Businesses driven by talent and passion passion have always amazed me.

Establishing well-defined core

values and vision and stick it always sets a company apart from competition. I think this is why Tino
thrived as a tailoring business. Tino has been a leader of bespoke tailoring since the 1990’s and has had
the honor of dressing some of the country’s most prestigious men. The man behind the brand is the
master tailor Napoleon Arienza who has had his fair share of a humble beginning and an inspiring
success story. Napoleon Arienza found his passion in tailoring as early as his teenage years. Though a
native from Surigao Del Sur, he took a risk and pursued finding a career in Manila.

The company was started by Napoleon Arienza’s daughter, Eilene Ramirez because she wanted to
capitalize on her father’s talent. At a young age, she was always astonished by her father’s talent and
passion in tailoring, how gracefully he worked with the patterns and fabric. Later on, she started
thinking of a brand that would give her dad a platform to share his talents to the world. This is what
makes Tino suits stand out from the others. His passion and dedication to his craft has pushed his
business towards. A lot of entrepreneurs don’t succeed because they do not have the passion for their
businesses. They just like the idea of success. Of course there are a lot of factors that contribute to the
success of a business, but passion helps a lot. It drives people. According to Asim Dahal, an entrepreneur
in India, “With passion, an entrepreneur possesses an inherent fuel and inexhaustible stamina that
constantly drive his actions forward. This superior energy helps overtake and surpass various challenges
and injects a certain indescribable strength to continue pursuing goals when difficulties arise.”

Napoleon make his craft with such carefulness. He would be the one to do the measurements, do the
fittings, draft the pattern, and cut the fabric. That, itself, is a limpid image of his dedication to his craft.
Ramirez did acknowledge that on the marketing aspect, it was challenge to differentiate Tino from other
tailoring businesses in the Philippines. Therefore, it was not easy to establish Tino’s unique bespoke
tailoring services. That’s why she always made sure to tell Tino’s story to set it apart from the existing
tailoring industry. Tino was positioned in the market as a “higher level of custom tailoring” because the
master tailor himself would be able to observe every detail of the body because he does the
measurements and fittings himself. Another thing that they have always emphasized is the client’s
involvement in the process. Moreover, Ramirez would always try to come up with strategies now and
then. She shared the strategy they use to improve cash flow, how they they forecast the cash input and
cash output they expected for the first 12 months, and then monitor sales and reviewed them at the
end of every month. Tino also values their strict code of confidentiality which is one of the reasons why
they attract a lot of loyal clients. Tino allows the celebrities they tailor for to speak on their behalf rather
than the other way around. With this, they’ve established a reputation that they are a credible and
trusted brand. Lastly, their tailors are all home grown and trained by the master tailor himself. The
family that makes up Tino lives with its vision, “To provide the products of the highest quality and
deliver sincere service to achieve a sustainable life for the company, to all our stakeholders and to the
Filipino community.” Passion and dedication earned them a place in the market that made them stand
out from the competition.

GUIDE QUESTIONS

1. Identify the sources of opportunity in this article and what particular product or service was derived
out of that opportunity. How did the business owner react to the opportunity?
- Ramirez recognized his father’s talent for tailoring.
- They were able to build a bespoke tailoring business that was branded in the marker “higher level of
custom tailoring” because of the quality of the product and the skills of the master tailor and his home-
grown tailors.
 - She wanted to capitalize on his father’s talent and so she did and reaped good results.

2. Cite the many challenges that the tailor and his daughter experienced before being successful in the
high-end fashion business. How did they overcome the challenges?

- Differentiating Tino from the existing tailoring industry was a challenge. Since mang Filipinos were
already accustomed to a certain price range for tailored, it was not easy to position and establish Tino’s
tailoring services as something unique and new in the market. They overcame this challenges by telling
people how they make their suits and that it’s what sets it apart from other tailoring services.

- The first 6 to 8 months were the toughest. They need to record cash flow properly because although
their sales were doing good, an inadequate cashflow could possibly bring the business down. Their initial
capital was not enough to keep the business going. To overcome this problem, they come up with
strategies every now and them. Luckily, they found ways on how to improve cash flow. They also made
sure that the clients paid on time as exchange for the prompt delivery of products.