Wednesday, November 01, 2006 Cebu-grown funeral service firm mulls franchise outlet in Vietnam
THERE is no stopping Cebu-grown Cosmopolitan Funeral Homes Inc. (CFHI) from going global.
The company is now studying the possibility of bringing the Cebuano way of caring for the dead to other countries.
“We are now talking with (a possible) franchisee, who is interested to open a Cosmopolitan Funeral Home in Vietnam. If this will push through, the branch will be our first outside the country.
And since this is our first, we are very careful with the feasibility study we are conducting,” CFHI vice president for operations Kate Dychangco said in an interview.
CFHI’s plan came just after it went full blast in exporting casket interiors to Australia and the United States and bringing in foreign students to Cebu to study at the company’s training center.
Initially though, Dychangco said Vietnam is a potential market, as it needs to professionalize its burial and funeral industry. The country’s culture, such as having a close-knit family ties, is also “very much like” the Philippines.
Branches
CFHI recently opened its 17th franchised branch, located in Cagayan de Oro, in the country. It also has branches in Davao, Iligan and Valencia in Bukidnon.
To venture into franchising, the company has established the Cosmopolitan Memorial Chapels Franchise Inc., which offers interested entrepreneurs the opportunity to share in the company’s success for about P20 million to P40 million franchise fee.
“Statistics show that there is an increasing growth in the death care industry in the country and that it will hit its maximum development within the next 10 years,” Dychangco said.
One of CFHI’s missions is to bring the standard of the death care industry in the Philippines to a higher level that is at par with global standards.
“We are in the business of providing comfort for loss and life-transition. The death care industry is a dignified, honorable and highly rewarding industry,” Dychangco said.
Uplifting the standards of the country’s death care industry is one of the reasons the company established the Pacific Center for Advanced Studies (Pcas), a learning institution devoted to furthering vocational-technical education and skills in the Philippines, with specialization in the mortuary and funeral industry, management and technical competencies and skills.
“Our mission is to allow our students to have that desire to make a difference in their communities and take great pride in what they do, that is to serve the families to the best of their capability,” Pcas president Sarah Dychangco said.
Sarah studied mortuary science in the United States.
CFHI has been in business for over 53 years. It was founded by Renato Dychangco Sr.
Renato Dychangco Jr. had feared that none of his five daughters would take on the responsibility of continuing the business. (JBN)
