Collaborative, interactive, and always willing to listen – Consunji’s style when dealing with his people, cus

Success in business and winning customers’ hearts doesn’t mean one has to follow where the throngs go. Sometimes, success can be achieved by going or seeing through a different way.

Such is the story of engineering conglomerate DMCI Holdings Inc. (DMCIHI), which was also struck hard by the Asian financial crisis in 1997, as shared by Isidro “Sid” A. Consunji, chair and president of DMCIHI, this year’s Management Association of the Philippines (MAP) Management Man of the Year (MMY).

“During the Asian financial crisis in 1997, there was no credit so we had to generate liquidity. We have a lot of borrowings, which we need to pay. And since our balance sheet is thin, what we did was we bought companies that I can say ‘were in the ICU’ [money-losing or capital-intensive ventures] during that time such as Semirara Coal Corp., Calaca Power Plant, DMCI Power, and Maynilad,” Consunji shared in a recent interview with Inquirer.

They were also strategic investments since they generated contract revenues for DM Consunji Inc., as well as employment for our people, he added.

“We also ventured into real estate through DMCI Homes, which were mid-rise condominiums. Since we’re already in construction, why not go into providing housing for our fellow Filipinos. We will just construct these homes, and then we’ll just add the selling, the marketing of these residential projects,” he said.

Consunji said that their first mid-rise projects were in not so ideal locations, so the challenge was how they would be able to sell them.

“So we have to create a unique selling proposition so people would buy our condo units. We thought of adding a swimming pool and we created bigger units,” he said. “A unit would only cost P750,000. Adding the swimming pool gave more value to the units.”

The swimming pools that they built in their properties are big pools, like it spans up to 50 meters long. Because of customer feedback, they added one or two more swimming pools in their succeeding projects—one for the kids, one for adults, and the last one a lounge pool.

“We also added gates which were manned by security guards. So that gave people not only security but also privacy,” Consunji shared.

In those times when they were building one residential project after project, Consunji shared that they aggressively sought customer feedback.

“We found out that people, especially the woman of the house, likes countertops on their bathrooms using granite instead of tiles. They also preferred granite over tiles on kitchen counters. That gave the house a luxury appeal,” he said.

Though we added the additional cost incurred to the customers, Consunji said that their sales even went up.

“We sold our first units at P750,000, then P1 million, then P1.2 million. But because of the additional amenities which gave more value to the properties, our sales even went up. Every time we added a new feature in our projects, and though we increased our prices, our sales always went up.

When people know that they get the best value for their money, our sales force would have an easy time selling our projects,” he shared.

He added, “We thought that price was the most critical element [in selling]. We were wrong. The people who can afford are prepared to pay, and they are prepared to pay more for quality.

Soon, they ventured into high-rise condominiums which were also received well by the public.

Sharing fond memories of his father, the late David M. Consunji, founder of then D.M. Consunji Inc. (DMCI), whose management style is completely different from his.

“My father’s style was more of a lecture type, I’m more interactive. I want discussions to be pleasant so people would absorb what is being discussed more. If they are engaged, they would soon share ideas,” he said.

Perhaps Consunji also employs this management style when engaging with their customers—collaborative, interactive, and always willing to listen so as to provide them the best value for their investments, especially when it comes to one of life’s basic needs.