A watch repair technician of Efren Watch Repair entertains a customer in one of their mall outlets. CDN PHOTO/JAIVE RIA AGBON
How did a computer science graduate end up in the watch repair business?
For 38-year-old Efren Ongjunco, it was an easy decision to choose between pursuing a career using his computer science know how or go into watch repair.
Ongjunco said he chose watch repair since his family had been in the watch repair business for generations.
Ongjunco’s grandfather and father had found success in repairing watches and had handed their own knowledge on how to go about with the business through their children and grandchildren.
Today, Ongjunco is the owner of Efren Watch Repair shops, a business venture he set up four years ago with P300,000 as capital.
Start of career
Ongjunco’s watch repair career started when he was 21 years old.
“I started training in repairing watches in 2001. I trained while I was studying in college,” said Ongjunco in Cebuano.
He trained with his father, Leonardo “Bebot” Ongjunco, who also learned about the tricks of the trade from his father or Ongjunco’s grandfather.
Efren Ongjunco said Bebot was so taken in with repairing watches that he decided to stop schooling and focus on this instead.
Efren’s father made fixing watches as his livelihood and his career.
Aside from what he learned from his father, Bebot learned more about watch repair as he worked with several watch repair shops then.
Valuable knowledge that Bebot also handed over to his son, Efren.
He eventually earned enough to put up his own small shop along the sidewalk of Colon Street. This was where Efren trained under his father’s tutelage.
When Efren was ready, he and his father worked together and became concessionaires in a certain mall at the Cebu Business Park.
There they built their name and became known as ones in the business who give quality watch repair services.
Being experienced watch repairmen, they established connections and loyal customers because of the quality service they provided.
Unfortunately, their concessionaire deal fell through and Efren, who was now an expert in repairing watches, decided to go into the watch repair business on his own.
First of 3 shops
In 2014, he set up Efren Watch Repair with a P300,000 capital. He set up the first of his three shops in a small space at a mall.
It was a sound decision because one thing Efren considered was accessibility, and since it was situated inside a mall, his shop would be accessible and convenient for customers to drop by and get their watches fixed.
“All these cost P300,000. These already include the watches we sell, government permits, and the making of the display tables and work area,” said Ongjunco in Cebuano.
The shop, being Ongjunco’s main source of living, can earn from P1,000 to 3,000 a day depending on the volume of people that come to visit.
Ongjunco said that their services include changing batteries to diagnosing problems with different timepieces and repairing them.
During the peak season like the last month of the year, their income gets higher especially that they also sell a variety of watches for all ages.
Ongjunco said that it had always been a must for them to gain the trust of the customers especially since watches are fragile and considered as prized possessions to different people.
Because of these, he had always made sure that his hired personnel could be trusted. They should have no record of theft and should be someone he could trust in handling the services that the shop had been offering.
He said that it was important to hire skilled workers that could be trusted so that customers would also be satisfied after availing of their services.
The technicians also serve as a main factor that the customers would want to trust the shop and come back for future referrals.
Expansion
In 2017, Ongjunco decided to take the business to another level and expand to two more business locations.
From their first shop at a Mandaue City mall, he now has two more watch repair shops in a mall at the Cebu Business Park and one along the North Reclamation Area.
He said that he was not considering expanding outside Cebu because it would be difficult for him to monitor the manpower. / Jaive Ria Z. Agbon, STC Intern