Dina Salonga never intended to become an entrepreneur, but even at a very early age she was already fond of doing small money-making ventures such as selling cold drinks during summer. Even when she was already grown up and had a regular job, she would sell snacks to her officemates. Eventually, she also went into the buying and selling of various goods sourced from Divisoria. “From the proceeds of that last business, in fact, I was able to buy my first car,” she proudly recalls.

In 1991, Salonga became the very first locally hired employee of Oracle Philippines, the local subsidiary of the US-based software company. After working with the company for five-and-a-half years, she was invited by her friends and business associates to join them as a partner in a new information technology venture. “I accepted the invitation because the business conditions in the country were good at the time,” she says. “This was before the Asian financial crisis, and in my case, after being an employee for 17 years, I felt that having my own business was the next logical step to take.”

The company she joined was SQL Wizard Inc., an IT partnership whose primary business was to provide training, systems applications, and consulting services to Oracle customers in the Philippines. Its service offerings were something that the multinational IT company, which was primarily engaged in the selling of e-business products and solutions, could not commit resources for and provide. Oracle thus needed partner companies like SQL Wizard to provide many of the technical support services required by its clients.

In 1998, SQL Wizard became the first company in the Philippines to become an Oracle Certified Solution Partner. “The certification means that we had met the Oracle’s standards in terms of product expertise and the quality of support services,” Salonga explains.

Five years later, in 2003, SQL Wizard was honored by Oracle Philippines as “Partner of the Year” for meeting the revenue targets that Oracle Philippines had set for it that year. And in 2006, the company earned the distinction of being Oracles’ “Value-Added Reseller for the Year in Technology” for the whole of the Philippines, and was nominated in the selections for the same category for the entire Asia-Pacific region.

GOING PUBLIC

SQL went public in 2001, listing 20 percent of its shares of stock on the Small and Medium Enterprises Board (SME Board) of the Philippine Stock Exchange. It was the very first company to be listed in the SME Board, and its stock price tripled from P1.75 to P5.50 within the first week of listing. “My partners and I saw our IPO [initial public offering] as a good way of getting additional capital,” Salonga explains.

SQL Wizard is widely recognized today as experts in the use of Oracle's development tools, with over 300 clients nationwide across such industries as transportation, energy, wholesale and retail, education, insurance, and telecommunications. The company continues to enjoy the repeat business of many of its oldest and long-standing clients.

The company focuses on database solutions or services. Its flagship product is DBA 911, a unique proactive system that it launched in 2003. “When clients avail of our DB911 service, they are assured that we will constantly be in touch to monitor their databases,” Salonga explains. “We can then better anticipate their problems and be always ready to provide the needed technical assistance. In contrast, other systems managers are reactive. They wait for the client to call them about the problem.”

Salonga took over the helm of SQL Wizard in 2004 as its Managing Director. Her original partners still sit as members of the board, but they have relinquished their line functions in SQL Wizard after taking active roles in other companies.

She emphasizes that SQL Wizard promotes strategic partnerships with clients in contrast to the one-off service, which is the norm in the industry. “We decided to provide an alternative method to doing business,” she says.

FRESH BLOOD

Like most information technology companies, SQL Wizard employs a young staff who are mostly new graduates. Salonga treats them as her wards rather than as her employees. “I’m like the mother hen to them,” she says in jest.

The SQL Wizard staff get at least 10 days of training every year, both in technical skills as well in soft skills such as business writing. And for five years now, the company has been running the Wizard Volunteers Project, a year-long fund-raising activity whose proceeds go to the Yaman Lahi Foundation, a private science and research foundation.

Salonga sees further growth for SQL Wizard in the next several years, and hopes to develop a foreign market soon for its services. “There is room for more technopreneurs in the Philippines, and there are still so many areas in IT that remain untapped,” she says. “The IT industry itself is currently enjoying a resurgence, creating many opportunities for us to provide services to other countries in the region as well as in the US and Europe.”

Why they’re tops: Being a pioneer in any field usually means that you’ll become the guinea pig for all sorts of problems and challenges. SQL Wizard has sailed through all these to become one of the top business partners of Oracle Philippines as well as a respected name in the information technology field.



CONTACT DETAILS:

SQL WIZARD INC.

6/F 88 Corporate Center

Sedeño cor. Valero Sts.

Salcedo Village, Makati

Telephone: (02) 889-6999

Fax: (02) 889-6989

Website: www.sqlwizard.com