IN 1996, Renato and Babie Sio established Sanitary Care Products Asia Inc. (SCPA) with the noble goal of creating 10 jobs for 10 people. Fast-forward 25 years later, the Sio couple together with son Ven and daughter Lea now run an enterprise that has grown to over a thousand employees with 23 sales offices and seven plants nationwide.
“Great love for what we do and the people we do it for” has been the running mantra of the Filipino-owned, Christian family business. SCPA is the company behind homegrown brands Sanicare, Femme, Tisyu, Cheers, Naturale and Jade.
This motivation and great love for people is why the SCPA has partnered with the Asian Institute of Management-Dado Banatao Incubator (AIM-DBI) to find the next big start-up and enable Filipino dreams. Human Investment x Impact Grant for Entrepreneurship and Empowerment, or HIIGENE, celebrates SCPA’s silver anniversary with an initiative that empowers the new breed of Filipino business leaders. For SCPA, there is no better way to celebrate 25 years of success than giving back—not only because it is the right thing to do—but because it shares and honors a philosophy that allowed them to attain this accomplishment: Putting people first.
HIIGENE is a social impact accelerator program that emphasizes and celebrates the principles of people management in starting, running and sustaining a Filipino enterprise. This is the first time that AIM-DBI will emphasize people management philosophy as their top criterion, fully integrating SCPA’s DNA in the program. It will be anchored in the Sio family’s legacy of a people-first philosophy, inspiring entrepreneurs to put up a trailblazing company built on their peoples’ loyalty, trust and respect. Through HIIGENE, SCPA will award P500,000, equity-free, to as much as three start-ups from AIM-DBI that show human investment and social impact infused in their business models, operations, or organization.
“Human investment isn’t that expensive when you start reaping its returns—they may come slower than the margins, but are definitely still powerful.” The Sio family was quick to recognize in those seemingly insurmountable odds the return on their human investment. “Witnessing how your people would want to stay with you and for you is quite fulfilling, to say the least.”
Prim Paypon, AIM-DBI executive director and founder of non-profit organization called The Dream Project PH, shared, “HIIGENE is the only time a local company is collaborating with a business school incubator work with start-ups as a pioneering business-academe-start-up partnership. When you talk about financial grants or competition grants here and abroad, we always talk of the innovation of the product or the technology; you rarely come across—and probably this is the first of its kind in the Philippines—where the focus of the grant is going back to the people who keep the company thriving and growing. The winning start-up[s] will be mentored by the founders themselves through the HIIGENE Mentorship Program crafted by SCPA and AIM-DBI.”
THE SOUND OF PREMIUM
Before buying anything, I often suggest two things to consider: purpose and price, that way you could narrow your choices to a more manageable level. There’s no use thinking about getting a pair of P10,000 earbuds if you only have half the budget, just as you can’t limit yourself to a price point if you want advanced features like active noise cancellation (ANC), battery life and superb sound quality.
Jabra is one of those brands that target more advanced users and discerning audiophiles. The Danish audio brand is also known for its innovation with its cutting-edge designs and compact form factor. Both the Elite 65 and Elite 75 series of earbuds have proven why they deserve the “Elite” branding. The series’s latest iteration, the Elite 85t, furthers that reputation with some enhancements making it a compelling case for your upgrade. However, the P11,999 price tag might seem to be out of reach—unless you are willing to stretch your pocket a bit.
Included in the box is the pair of the Elite 85 earbuds, a charging case, a short USB-C cable, and three sets of different-sized silicon EarGels to suit each and every ear size.
The Jabra Elite 85t earbuds distinguishes itself from the competition because of its ergonomic design, effective noise cancelling, and Grade-A microphone array.
Exploring the device, you’ll find the Jabra logo on each earbud and you can control playback commands by clicking either panel. You can reconfigure and make other adjustments via a much improved Jabra Sound+ app. The cluster of tiny holes at the tip of the earbud housings is for the six-microphone array which are used for calls and noise canceling. Instead of those circular ear tips of previous generations, the Elite 85t comes with oblong ear tips which are supposed to fit more comfortably within the ear canal. I suggest you spend some time trying out those eargels to get the best fit.
The Jabra Elite 85t now has 12mm speakers—that’s twice the size of its predecessor, allowing it to produce bigger sound, better balanced soundstage and more powerful bass. One of the best things I liked about the Elite 75 I reviewed last year was its booming bass, and it gets even better with the 85t. Bass reproduction is amazing and if you love listening at high volumes (which I strongly advise against, although I am guilty myself sometimes), it won’t be problem with the Jabra Elite 85t buds as audio doesn’t distort even at max volume.
Listening at loud volumes outside might be a problem and could even be downright dangerous but with the Elite 85t’s HearThrough feature—Jabra’s take on passthrough technology—you can quickly be aware of your surroundings with just a tap of a button. HearThrough allows you to hear surrounding sounds through the earcups/earbuds while you are wearing them. Ambient sounds are picked up by the microphones and transmitted to the speakers. HearThrough works when listening to music, when on calls (product-dependent), and also when there is no speaker sound.
As we continue to work in this “flexible” or “hybrid” work setup, it comes with the demand for
the ability to take calls anywhere. The Jabra Elite 85t bring outstanding call quality for the user and the person on the other end, thanks to the 6-mic technology (three on each earbud, two on the outside, one on the inside).