Chris Buono, the new managing director of UPS Philippines, expects that the sustained expansion of the economy will translate into bigger opportunities for the American logistics company, despite the conflict in Mindanao.
“I think the future is very bright for both UPS and the Philippines,” says Buono, who succeeded former UPS Philippines head Tim Gohoc who moved on to take a regional role.
UPS, formerly United Parcel Service, is a global leader in logistics, offering solutions such as transporting packages and freight, facilitating international trade and deploying advanced technology to more efficiently manage the world of business.
UPS serves more than 220 countries and territories worldwide. In the Philippines, it has an existing partnership with local company Air21.
UPS, which was founded in Seattle, Washington in 1907 and headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, posted $61 billion in revenue in 2016, when it handled 4.9 billion packages and documents. The company transports an average of 19.1 million packages and documents globally each day. It has 434,000 employees worldwide.
Buono was based in Singapore as vice president of information technology for UPS Asia Pacific before he was appointed country head in the Philippines. He was instrumental in building UPS’s new IT business analyst team and in implementing the Beijing Olympics’ logistics and warehousing technology, where he and his team achieved a zero-accident rate in an operation that delivered over 19 million items.
As country head in the Philippines, he is now responsible for express delivery and logistics operations in the country. His tasks include marketing, business development, international trade services, industrial engineering, human resources, customer service, security, finance and accounting, supply chain solutions as well as ocean, air and ground operations.
Buono, who holds a Bachelor of Science Degree in Transportation and Logistics from Penn State University, began his career with UPS in 2003 as IT solutions manager for Asia Pacific. He has personal ties to the Philippines, a country he had been visiting for ten years before he was named country head of UPS.
“I love the Philippines. My fiancée is a Filipino as well, so there are some personal ties coming here. Coming here as a visitor for the last ten years is a lot different than coming here and working. The first five months is like getting on the ground, talking to my people, understanding challenges from internal and external perspective, understanding our operations, meeting with multiple different customers, meeting with our partners. The last thing I want is to come in and make sweeping changes, without understanding what is happening on the ground,” he says.
Buono will bring a lot of his experience as an IT manager to his job as country head. “One of the things I used to do when I was in IT was actually facilitate a lot of local management processes, so I got the opportunity to come to Clark to train a lot of supervisors on leadership, competency and things like that. That is something I am trying to bring me here to further develop people, not only find successors or find succession plan for growth, but provide opportunities to rotations and opportunities outside the Philippines for locals who are here,” he says.
UPS established a foothold in the Philippines in 1997 during the financial crisis. In a span of 20 years, it expanded its operations to employ 1,213 Filipinos. “A bigger portion of our employees in the Philippines operate our international call center which is based out of Clark. Clark is also our hub. Our flights come in and out of Clark. We have about 700 people that sit in Clark, doing call center work for both US, Australia, Singapore to handle a lot of different areas. We have 300 people in UPS operations in the Philippines. We will add folks as needed, where we see them needed,” he says.
UPS also deploys around 50 vehicles to transport packages and documents around the country. “We have about 45 to 50 UPS vehicles in and around Metro Manila, as well as Cebu and Clark. With our partnership with Air21, that expands to quite a bit more,” he says.
Buono says aside from Air21, “we do look consistently at other organizations that we can potentially work with.”
“I think there are a lot of opportunities for us to grow with some companies here, be it different customers as well as other potential companies,” he says.
Buono says the gross domestic product growth of nearly 7 percent means opportunities for the growth of businesses, including small and medium enterprises. “We are ready to support what we saw in Q2—that 6.5 percent growth. We are really excited about that. That is our opportunity to grow with the country as well,” he says.
UPS is particularly looking at several industries to serve such as industrial manufacturing, the automotive market and retail. “These are the areas that continue to be a focus for us. As markets and sectors come, we want to support as much growth that the country is offering,” says Buono.
Another opportunity that UPS is looking at is the wine and liquor trade. UPS can now ship wine, beer and spirits (liquor) to businesses and consumers in 10 destinations across Asia Pacific, he says.
Buono says the economic integration of the 10 member-countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations also presents opportunities for UPS. “UPS is supportive of the implementation of Asean road map for the integration of logistic services which aims to liberalize logistics services to ensure that Asean firms have access to world-class service providers. With the Philippines having recently signed the ratification of the protocol on the legal framework to implement the Asean single window, UPS definitely wants to pursue more opportunities to help local businesses take advantage of intensifying inter-Asean trade and grow with UPS as they venture into new markets,” he says.
“The Philippines chairmanship of Asean this year should see closer cooperation between the country and other Asean member states to push through the full implementation of these agreements, to deepen the integration of Asean, and help Filipino businesses better take advantage of a true Asean economic community,” he says.
“I am truly excited about the opportunity to not only help UPS grow here in the Philippines, but also the opportunity to help local businesses grow,” says Buono.