The 'power' of business

Ferale Technologies takes a power crisis and turns it into a business opportunity.

Rory Visco

It was in 1991 that the country suffered a debilitating daily brownout predicament never before seen by Filipinos ever since the concept of power distribution was introduced in the Philippines. It was also during that year when a young couple from Quezon City decided to sort of "cash" in on that unfortunate episode in our history by making it an inspiration in putting up their business.

Ferale Technologies Inc., a wholly Filipino-owned manufacturing company responsible for the proliferation of UPS devices and inverters (a device that converts direct current, or DC, into alternating current, or AC), is the brainchild of couple Ferdinand and his wife Aleli Ramos. Assuring us that his name didn't give their business guaranteed success by means of political connections, the couple busted their brains and tired muscles to help transform their fledgling business into what it is now.

"We would like to describe our business as mildly successful, although some of our friends and customers tend to disagree with this claim. It's all a result of hard work, hardships, a lot of sacrifices and coupled with luck just to introduce our company," declared the beauteous Aleli, a University of the Philippines graduate and the company's self-taught WPD, or Web page developer and general manager.

The Ramoses were able to put up their business with very minimal capital outlay. "We just relied on some of our business instincts, plus the time-and-tested formula of paikot ng pera¸ and a lot of common sense," Aleli stated, adding that very few businesses can lay claim to that ability of starting a business with almost no capital involved.

But just what brought their company that "mild" success it is reaping now?

Uninterruptible power supply, more commonly known as UPS.

"It is with pride when we say our products are Filipino-made, despite its foreign-sounding name. Although the parts are imported, it is the unique creativity and talent of the Filipino in the design of our product which is the main point here," declared Ferdinand, who was once a crooner who made the rounds of bars and restaurants in his college days in Feati, as attested to by his wife.

The main product of Ferale Technologies are their uniquely designed UPS units, known in these parts as Davidson, that come with a soft-touch control panel and extendable backup time, something that is not usually found among the other UPS brands in the market.

"Di ba parang imported ang dating ng pangalang Davidson?" the two said.

But won't it create an impression among potential customers since it is imported, it is expensive? "Actually, that's an advantage for our business. The name sounds catchy. Parang imported talaga. But the only thing foreign, as I said, are the components inside and the name. The rest, especially the attractive price package we offer our customers and dealers, are local," Ferdinand said.

During the daily brownout era, generators became a fad. Almost every business establishment, every house, owns a generator set, or gen-set, to provide their homes and offices with the electricity they need to conduct their daily chores. Because of that, a lot of their friends tried to influence them to manufacture or at least try to concentrate on the generator business. But they chose the UPS instead.

They decided to pool their resources on the production of UPS for the simple reason that generators are too expensive and too bulky, not to mention the tremendous noise they create once they are operated. Although a lot of generators now are designed to be noise-free and generally provide longer backup power, they still are expensive to manufacture.

A UPS is a device that automatically provides power to your electronic unit once regular power service is interrupted. The UPS is now a popular addition to power requirements of companies, especially those whose line of business requires continuous supply of electricity. Its size and duration of backup time, or the length of time the unit provides power to the electronic device, depend on the requirements of the customer. To counter the advantage gen-sets have in terms of longer backup power as against the UPS, Ferale decided to increase the backup time the UPS provides. Because of this, many have now switched to the UPS.

There are a lot of good UPS products in the market nowadays that are also as good as those offered by Ferale. "But what makes us different and popular among our customers are the three pillars for success of our business. They are price, backup time and, most of all, after-sales service, the last one we are most proud of. While other companies take a day or two before service personnel arrive on the customer's place, we make it a point that our service people arrive within the day. And that makes us a favorite," the couple said. "You can probably say that service is our main selling point."

Very well said.

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Ferale Technologies is located at 123 JP Rizal Street, Project 4, Quezon City (557-1500/913-4105; e-mail davidson@ferale.com; Web Site: http://www.ferale.com/).

This article, which originally appeared in the Your Own Boss section of Today, a publication of Independent Daily News Inc., is the property of Independent Daily News Inc. and is republished here with permission.

Today can be reached at today3@mailcity.com.