Daily Tribune‘So we look at a lot of nascent areas where problems continue to be pervasive, and no one’s paying attention, no one’s taking advantage of building something. If it fits the assets we have, this gives us what we call unfair advantage, then we go into it.’
Globe Group is out to repeat the success of its fintech arm GCash, currently the country's No. 1 finance super app and the only double unicorn.
Ernest Cu, president and CEO of the Globe Group, said the company's pivot into a full-fledged techco aims to provide disruptive solutions to Filipinos' daily problems.
Cu said about the rise of GCash, "We want to repeat that. We look at areas where there's a large problem to solve. It's gotta be large because it's got to move our needle, right?"
"So we look at a lot of nascent areas where problems continue to be pervasive, and no one's paying attention, no one's taking advantage of building something. If it fits the assets we have, this gives us what we call unfair advantage, then we go into it," said Cu on NASDAQ's Trade Talks with Jill Malandrino on the sidelines of the 2023 Singapore Fintech Festival.
Cu also spoke of the Globe Group's ethos in a panel discussion on raising unicorns at SFF, sharing his vision of making the company responsive to the country's problems.
In its beginnings as a core telco business, Globe solved Filipinos' communication problems. With its solid connectivity infrastructure as a foundation — its "unfair advantage" — the Globe Group has been casting a wider and wider net.
Today, beyond fintech, the Globe Group provides digital solutions in health tech, ad tech, Edutech, climate tech, shared services, investments and entertainment.
It's all about being responsive to customers' evolving needs, much like how Cu practices to be responsive in real-time to every message that comes his way.
"My responsiveness is almost real-time. If I respond almost 24/7, there's no reason you shouldn't respond to me. In a way that reflects your customer responsiveness, right?" he said.
"At the end of the day, the Globe Group is a consumer service company. We are here to serve our consumers, whether telecommunications, healthcare, or fintech. We want to instill that notion of responsiveness among our people, and I guess it starts at the top for me," Cu added.
