Sodexo plans to expand in Asia, Phl

MANILA, Philippines - Sodexo, one of the world’s largest providers of services that improve quality of life, plans to expand its market for service vouchers in Asia, including the Philippines, as it projects double-digit growth in the next five years.

Pierre Henry, Sodexo Group chief operating officer and chief executive officer said Asian countries have become emerging markets for service vouchers and cards, now called motivation solutions, during the past years.

He said these countries are China, India, Indonesia, and the Philippines, which are large and populous with economies driven by robust consumer spending. They have a combined population of over three billion, nearly half of the world’s population of 6.8 billion.

He further added that Sodexo plans to continue to offer new and innovative solutions to companies, find more companies which want to fulfill their employees’ needs, and forge partnerships with local companies that know and understand the market.

“The market potential is big in these countries where Sodexo already has a strong presence. As their population and economies grow, the demand for our motivation solutions services increases,” he explained. Sodexo estimates the growth potential of the world’s motivation solutions market at more than 130 billion euros ($170.2 billion).

Motivation is key to any organization’s performance. Sodexo offers companies motivation solutions for employee benefits and for incentives and recognition. For example, companies give vouchers to their employees to retain them and boost their performance. 

At present, this French multinational work with 375,000 companies in 31 countries motivating over 24 million employees. Its global motivation solutions business totals 13 billion euros ($17 billion), with half coming from Latin America and the other half from Asia and the rest of the world.

In the Philippines, Sodexo has been a partner of the SM Investments Corp. for the last seven years offering the universal gift voucher called the Premium Pass to corporate clients as well as the SM Gift Pass.

“Our partnership with SM has become stronger over the years because our businesses are complementary, and we share the same values from the day we started up to the present,” Henry said, adding that Sodexo values the spirit of service, team work, and progress in its global operations.

Denis Machuel, Sodexo president for Europe and Asia, said Sodexo has been thinking of innovative motivation solutions for Asian countries such as the Philippines.

“We partner with local companies like SM so that we can adapt our services to the needs of people in each country. This way we can come up with appropriate ideas adapted to each market,” he said. “We are an international company that is strongly local.”

Henry and other top executives of Sodexo recently visited the Philippines to meet with its Philippine Team headed by Juliet C. Go, chief operating officer of Sodexo Motivation Solutions Philippines.