Siomai King founders Jonathan So, president and CEO, and Carlito Macadangdang, vice president and CFO.
Success never tasted better for Siomai King, the country’s most dynamically innovative franchise company, when it bagged the Franchise Company of the Year award at the recently concluded Asia Leader’s Awards — a distinction it earned for two consecutive years.
This prestigious annual recognition event commends “leaders in different industries who are making a difference” not only in their respective fields but also promoting the country as a premier business hub in Asia and beyond.
The iconic siomai brand has been serving the Filipino siomai loving community for over 16 years. It has become known not only for its rich, mouth-watering, pure meat and affordable siomai variants, but it also caught the attention of the food franchise industry when the pandemic hit the industry the hardest.
The company then swiftly transitioned from being a traditional food cart franchise operation to an out-of-the-ordinary “online franchise” platform.
“During the early months of the pandemic, the choice was simple. It’s either we continue how we operate our business normally and struggle on the market that was crippled by the pandemic or challenge the pandemic head-on by adapting,” Carlito Macadangdang, Siomai King vice president and CFO, recalls.
“The fact is, there is nothing normal about the pandemic, and the way you execute your business operations will determine whether your business will survive or not. Luckily, we have our own I.T. Solutions Company (CloudPanda Ph) and started to develop a different approach where our franchisees can safely and conveniently continue to operate their franchise business, online,” he goes on.
“This is when the online franchise business platform was established and was instrumental in helping our ‘Online Franchisees’ get over the pandemic,” he adds.
Other companies went conservative, limiting spending and growth when it was affected by the ill economic effects of the pandemic.
Siomai King went the other way by taking risks and expanding further, fueling the rising demand for its products as the result of its massive “online franchise” success.
It infused tens of millions in additional capital to further expand its online technological infrastructure and acquired several additional automated siomai machines, sustaining and hiring more to triple its workforce at the height of the pandemic.
Aside from the continued success and acceptance from the general public, Siomai King will continue to innovate not only in the current pandemic situation but, more importantly, once the economy goes back to normal in the next few months to come.
“We always believe that being one step ahead in every situation is vital for establishing our success in the food service and franchise industry,” says Jonathan So, Siomai King president and CEO.
“That is why we continue to innovate not only by adding more and more food choices on our Siomai King Shoplink menu that our online franchisees can market, enabling them to earn ‘anytime, anywhere’ but also calibrating our digital infrastructure for the much anticipated ‘back to normal’ economic status as required by the market,” he goes on.
“Here at Siomai King, we not only think of ways on how we can help our online franchisees earn more and develop food product concepts and options that our customers can enjoy, but we also have our eyes set on how we can help out our communities,” he adds.
Recently, Siomai King launched its newest campaign to help out the different communities in the country by conceptualizing a community-based franchise opportunity that markets its hottest product — The Siomai King Sulit Packs.
These tasty and highly affordable Sulit Packs are the newest innovations of the franchise giant, providing low capital income opportunities specifically designed for the community.
Siomai King will continue to innovate and beef up its product lines and will continue to formulate ways on how it can provide more income opportunities, not only to its existing franchisees but to the different communities as well.
Siomai King founders Jonathan So and Carlito Macadangdang are grateful for the recognition that their company has been recognized for and the advocacy on which the Asia Leaders Award was founded.