Facebook and Instagram platforms, and the results may surprise you.
While both Instagram and Facebook are social media, and is used to share everyone's moments, the difference between the two is that Facebook is more on current events while Instagram is more on style.

Here's the gist of the excerpts from the said post:

• "20% of Americans’ time on mobile is spent on Facebook and Instagram"
• "On Instagram, people follow celebrities, get DIY inspiration and are visually transported to new places—while on Facebook, the primary appeal is connecting with family and friends."
• "[...] Based on these findings, marketers might experiment with sharing reactions and opinions on Facebook and behind-the-scenes content on Instagram."
• "[...] fun on Facebook is more about humor, and fun on Instagram is more about encountering the unexpected."
• "[...] Compared to women, for instance, men were more likely to agree that Facebook and Instagram help them organize their lives. This might include learning about and RSVPing to events or joining special interest groups. On the other hand, women were more likely than men to agree that Facebook and Instagram help them stay in touch with close friends and family."
• "Parents we surveyed aren’t just posting cute kid photos. They also said they seek video content on Facebook as often as Millennials surveyed [...]"
• "Compared to older generations, Millennials (18–34) surveyed are more eager for video content. They’re also more likely to follow content related to fashion, beauty and interior design on Instagram than on Facebook." 

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The Customer Love Fest will feature key resource speakers and the latest concepts in Customer Experience Management, Customer Relationship Management, and Customer Loyalty and Rewards. Join in on the fun and don't be left out.


This event is produced and organized by Ex-Link Management and Marketing Services Corporation, a business organizer in the Philippines. 

To be part of the Customer Love Fest, call telephone numbers 633-01-53, 643-38-87, mobile number 0920-981-4376 or send an email at info@exlinkevents.com. Ex-Link Events is also on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.