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1. It all started with a group of 5 health professionals in the Philippines. The group
is composed of two medical doctors, a research epidemiologist, a medical
technologist and a nurse had a post-graduate degree in Public Health.
2. Year 2002, the epidemiologist was contracted by an international health agency to do a
one-year study to evaluate the hygiene and sanitation characteristics of 3 barangays in
the province of Rizal, Philippines. Then she contacted and invited her 4 friends to

join the project. Through several projects, the group had shown the competency
and quality of their work and as a result they were regularly contracted for their
service.
3. In the year 2006, they formalize their organization and named it Health
Research Services, Incorporated (HRS Inc.). At the same year, they finalize their
business plan and presented this to potential stakeholders and investors. Before
the year ended, the HRS, Inc. had sufficient number of stakeholders and ample
funds.
4. In the year 2008, HRS Inc. decided to expand their services throughout Asia.

they developed a 5-year plan and presented it to Board of Directors and potential
stakeholders.
5. By the middle of 2009, the organization was able to acquire the approval of the
Board of Directors and sufficient funds that will support the organization's
ambitious venture.

EXTERNAL ENVIRONMENT
In order to introduce the organization to other Asian countries, a marketing team
was created by HRS, Inc. This team must acquire potential clients and confirm
project agreements. Without a waste of time, the assertive marketing strategies
resulted to a number of potential clients and a handful of signed deals from Japan,
South Korea, China, Singapore and Australia.
Eventually, the handful of projects necessitated an increase in operation and human
resources. As a result, satellite offices were established in Malaysia, Thailand and
Indonesia.
When the management of HRS, Inc. acquired clients whose consumer market is in
US and Europe, it was imperative that all new products must be approved by the
regulatory institutions of this countries. Upon signing of project deals, HRS Inc. had
no idea about the meticulous processes that the regulatory offices in US and
Europe require. It was only during an actual evaluation of output of an on-going
research project that HRS, Inc. realized the extensive evaluation practices of these
regulatory institutions.

The top management of HRS, Inc., which is composed of the Board of Directors and
stakeholders, did not concern itself to the economic situation of US and Europe
because their target market is Asia. Though the effect of US and Europe financial
crisis was not immediately felt by HRS, Inc., but the effect on their clients was
immediate in terms of the company sales and operation costs. Consequently and it
did not take long, which was after two years, when HRS, Inc. eventually experienced
the impact of US and Europe economic crisis in their financial status. At this time,
some of their clients downsized the project activities to cut expenses, while the
others had to retract signed agreements.

INTERNAL ENVIRONMENT
The outputs of the projects that needs to be submitted in the regulatory institutions
were process documents and reports. Since the documents and reports were
scientific and technical, therefore English is the utmost and the only language
required by the regulatory offices. To facilitate the meticulous review, the regulatory
institutions required an orderly filing of documents, as well as, the English used in the
documents has to be precise and appropriate.
Adding to the already surmountable demand in the processes and quality of
documents prepared by the technical personnel was the current Standard Operating
Procedures (SOP), which were not written according to the standards of US and
Europe regulatory institutions. The current SOP rather than alleviating the strain
experienced by the technical personnel, added more difficulty.

These tools could be used to monitor and evaluate the results of every steps done
by the management, including the financial and marketing aspects. Though it is
tedious when developing and using these kind of mechanism, but I think it is better
to have a tedious task than a crisis event. With this mechanism in place, the
management could have acquired only relevant and manageable number of clients,
established realistic schedules and perform timely and specific company changes;
that is without sacrificing the morale and culture of the organization. In addition,
these tools could have given the organization a better understanding of its internal
and external environment, as a result, they could have wisely consider the options
of how, where and when to further expand or enhance its available services.

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