The Philippines boasts of celebrating the longest Christmas season in the world. The season starts as early as September — the first of the “ber” months — when sales of gift items begin to be held and malls start playing Christmas carols and putting up decorations.
For businesses, especially suppliers, this means operations will become a lot busier than normal in the last four months of the year. For business veterans, they may already have a plan that fits into their financial structure and operations’ schedule perfectly. For startups and new businesses, they may or may not have a plan that covers working capital and other tasks during seasonal spikes, such as those in the “ber” months and other major holidays like the Lunar New Year, but the usual barrier to meeting their financial strategies is the lack of cash buffers and collateral to use when demand peaks, and they have to turn down a few projects. But whether their financing plans are in place or not, all businesses would always need to have alternative plans lined up because each year and season is different. This somehow catches business owners by surprise, causing them to scramble to secure last-minute financing.