Cosco Oben fulfills his childhood dream to be a driver, just not the way he thought it would be
“Kid Cosco” had always wanted to be a driver. As it turns out, this simple childhood desire would come true. In more ways than one.
Don Juan Miguel Oben—“Cosco” to friends and family—is the 45-year-old president of the Oben Group that runs several Toyota dealerships in Luzon. When he was a child, his uncles would ask what he wanted to be when he grew up. His answer would always be “I want to be a driver”. He literally just wanted to be behind the wheel of a car and drive anywhere.
When he took up golf at a young age, his parents found out he was a natural at the sport, playing for his high school team in Saddlebrook, Florida, and his college team in St. Mary’s College of California. The natural became a phenom of sorts when he became a two-time Junior World champ in San Diego, California. He completed his collegiate career at St. Mary’s College of California majoring in Business Management and a member of the school’s golf varsity team.
But Cosco never really let go of his dream to drive. In fact, he confesses that driving the golf cart was an even bigger motivation to play golf than the game itself.
Academic life for Cosco swung between school and golf. “I wouldn’t be able to join the team’s tournaments if my grades were low. This has taught me a lot about the importance of discipline which has helped me in my career and family life,” he quipped.
Nowadays, Cosco would still be seen swinging at the greens, but his professional career is focused on “driving” his numerous Toyota dealerships to more milestones. The Oben Group now owns and manages Toyota dealerships in Balintawak in Caloocan, Otis in Manila, North Edsa in Quezon City and the North Edsa Service Center in Valenzuela, and the Marilao and San Jose Del Monte dealerships in Bulacan. If you look at the long list of achievements of these dealerships, you would, no doubt, conclude that Cosco has been a very busy and tireless driver. (See list of awards of Oben Group dealerships).
“When I started (in the business), we only had three dealerships in Manila. Now we have two more in Bulacan, a service center in Valenzuela, a Hino truck dealership and a used car dealership (T-Sure),” Cosco enumerates.
That no-nonsense discipline Cosco developed as a young student to enable him to balance sports and the academe has also made it possible for him to engage in motorsport despite his busy work schedule. His Obengers Racing team has won the overall championships in the 2020, 2021 and 2022 editions of the Vios Cup.
The driver’s wheels
Of course, Cosco the “career driver” has owned several cars. The first car he used when he came back to the Philippines was a Toyota Hilux 4×2, then a Corolla 1.8G AT. When he became EVP of the Group, he was driving a Camry 2.0 G.
He also bought a 2012 Lexus GS350 F Sport, which he sold in 2015 “for a Lexus RCF.” In 2017 Cosco bought a Lexus RX 350 F Sport for his daily use, which he says he uses up to now.
He revealed that he has ordered the new Lexus RX500H F Sport, which would be rolling into his garage anytime next month. His wife Mago’s car is an Alphard, and their family car is the Super Grandia Elite.
Role model
Cosco said his role model has been his father, Atty Rey Oben, chair of Oben Group, whom he admires for his wisdom in guiding the family’s decisions.
“My father would always support all the new directions that I have for our Group especially in this day and age when there are rapid changes in the business landscape. He never questioned any of my decisions, and trusted that these have been all for the good of the company and our people. He has been a very supportive chairman,” said Cosco.
“I already knew what he wanted even if he did not specifically tell me what to do through the training he let me undergo with our businesses. He’s a well-respected lawyer-businessman, and I admire his hard work and professional demeanor. He is very smart, sharp and logical, and I always look up to him for these,” he said.
Cosco also mentioned Mago as his other inspiration.
“My wife understands the increased pressure of work, now that business is back in full swing. She is always there to comfort me in trying times, and of course fully understands the demands of my work.”
Starting out selling ‘dead’ stocks
Cosco narrated his rise to the top of the Group. “I started as a parts and accessories supervisor selling our ‘dead’ stocks to wholesalers in Banawe.”
He became assistant to the president in 2002 and executive vice president in 2006. In 2011, he was promoted as president of Toyota Balintawak and started working in all of the family’s other dealerships as well.
Choosing dealerships over shipping
While studying in the United States, Cosco would come home to the Philippines every summer to train in the family’s shipping businesses and Toyota dealerships. In his first year of work in the Philippines, he would alternate between the shipping business and the dealerships. When the time came to choose between the two, he chose the latter. “I was able to deliver tangible returns to the business faster,” he reasoned.
His choice was cemented when he realized that he was able to help more people—team members, customers and the community. “I was able to touch so many different lives and it became an inspiration for me to do what I’m doing. I guess I found my real purpose in life working with Toyota,” stressed Cosco.
Broadening his scope
Cosco broadened his scope of responsibilities when he joined the Toyota Dealer Association of the Philippines (TDAP) as its sales committee chair in 2007. The next year he became a member of its board, where he currently serves, apart from being the president of the TDAP Next Generation Organization. He is also a board member of the Philippine Automotive Dealers Association.
Changing the ‘nega’ culture
The biggest “culture shock” that Cosco faced when he started working for the Group forced him to somewhat rock the boat.
“The most difficult challenge when I started working in our dealerships was the negative culture. It took me a while to understand that the only way to address this was to make a bold step of doing a culture change initiative,” Cosco explained.
“I hired a consultant to help me with this initiative, and the first step was to identify the core values that we needed to live by in order to change the culture from a negative one to a positive one. That’s why our core values are very important to us. They are not just writings on the wall or words that we have to memorize. We have to live by them and embody them and make it our guide in living our day to day lives,” he said.
Cosco added: “People had to change. I had to change, too, as I should be the best example of these core values. I had to align everyone, every single team member, to these core values. That’s why I have personally done more than 100 workshops for our people. Because of this I had to filter out team members, from all positions—even top management—that were not aligned with our values. It took courage and strength to do that, but we had to do it if we wanted to improve our culture. And so, we did, and so far, we’re doing great. Employee happiness is at a high and so are our customers.”
8 core values
For Cosco, the enemy was the bad reputation associated with dealerships. “Sadly, there is this negative stereotype on automotive dealers that customers are not treated right, that auto dealers are not compassionate to their customers and are there just to sell cars and service their vehicles in exchange for profit. It has been my mission to erase that stereotype. So I came up with 8 core values for our dealerships that we should live by, and one of them is malasakit (genuine concern),” he said.
“Our vision is to be the most trusted and reliable group of automotive dealers in the country and living/embodying our eight core values in everything that we do would help us achieve that.”
Cosco said he ensures that everyone in the team absorbs these core values. “So far, I have done 102 workshops since 2013, and I intend to continue this company advocacy until we reach our desired culture. I firmly believe that if we have a positive culture guided by these eight core values which translates to happy employees, in the end our customers will be happy as well. And so far, I think we are on the right track with the numerous positive feedback from the customers. Our main goal is to earn the trust of our customers by embodying our eight core values every time we interact with them or anyone,” he said.
The 8 core values—the “8 cylinders” that would keep the Oben Group dealerships running at their optimum—are: Professionalism and integrity; recognition and respect; honesty; loyalty; communication; teamwork and unity; driven, and; malasakit.
Work-life balance
Instilling in his team members these mission-critical core values has also directly benefited Cosco’s personal time. “I have learned the right way of empowering and trusting my management team. What gave me the confidence in doing this is knowing that all of us embody our eight core values. And we all are advocates of it. Because of this the trust level is very high amongst us and we all already know what we expect from each other. With this I don’t have to be behind their backs every minute of the time like before. I can now spend more time with my family knowing that everything will be just fine,” he said.
Cosco, the person who, as a child, dreamed the simplest of dreams, but became a “driver” of much bigger things, willingly shared important life lessons to those who are about to take the same career path.
“Love your people. Happy team members translate to happy customers. I’ve always invested first in our people before our customers because without them our customers will not invest in us,” he said.
And this principle is true no matter the automotive landscape you’re navigating, or the technology you’re using. “There’s a solid disruption now on electric vehicles and vehicle electrification. My take on this is to take things one step at a time and not rush things, but just be prepared for the inevitable once it comes. I still believe in the concept of importance of people over product. Invest in your people. Love them.”
MAIN PHOTO: Cosco with his father Atty. Reginaldo Oben
