Jollibee vs. McDonald’s

Pero sa Jollibee, palaging parang palengke sa dami ng tao.

I like McDo for its lonely and sterile qualities. For the food, I choose KFC, kahit antagaaal ng service.

Sometime in the late 1970s, Tony Tan Caktiong, the owner of a small ice cream parlor in a lower- middle-class neighborhood here, learned that an American hamburger chain was coming to invade the Philippines.

Worried that his store, which had just started selling burgers, might get floored by the new competition, Tan Caktiong, a Filipino of Chinese descent, took a leaf from the Chinese military tactician Sun Tzu: he flew to the United States to know his future enemy.

When he returned to the Philippines a few weeks later, Tan Caktiong brought with him an arsenal of ideas on how to fortify his store, called Jollibee, to face the newcomer.

What followed was a classic tale of survival that quickly became a Filipino legend that is now being retold in the country’s business schools, often with a tinge of nationalistic pride directed against the U.S. burger chain in question, McDonald’s. [source]

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