Testimonial
Doing Business
For aspiring entrepreneurs, it is important to find the right niche for your market, to test, and to execute.
Jasper van den Borne
Managing Director, AED Philippines
My name is Jasper van den Borne and I am the Managing Director of AED Philippines/AED. Our company specializes in different international brands and models for Automated External Defibrillator (AED) and Defibrillator/Monitor. We serve many local and multinational clients in the Philippines in Healthcare, Manufacturing, Transportation, and various other verticals.
My better-half is from the Philippines. She studied and worked in Netherlands. After six years of living in the Netherlands, we had an opportunity to start a business here and decided to immigrate to the Philippines.
I like the freedom that comes with being self-employed and supplying a product that has my passion/interest. Back in 2013, I assisted somebody who suffered a Sudden Cardiac Arrest. That person survived. At the time there were not many AEDs in the Philippines and I explored and investigated the market demands for AEDs and in 2016 I started this business, first as a freelancer and later for myself. The Philippines is a country which has a lot of opportunities, think of the range of products or services that have not yet been done in the Philippines but are already common in the Netherlands. I am happy I can endorse products and services that cater to the health and well-being of people here in the Philippines.
To stimulate entrepreneurship, it is important to stimulate good governance with easy processes for company registrations, creating an attractive business climate for companies by easing down on taxes and fees. Transparency in budgets, investment in healthcare and infrastructure and last but not least less red-tape would be beneficial.
For aspiring entrepreneurs, it is important to find the right niche for your market, to test and to execute. Find someone to set-up your company (CPA or similar) who knows the whole process of setting up a company in places where this process is complicated; it will save you time and headaches.
For the Dutch people among us: be gentle on your Dutch directness in communication, it’s not always appreciated. Try to understand the values and norms of the business culture here in the Philippines, it’s very different than what we are used to in the Netherlands.
The motivation and goal is—by identifying and realizing business opportunities between the two countries—to create jobs in the Philippines to contribute to Filipino livelihoods and strengthen the Netherlands’ leading position in world trade for Dutch employment.