By Artemio F. Cusi iii Photos By shishiir mAnzo

JANUARY - MARCH 2008 • Vol. 2 - No. 1 • 24 pAges • fRee

Manila no. 2 in the top 10 list of BPO destinations in the Asia-Pacific region

The Philippines has been recognized as a Center of Excellence in customer support, with urban cities Manila and Cebu as the top locations.

“Centers of Excellence”

is this year’s theme of the 8th Global Sourcing Conference and Exhibition held last February 11 and 12 at the SMX Convention Center in Pasay City.

No less than Philippine President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo delivered the keynote address in the international gathering co-organized by local BPO industry organization Business Processing

RP: From Point of BPO Convergence to Center of Excellence

HONOR GUARDS. Standing at the left and right respectively of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo are BPA/P CEO Oscar Sañez and DTI Secretary Peter Favila. At the left of Sañez is Tholons Chairman and CEO Avinash Vashishtha

Training seen as a long-term solution to talent development

Some 70,000 job candidates in call centers and business process outsourcing companies will be

20,000 workers hired and the launch of new training programs are just some of the initial accomplishments

In the face of the headwind challenges, the progress in the first 100 days of the Offshoring and Outsourcing (O&O) Roadmap 2010 is seen as the initial boost to jumpstart the momentum of the industry.

“We are on track,” Business Processing Association Philippines (BPA/P) Chief Executive Officer Oscar Sañez told Breakthroughs in referring to the progress made by the industry since November 5, 2007. He backed this up with a list of accomplishments in 2007

70,000 BPO Near-Hires to Benefit from Php350M PGMA Training Grant

Blazing Start for Industry in First 100 Days of Roadmap

Turn to page 2

Turn to page 5 Turn to page 4

INDUSTRY PROFILEMyla Reyes, Medical Transcription Industry Assoc. of the Phils. p. 18

INTERvIEw hIghLIghTS:■ Partnerships to

address talent development

■ US$254 million revenues in 3 years

■ The Philippines as a Center of Excellence p.2• Manila ranks no. 2 in the top 10 list of BPO destinations in the Asia-Pacific region• Quezon City, Davao, and Cebu rankes among the top 10 Asian cities• The Philippine BPO industry poised to capture 10% of the over-all

market• US$590 million initial investment of telecommunications

companies in BPO infrastructure■ BPA/P Establishes Alliances with Industry Associations p. 3

• The five industry associations that have formed a stronger partnership with BPA/P

• Cooperative ventures created as a result of this linkage■ First 100 Days of Roadmap 2010 p. 4

• 50% increase in revenue • 30% increase in jobs generated during that same time period• The global crisis that is compelling US companies to consider

outsourcing as a means of cost-cutting• Non-traditional markets that Phil. BPOs will venture into

■ The Php350 million training grant from the government p. 5 • To date, the scholarships have provided training to 44,331 call center agents, 6,346 medical transcriptionists, 389 software developers, and 254 animators■ BPA/P’s Marketing and Gov’t Liaison Activities Q&A p. 6

• Events organized, government institutions in dialogue, and bills drafted

■ New Beginnings p. 7 • This BPA/P Director starts out on a new path

■ Why Europe p. 8 • Reasons why the Philippine BPO industry should seriously

consider Europe as a long-term market • The challenges and how to respond to them• Asian countries with BPO industries that are gaining inroads into

Europe■ The BPA/P Info and Research Team p. 8

• The importance of the timely flow of data and the development of technology tools of platform that would facilitate this information flow

■ BPA/P at NASSCOM event p. 10 • How BPO industry practitioners in India perceive their

counterparts in the Philippines■ SPi p. 12

• One of the pioneers of the Philippine BPO industry named in Fortune Magazine’s Global Services 100

■ BPO International, Inc. p. 14 • Reaching out to the North American and European markets

■ Trends in Global Outsourcing p. 15 • The one factor that sets a city or a country as a preferred

outsourcing destination• The expertise for which the Philippines is usually highly

acclaimed■ Repositioning the Philippines p. 16

• “From agricultural producer to KPO powerhouse” - Jaime Augusto Zobel de Ayala

Association of the Philippines (BPA/P).

At the conference, research and advisory firm Tholons, Inc., a conference partner, presented a study on global Centers of Excellence naming the Philippines as a Center of Excellence in customer support, financial and accounting services, and engineering services.

By evA GoyenAPhotos By shishiir mAnzo

trained by the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA) in a co-managed training project with the Business Processing Association of the Philippines (BPA/P). The project is aimed at ensuring a substantial pool of workers for the offshoring and outsourcing industry that is increasing its demand.

The Php350 million scholarship

BPA/P Establishes Alliance with Industry Associations

The umbrella alliance means greater collaboration, leveraged resources, and a stronger voice

By mAriA mutyA FrioMergers are already common

fare for businesses that have realized the wisdom of effective efficacy, but this time around an important merger that was recently forged does not involve a company buy-out or takeover. Instead, the

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Business Processing Association PHILIPPINES www.bpap.org

JANUARY - MARCH 2008� BreakthroughsBPA/P Stories

Continuation from page 1

RP: From Point of BPO Convergence...

ARMIE DUARTEPresident

hEInz bUlosPublisher

coRA llAMAsEditor in Chief

wIllIAM DIzonArt Director

DonnA lARAGAExecutive Assistant

ARTEMIo cUsI IIIcARloMAR DAonA

bERnARDo V. FRAnco JR.MARIA MUTyA FRIo

EVA GoyEnAInA b. TEVEs

Contributing Writers

wIllIE bIcERAshIshIIR MAnzo

Photographers

PEAchIE G. coRTEzOperations Director

In another study of emerging cities as Centers of Excellence, Tholons cited Manila and Cebu (See Special Report for related story - Ed.). Manila was cited as an established Center of Excellence in financial and accounting services while Cebu was cited as an emerging Center of Excellence for human resource services outsourcing.

The growing reputation of the Philippines as a leading outsourcing and offshoring (O& O) destination was underlined by President Arroyo in her speech.

Most attractive destination“The Philippines is ranked among the

most attractive offshoring destinations in the world because of cost competitiveness and more importantly the country’s highly trainable, English-proficient, IT-enabled quality manpower,” said Arroyo.

Last year, the Philippines was named “Offshoring Destination of the Year” by the National Outsourcing Association of the United Kingdom. Research firm International Data Corporation also ranked Manila as number 2, second only to Bangalore, in the top 10 list of BPO destinations in the Asia-Pacific region.

A survey commissioned by London’s Financial Times, named Quezon City, Cebu and Davao as among the top 10 Asian cities of the future. Quezon City was ranked 7th; Cebu, 8th; and Davao, 10th, comparable to cities like Hong Kong, Singapore and Taipei which were the top three.

“Indeed, the information revolution has been good to the Philippines,” President Arroyo said at the February conference. “As a government, we have insisted on building world-class I.T. infrastructure for developing the skills of our citizens and as an essential backbone to attract global business,” she added.

Stressing that a strong infrastructure is the backbone of a modern nation, Arroyo reiterated that government will be spending Php200 billion for infrastructure in 2008.

She also noted that the growth in the O&O industry has led to more business opportunities in other sectors such as real estate, telecommunications, food, and retail, among others.

“The demand for prime real estate for BPO operations has spawned feverish construction for office space and campuses that can house the current demand for expansion sites. This trend is expected to grow by more than 30% in the next few years,” the President added.

In a plenary presentation, BPA/P Chief Executive Officer Oscar Sañez said the local BPO industry is expected to generate up to 1.3

million indirect jobs in related sectors such as retail, food, and transportation by 2010.

Areas of convergence But the Philippine government and local

BPO industry are not only pinning their hopes on Manila and Cebu alone as BPO location sites.

Together with the BPA/P, the Commission on Information and Communication Technology (CICT) also presented during the conference the so-called next-wave cities or the emerging cities in the Philippines where BPO investments are pouring in.

CICT Chair Ray Anthony Roxas-Chua noted that there are other locations in the Philippines where BPOs have located, namely: Bacolod, Bacoor, Baguio, Batangas City, Cagayan de Oro, Cainta, Camarines Sur Province, Clark/Angeles, Davao, Dumaguete, Iloilo, Legaspi, Lipa, and Sta. Rosa.

Other cities have been identified as “ready cities” for BPO locators. These cities include: Cabanatuan, Dagupan, Leyte Province, Subic/Olongapo, General Santos, and Urdaneta.

By September this year, the CICT and BPA/P are expected to publish an O&O inventory report and a scorecard for the different cities to determine their strengths and weaknesses according to a set of criteria which include availability of talent, infrastructure, cost of doing business, and the business environment. The report, which will be published annually starting September, will include a ranking of the cities.

The local BPO industry is optimistic that it can meet the targets it has set in the Roadmap 2010 that it launched last November 5, 2007.

The challenge for the industry is to maintain its edge as a supplier of talent and to move up the value chain. “The supply of talent is the biggest challenge,” Sañez said in a press conference. According to him, there is no “single silver bullet” to this problem.

Telecom firms vow to invest moreIn the meantime, in other

plenary presentations, top Philippine telecommunication companies Globe Telecom, Inc. and Philippine Long Distance and Telephone Co. said they would invest millions of dollars this year to improve the telecommunications infrastructure nationwide to meet the demands of BPOs.

PLDT First Vice-President and Head of the Corporate Business Group Nerissa Ramos said PLDT is investing up to US$550 million in capital expenditures this year to expand its network and upgrade its capacities to support the local BPO industry’s demands.

Ramos said PLDT has already invested

up to US$238 million to participate in 17 international cable gateways, four of which are hosted by PLDT for termination in the Philippines.

By end-2008, PLDT expects its international cable bandwidth capacity to reach 125 gigabits per second from the 90 Gbps capacity as of end-2007.

Globe Telecom Head of Globe Business and CEO of Innove Communications, Inc. Gil Genio said Globe would have a second international gateway installed by third quarter of this year to deliver high capacity network. The second gateway, which is being built with VSNL International, a member of India’s Tata Group, will have a capacity that is 20 times the current capacity. Globe said it is investing US$40 million for this second international gateway.

The new Globe landing station in Cagayan Valley in Northern Luzon is located away from known earthquake zone. This is to mitigate the effects of an earthquake, and avoid a repeat of the 2006 and 2007 Taiwan earthquakes that hampered telecommunications traffic of the Philippines.

Traveling the right path The conference saw representatives from

countries perceived to be “competitors” in the global O&O business, such as India and the Philippines, come together to pitch their respective countries’ strengths and to learn from each other’s weaknesses.

Helping the industry organizations market the Philippines is CITEM, or the Center for Trade Expositions and Missions, a co-organizer of the conference and an attached agency of the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI).

DTI Assistant Secretary Felicitas Agoncillo-Reyes and concurrent CITEM Executive Director said the international conference served as a convergence point for major players and buyers, both locally and internationally, to meet, establish new partnerships, and explore new opportunities.

Aside from CITEM and DTI, the other co-organizers of the event were the Board of Investments and the Foreign Service Corps.

Time and again, the Philippine O&O industry has risen above the challenges it boldly confronted. And it has done so by focusing its pool of talent and resources to achieve a high-minded objective of contributing to the development of the whole country.

Knowing that its survival and growth are largely dependent on how it nurtures the social environment that sustains it, the industry is now confident that it is traveling on the right path to excellence. z

In their respective speeches, both Sañez and President Arroyo noted the growth of the O&O industry which can also benefit related industries such as real estate, telecommunications, and food, among others.

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JANUARY - MARCH 2008 �Breakthroughs BPA/P Stories

Business Processing Association of the Philippines (BPA/P) has added the following industry associations under its wing: the Contact Center of the Philippines (CCAP), Animation Council of the Philippines, Inc. (ACPI), Medical Transcription Industry Association of the Philippines, Inc. (MTIAPI), and the Philippine Software Association, Inc. (PSAI).

Enjoining these industry associations under BPA/P means that they enjoy greater collaboration and they can leverage their resources. Each of these industry association’s voice can now also be heard in any platform, be it in government lobbying, marketing and promotions, or utilizing human resources.

The idea of merging industry associations was spawned six years ago when Senator Mar Roxas, while serving as Secretary of the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), called upon industry associations to form an umbrella alliance that would serve the BPO and IT-enabled services industry. Hence, the Contact Federation Philippines and Outsource Philippines united, giving birth to what is now BPA/P.

Now, further collaboration is being spearheaded by Mitch Locsin, the outgoing BPA/P Industry Affairs Director. Locsin sat down with the presidents of the four associations, namely Jojo Uligan and Bong Borja of CCAP, Marlene Montano of Holy Cow Animation, Inc. representing ACPI, Evelyn Abad of e-Data Services representing MTIAPI and Emma Teodoro for PSAI. “What we did was offer them seats in the Board of Trustees of BPA/P so that these associations would be represented under the BPA/P arm,” says Locsin. “This continued for the last three years but gave rise to the issue that this type of set-up entailed the association becoming the member of BPA/P but not their respective members.”

Mutual gainsLocsin is optimistic about forming

the umbrella alliance by pointing out its advantages. Hosting the chiefs of these associations in BPA/P’s office, for one, would enhance coordination. If BPA/P meets with an investor who would require software developers, BPA/P would then have direct access to the industry knowledge of PSAI. If BPA/P is running an initiative on HR and training that would call for training on transcription, the industry experts would be close at hand to provide their input. The same goes for other initiatives in marketing and promotion, government lobbying, and anything that has to do with the industry.

“We will be hosting the executive directors [of these associations] in our BPA/P office. We already have PSAI Executive Director Anne Sy and Raymund Eruma of MTIAPI,” Locsin says. ACPI’s executive director is slated to move in to BPA/P’s premises once ACPI’s lease in Libis expires on April 2008.

“Each industry association can bring the knowledge of their particular sector,” Locsin continues. “BPA/P used to be tagged as a call-center industry association. We forgot to bring the other guys in. This is a very good example of why we have to do this.”

Under one umbrellaWhile the four associations were kept

abreast of all information, initiatives, and road shows under BPA/P, their members did not enjoy the same benefits or had the voice to participate in the committees in the same capacity as that of BPA/P’s direct and existing member companies.

The Roadmap 2010 project, a blueprint for growth in the business process outsourcing (BPO) industry in the Philippines led by BPA/P and McKinsey and Co., provided a platform for addressing the discrepancy

between BPA/P’s direct members and the four associations’ existing members. “We started talks between October and December 2007 with the four associations and tried to find a better organizational structure wherein all members of these associations would benefit from BPA/P as well,” recounts Locsin. “So with the help of McKinsey, we drew up an organizational structure that would enable all the four associations’ members to become direct members of BPA/P.”

Once amendments on the bylaws are finalized, which Locsin foresees taking effect in April or May, BPA/P will then adopt the associations’ members. The association members, now directly under BPA/P, can enjoy the same benefits and fully participate in BPA/P’s endeavors, except in nominating and voting for BPA/P’s Board of Directors. Locsin sees BPA/P growing to a total of 480 members.

BPA/P has also modified its membership fees to accommodate the industry associations’ members based on company size. Companies that host fewer seats pay smaller dues, bigger players pay higher dues.

So as not to lose the legal identity of each of the four industry associations, BPA/P has created councils that will stand for each sector including the contact center, BPO, IT, medical transcription, and animation industries. The respective associations will run these councils under BPA/P and will be managed by the associations. This set-up allows the associations to derive what they want BPA/P to do for the year in terms of carrying out initiatives, meeting goals, and realizing their mission and vision.

The councils can also provide directions to the Roadmap 2010 project on what to do for their respective sector. Locsin stresses, “The Roadmap 2010 is a strategic plan

not just for contact centers but the whole industry. So we need all their knowledge, inputs, and collaboration.”

“Each industry association complements each other,” he adds. “If the animation council has a client or investor who wants to do transcription for them besides doing animation, they can tap the capabilities [within BPA/P]. It’s all synced in.”

The councils will get their funding from a 20% share of their yearly membership dues. Although plans are still on the drawing board pending the amendments on the bylaws, BPA/P has already signed a Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) with three of the four associations, namely ACPI, MTIAPI and PSAI. Game Developers Association of the Philippines has recently joined BPA/P as well, falling under the animation council.

Looking ahead, BPA/P maps out its short, mid-, and long-term initiatives with the academe and the government, including agencies like the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA), the Commission on Higher Education (CHED), and the Department of Education, primarily for BPA/P’s HR initiatives. BPA/P also plans to build partnerships in developing talents and skills. It will also focus on the marketing and promotions of the sector and of the country, as well as improving media relations and government lobbying. “We would become a stronger voice because we will all be concentrated as a very strong industry association,” Locsin says.

Better collaboration, industry knowledge, complementation, and leveraging resources all translate to a collective efficacy that will not only benefit BPA/P, its industry associations, and all of BPA/Ps members. More than this, a strong association will further boost an already burgeoning BPO and IT-enabled services industry in the country. z

BPA/P Establishes Alliances with Industry... Continuation from page 1

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JANUARY - MARCH 2008� BreakthroughsBPA/P Stories

that further pointed to a promising future for the industry, particularly along the lines of the US$13 billion revenue target and one million direct employees by 2010.

In his presentation before participants of the e-Services Conference last February 11, Sañez stressed that the industry’s revenues surged by nearly 50% to US$4.9 billion in 2007 from US$3.3 billion in 2006.

The jobs generated by O&O operations also increased 30% to 300,000 from 230,000 during the same comparative periods. Sañez estimated that about 20,000 workers were hired in the first 100 days.

Because the success of Roadmap 2010 is based on the sufficient supply of talent, emergence of next-wave cities, sound business environment, and the formation of Team 2010, the first 100 days had been measured along these four important themes.

Sharpening English proficiencyAware that the supply of quality talent

is crucial to the sustainability of O&O operations in the country, the industry embarked on strategic partnerships with learning institutions in the hope of increasing the current well-trained workforce.

As of 2007, there were 198,000 people employed by contact centers in the country, according to the Joint Task Force of the BPA/P, Board of Investments, Philippine Economic Zone Authority (PEZA), and the Commission on Information and Communications Technology (CICT). This was a 24% increase from 2006.

The focus on English proficiency training for college students becomes all the more important when considering the fact that contact centers employed 66% of the total number of jobs generated by the O&O industry in 2007.

“We launched a testing model to improve the curriculum of universities,” Sañez said. Partnerships were thus forged between universities and companies to make this undertaking possible.

With the objective of significantly improving the English proficiency of college graduates, the Advanced English Proficiency Training Program (ADEPT) involves the partnerships with participating schools such as University of the East (UE), Jose Rizal University (JRU), Emilio Aguinaldo College, Philippine Women’s University (PWU), and De La Salle University (DLSU). The program had also been offered as a free elective to graduating students of the participating schools.

The five contact centers that are helping

these schools adopt the program are ICT, ePLDT, eTelecare, Convergys, and TeleTech.

Applying the training modules by BPA/P members, ADEPT started in the second semester of school year 2007-2008. A preliminary assessment of the program had been undertaken in February 2008. Its large-scale implementation will commence in June 2008.

Emerging strengthBased on the figures of the joint task

force of BPA/P and the other government agencies, software development is also an emerging strength of the O&O industry. In 2007, the number of workers employed in software development jumped 82% to 29,188. This accounted for almost 10% of the total O&O employment.

Because the figures indicated a surging demand, it is only proper that an adequate supply of such workers be produced by the country.

To address this, Roadmap 2010 called for an Expanded Learning on Information Technology Services (ELITES) Program.

Expected to push the level of software development skills of college students further upward, ELITES used the modules conceptualized by the Philippine Software Industry Association (PSIA) and the assessment tools of PSIA partners. Also included as additional resource materials are those supplied by the Philippine Society of IT Educators (PSITE).

The ELITES program covers JRU, TIP, UE, Emilio Aguinaldo College, ACSAT, APC, FEU-East Asia College. In its pilot stage, the program involves the participation of 18 teachers and 200 students. Part of the curriculum is an on-the-job-training (OJT) for students to test their skills in the O&O industry.

Started during the same period as ADEPT, ELITES also carried out a post-assessment in February. This is in preparation for the program’s wider coverage in June 2008.

With the help of the government’s Php350 million scholarship fund formally launched in February 4 [see related story on p. 1 – Ed], the BPA/P will be able to distribute the certificates to the recipients of the trainings. “Out of the 55,000 (recipients), we can probably employ 40,000, which is already one-third of the total recruitment for the year,” Sañez said.

Next wave risingTo lessen the pressure on Metro Manila

and the surrounding provinces in producing the quality manpower needed by global

clients, highly urbanized areas in other parts of the country, such as those in Visayas and Mindanao, are being touted as the next-wave cities to supply the growing requirements of O&O services.

Because one of the goals of Roadmap 2010 is to prepare E-ready cities or those that can host offshoring and outsourcing, the BPA/P enlisted the help of concerned government agencies during the first 100 days.

“We worked out a partnership between BPA/P, CICT, and the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) Regional Operations Group,” Sañez said.

The BPA/P will put together the scorecards for evaluating the readiness and capacity of the cities to become the next- wave areas; the CICT, to help build the IT councils; and the DTI Regional Operations Group, to link with other government agencies in the approval of the scorecards.

Sañez pointed to September 2008 as the target month to complete the inventory of companies and partner cities.

Conducive environmentOne clear expression of the seriousness of

the government in following Roadmap 2010 is the appointment of Ray Anthony Roxas-Chua as the new CICT chairman. Both the government and the business community are confident of his ability to steer the O&O industry in the right direction as stipulated in the roadmap.

Aside from the designation of Roxas-Chua as new outsourcing czar, Sañez believes that much work had also been done in the legislative agenda, specifically with regard to the industry’s position paper on the rationalization of fiscal incentives.

“When investors shop around, the Philippines is always benchmarked versus other countries,” Sañez said.

The general perception of many investors is that the Philippines must work harder to improve its infrastructure, government efficiency and transparency, and level of risk profit.

“A tax incentive is a way of overcoming these negatives,” Sañez said. Since Vietnam, Malaysia, and Singapore have made good use of such incentives to attract investors, the BPA/P CEO added that a sunrise industry such as O&O must be protected in the Philippines by means of similar accommodating fiscal measures in the local front.

“Let us remember that incentives generate savings for the investors,”

Blazing Start for Industry in First 100 Days... Continuation from page 1

Sañez emphasized. He explained that the appreciating peso has already reduced profit margins for the industry.

“We will try our best as an industry to temper the impact of the peso appreciation a little bit,” he said. “Since currency rates are largely determined by market forces, there is not much we can do otherwise.”

A solution to slowdownTo complement the efforts to improve

the business environment, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and Philippine business leaders have worked hand in hand to market the industry during recent visits to New York and Phoenix in the United States, and the United Kingdom.

“Part of that (tour) included having to present the industry and do business matching,” Sañez said.

The economic slowdown in the United States is forcing companies to seriously consider the cost-cutting benefits offered by the O&O industry, whether in the Philippines or in other parts of the world. “We are marketing the Philippines as part of the solution to their problems and improve their operational efficiency,” Sañez stressed.

Besides the US and UK, the industry is training its sights on the non-traditional markets such as Canada and Australia. “They are looking to expand. There is a roadshow plan,” Sañez said.

Indeed, contact centers in Canada and Australia have also been experiencing the unfavorable results of strengthening currencies. Dell Canada recently announced that it would lay off around 900 workers in Ottawa. The company’s US office in Oklahoma City would also have to retrench 300 employees.

Accountable teamIn Roadmap 2010, BPA/P officers

admitted that the industry association has to reinvent itself in assuming the role of a “strong, credible, well-resourced, and professional” umbrella organization. As an answer to this need, BPA/P created Team 2010 as the group to ensure the success of the industry’s goals. “There has to be a team, with full time talent, that is accountable,” Sañez pointed out, noting that what the association formed was a “management team” that would lead and execute the roadmap.

Up with a blazing start during the Roadmap 2010’s first 100 days, the industry is bent on putting its best foot forward every step of the way. z

REPORT By ARTEMIO F. CUSI III

Data gathered on business environment, quality of life, and infrastructure

The first phase of a benchmarking study involving “next-wave cities” in the Philippines that intend to leverage offshoring and outsourcing (O&O) trends to accelerate growth is nearing completion. The study was undertaken by the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) and services globalization advisory firm Tholons, Inc. says Tholons President for Asia-Pacific Paul Santos.

The study is expected to provide a comprehensive analysis of developing O&O hubs, or tier-two cities outside Metro Manila, particularly their competitiveness in attracting investors and new businesses.

Santos says that Tholons intends ultimately to provide insights on improving the suitability of these locations for O&O investment to enable them to perform at par

with tier-one cities. He also says the initial phase of the project involves gathering basic qualitative and quantitative data on the tier-two sites, such as assessing the business environment, quality of life, and infrastructure.

Tholons has been working with the Board of Investments (BOI) since late last year to conduct the first phase of research. The next phase focuses on quantifying the skill level of each site’s talent pool. In all, Tholons will benchmark more than 20 developing hubs and compare them to determine each site’s relative core competencies. Variables such as communication ability, analytical ability, and mental application of the labor pool will be analyzed to assess the capabilities of the sites.

In an earlier study conducted by Tholons and Global Services magazine, emerging hubs such as Cebu, Pasig City, and Baguio were ranked 4th, 23rd, and 36th respectively, among the “Top 50 Emerging Outsourcing

Cities.” According to Santos, these studies help investors decide whether or not to do business in the Philippines because they can refer to useful verifiable data on functional capabilities, skill levels of potential workers, and other operational considerations.

Phase two takes a look at talent“Aside from offering a comparison of

sites in terms of their infrastructure and business environment, our next phase looks further into the skill levels of people who, at the end of the day, are the ones that drive the industry,” says Santos, adding that their research is a step toward the development of a national standard for competitiveness similar to that of the National Association of Software and Services Companies (NASSCOM) in India. In line with this, Tholons is working with NASSCOM’s skills assessment partner, Merittrac, which has been used in over three million candidates for close to 200 O&O clients.

Tholons also partnered with the Center for International Trade Expositions and Missions (CITEM) and the Business Processing Association of the Philippines (BPA/P) to co-organize this year’s e-Services Global Sourcing Conference and Exhibition, which took place February 11 to 12 at the SMX Convention Center.

“Among the positive signs that can be seen in this year’s event theme, ‘Outsourcing Centers of Excellence,’ is the Philippine government’s openness to looking at the outsourcing industry from a global perspective,” Santos says.

“Think of it this way,” he says of the long-term goal of solidifying the country’s position as the second leading destination for O&O services in the world. “If India’s NASSCOM conference is considered to be like the Oscars of the outsourcing industry, our goal is to make the Philippines the next Cannes.” z From e-Services Phils.

Benchmark Study’s First Phase Assesses Capabilities of Next-Wave Cities

PHASE 2

Business Processing Association PHILIPPINESwww.bpap.org

JANUARY - MARCH 2008 �Breakthroughs BPA/P Stories

70,000 BPO Near-Hires to Benefit . . .

grant is part of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s Training for Work Scholarship Program (PGMA-TWSP), which is part of efforts to attain a 10% share of the global outsourcing market by 2010.

In the turnover ceremony held last February 4 at the Manila Intercontinental Hotel in Makati City, TESDA Director General Augusto Syjuco and BPA/P CEO Oscar Sañez signed the memorandum of agreement, which details the responsibilities of the two agencies in co-managing the multimillion-peso fund.

As the country’s umbrella organization for the Philippine outsourcing industry, BPA/P will take on the distribution, allocation, and promotion of the vouchers to its member-

Continuation from page 1

organizations. TESDA, meanwhile, will be in charge on the accreditation of training institutions and the disbursement of funds.

According to Sañez, many job candidates fail to secure employment due to lack of certain skills like English proficiency or technical know-how. Since additional training can be expensive and beyond the reach of these “near-hires” (or applicants who were almost accepted for a BPO job position), government aid and encouragement, supported by investment, may help them obtain employment, which in turn would prove beneficial to the industry in the long-term.

Training will be offered for animators, software developers, medical transcriptionists, and voice call center agents. The scholarship vouchers vary in cost: Php10,000 for each animator; Php30,000 for a software developer; Php10,000 for a medical transcriptionist, and Php5,000 for a voice call center agent. Voucher allocation, said Sañez, depends on the demand for talent in each sector.

For the whole industryTESDA Director Syjuco says that the

training will benefit the offshoring and outsourcing (O&O) industry as a whole, BPA/P and non-BPA/P members included. “We will serve to provide training and skills development to the O&O industry and BPO,” he said.

Sañez, for his part, guarantees that distribution of vouchers will be fair and will be based on standards set on the memorandum

of agreement. He also says, “BPA/P being the lead organization responsible is very openly saying that this is for the entire industry. BPA/P as the administrator (of the fund) also has the responsibility of ensuring that there is an even level playing field here. Which means that if you come to us, and you are accredited by TESDA and you comply with the standards that we are making available to every other member of BPA/P that is participating in the program, you are welcome. We created the allocation by sector, not by company.”

Since its establishment in May 2006, the PGMA-TWSP has provided training to 44,331 call center agents, 6,346 medical transcriptionists, 389 software developers, and 254 animators. Over 50% of them or 26,166 BPO workers were employed before the end of 2007.

The booming outsourcing industry is considered one of the star performers of the Philippine economy. It has consistently registered an annual growth rate of 45% over the past three years. BPA/P estimates that as of end 2007, the sector attained total export revenue of US$4.8 billion and jobs generated for 320,000 workers.

Asked about the impact of the US recession on the Philippine BPO industry, Sañez said, “It is time to be more aggressive in marketing the country – we are part of the solution. We are in fact going to help the US in a lot of ways.” He said O&O is among the few options for cost reduction, which is essential for a US company to survive.

Ray Anthony Roxas-Chua III, Chairman of the Commission on Information and

At the MOA signing were: Fred Ayala, BPA/P Chairman; Oscar Sañez, BPA/P CEO, TESDA Director General Augusto Syjuco; and CICT Chair Ray Anthony Roxas-Chua.

Communications Technology (CICT), said that more initiatives are being developed by the government like the establishment of the regional information and communication technology (ICT) hubs to expand the O&O industry in areas outside of Metro Manila. He added, “Right now we have 15 cities across the country that already have O&O locators, and we are targeting to double that amount in 2010. This is beneficial to the local economies of those areas, and it also helps the locators find alternative locations for them to manage cost.”

“In the area of training, one thing we are also working on with the private sector and the academe is that we are trying to come up with more targeted programs to address the longer-term needs for talents in the industry,” said Roxas-Chua. “What is important is to match the industry needs with what the universities can produce in terms of graduates.” z

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JANUARY - MARCH 2008� BreakthroughsBPA/P Updates

As far as our government relations are concerned, BPA/P submitted its draft amendatory bill on R.A. 9481, also known as “An act strengthening the worker’s constitutional right to self-organization,” to the joint chambers of Congress. BPA/P also met with the House of Representatives’ Labor Committee Chairman Magtanggol Gunigundo, together with the joint chambers, to formally present its consolidated draft amendatory bill on R.A. 9481.

BPA/P continues to attend the series of dialogues with the Department of Labor and Employment, labor organizations, and the

various employer groups to ensure that the industry’s position is reflected in RA 9481’s Implementing Rules and Regulations or IRR that is due for release in March.

BPA/P is currently assisting the CICT (Commission on Information and Communications Technology) in drafting a data privacy bill that will address the industry’s concerns on data privacy and security. BPA/P has been actively engaging policymakers who can support this measure.

BPA/P is also a member of the Technical Working Group formed by the Ways and Means Committee of the House of Representatives

and which will consolidate the various versions of the Fiscal Rationalization bill.

BPA/P supports the H.B. 2530 or the Cua bill, which aims to retain and even enhance fiscal incentives. The Cua bill also allows the establishment of an Industrial Development Board. This agency will create policies to implement a National Framework for Industrial Development. It will be responsible for the Investments Priorities Plan, as well as in administering registration for incentives and in promulgating the rules and policies of incentives that investment promotion agencies must implement. z

By CAthy iletoBPA/P DireCtor For externAl relAtions

BPA/P’s Marketing and Gov’t Liaison Activities First Quarter

The first quarter of the year was a busy one for BPA/P’s activities in marketing and government relations.

First, BPA/P had a number of successful marketing activities locally and internationally. A successful press conference was held last February 4 that witnessed the Technical Educational Skills Development Authority (TESDA) formally turn over Php350 million PGMA-TWSP vouchers to BPA/P. [See Front Page Stories for related story – Ed.]

BPA/P was also a co-organizer in the recently concluded e-Services Conference last February 11-12. It also led a delegation of eight companies to the 2008 NASSCOM Leadership Forum held in Mumbai, India from February 12 to 16. Eight companies joined the Philippine delegation namely: Kaisa, K-Search, Rockwell Land, PLDT, Jebsen & Jensen, Sutherland, Colliers, and Headstrong.

In the next weeks, BPA/P is planning on launching the updated portal and the new BPA/P brand.

Clockwise: Oscar Sañez at the e-Services conference; BPA/P’s ladies, BPA/P Director for Information and Research, Gigi Virata; Director for Talent Development Jamea Garcia; Executive Assistant Nette Roselo, and the columnist; BPA/P members at the TESDA conference; BPA/P members at the e-Services Conference; BPA/P CEO Oscar Sañez, TESDA Director General Augusto Syjuco and CICT Chair Ray Anthony Roxas-Chua.

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JANUARY - MARCH 2008 �Breakthroughs BPA/P Updates

THERE’S something about a clearly written and well-articulated strategic plan that helps build early engagements and support from all key stakeholders who have a keen interest in realizing its promised outcomes. Such is the immediate impact of a document like the “Philippine O&O Roadmap 2010,” which hit the ground running as soon as it was launched in November 2007.

The government has been first to respond to the challenges posed by the roadmap. On the day of the launch, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo quickly announced she would be appointing Secretary Ray Anthony Roxas-Chua of CICT as the government’s “Outsourcing Czar.” This would make Roxas-Chua the government’s intermediary in all outsourcing initiatives that will need government intervention. His appointment became official less than two weeks later.

BPA/P also did not waste time in forming the backbone of the “Next-Wave Cities” initiative in the roadmap by signing a three-way memorandum of agreement with the Department of Trade and Industry-ROG and the Commission on Information Communications Technology to define the roles across the three groups to support the development of the “next-wave cities” for O&O. Through this partnership agreement, the plan to rank the key cities based on an industry standard scorecard has been set and is scheduled to be released by September 2008.

The work on Talent Development has been key priority and BPA/P sought to obtain government attention for one program that demonstrated high potential given its early success: the PGMA Training for Work Scholarship Program. With a success rate of 70% conversion (to employment) on the limited Php60 million which BPA/P received last year, we asked President Arroyo to support the program more aggressively. After several negotiations with the President and TESDA, we were able to come up with a dedicated budget of Php350 million for O&O and agreed on the terms of implementation. The agreement between TESDA and BPA/P was signed on February 4. If we are able to see the same success as what we saw in the pilot, we should be able to recruit over 40,000 O&O workers through this program, close to one-third of the total recruiting target for the year.

Finally, on the demand-building side, BPA/P has provided much impetus as well to the roadmap theme of creating the right “business environment” for O&O. A legislative agenda has been defined providing focus on two important areas of concern: maintain our current tax incentive regime and updating the labor code provisions that affect O&O workers. Two important international road shows with President Arroyo were also implemented – one in New York in October and one in London in early December. In both these road shows, the President has supported the industry pitch that BPA/P has set, along with the support of many BPA/P members who had joined the delegations.

The next 300 days will even be more exciting as we see our programs picking up traction in 2008. The Talent Development program will accelerate the talent partnerships with universities for both undergrad and post-graduate programs and also test skills in competency tests. The Next-Wave Cities program will release the publications related to O&O Inventory and the cities’ ranking. The Business Environment program has already outlined the road show schedule for the year and updated the legislative agenda to include the cybercrime and data privacy proposals. All marketing collaterals and the website have also been upgraded.

The roadmap has indeed been a very effective engagement tool judging from what we have seen in the first 100 days. As long as we stay committed to our 2010 goals, we see continued support for the themes we have deployed as part of the O&O Roadmap. z

From the CEO Desk

Roadmap: The First 100 Days

BEING part in the creation of something new, witnessing a transformation that affects not just your immediate circle but the industry and the country as well – that just might describe, in a nutshell, one of the most fulfilling aspects of this job.

I’d been with BPA/P for the last three years. I’ve been privileged to be part of a community that has grown to become a powerhouse industry that has made the country, if not the United States, sit up and notice. I had become friends and comrades with colleagues who took the first struggling steps in understanding the dynamics of what is now called the O&O industry. After understanding comes mastery, and after several long years, we are poised to become the no. 2 outsource destination in the world (that is, if we are not already). We are seeing the promise fulfilled, the initial harvest of the seeds that we had planted.

BPA/P is now the umbrella association for the Offshoring and Outsourcing Industry. The road has become clearer, and a map has been drawn up to show us the way. It is not a mere guide, but an information tool and a manual to maximize the profits and benefits of a multibillion-dollar industry. You can feel the excitement in the air, as the government and the supporting sectors in the various industries pledge their alliance and help. The buzz is spreading, and with it a sense of welcome urgency – talents have to be trained, next-tier cities have to be developed, and word has to be gotten out to the rest of the world which still has to know (like Europe, for instance) that the Philippine BPO industry stands ready and able to serve their needs.

Success is a collective effort, and the beckoning promised land plotted by the roadmap is showing us how to cooperate in new ways. This goes beyond the setting aside of petty rivalry to join in a common cause; we are talking intensive, substantial cooperation, not just between companies, but between industry associations.

Again, it has been my privilege to set and see this plan into motion. The BPA/P has begun to link hands with our counterparts in the various industries, such as the Contact Center of the Philippines (CCAP), the Animation Council of the Philippines, Inc. (ACPI), the Medical Transcription Industry Association of the Philippines, Inc. (MTIAPI), the Philippine Software Association, Inc. (PSAI), and the Game Developers Association of the Philippines (GDAP).

But the results increase significantly when it is the industries themselves through their associations that pledge and fulfill a continuous partnership. Resources are pooled, knowledge is shared, common obstacles are addressed, and promotional efforts are greatly enhanced. Indeed, there is strength in numbers, as there is in unity.

Even international boundaries may no longer prove to be a hindrance one day. The BPA/P and India’s leading trade association, the National Association of Software and Service Companies, also known as NASSCOM, are also discussing ventures of possible cooperation and collaboration. Yes, we are competitors – but the beauty of the global outsourcing industry is that the orchard is so huge that we can harvest the fruits together without one bumping off the other.

Again, another beginning that can build ties and bring fruition to our efforts. And I believe that in as much as this industry is continually growing, this act of creation will continue.

I myself stand at the threshold of my new beginning. By the time this publication is released, I shall be holding a new position in a new company. Relax, my friends, it is still within the industry and BPA/P remains closer like a brother. I thank everyone in the BPA/P association for allowing me to be part of their lives, and for the good memories I shall cherish once I start tending the vine in my new position.

The work will never stop and I am happy to remain at the forefront. Good harvest, my friends, and I will see you around. z

New Beginnings

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JANUARY - MARCH 2008� BreakthroughsBPA/P Updates

BPA/P Research Tools

of the peso will continue. Jumping on the European outsourcing wave thus makes even more sense. But as with everything, there is also a downside: doing business with Europe is slightly more difficult than with the American market.

First, the Philippines is not very well known as a well-established and excellent offshoring destination. The press coverage of the Philippines is very poor and in most cases negative. Team Europe is working on different activities to improve the reputation of the Philippines and promote the awareness of the Philippine BPO industry in Europe. This initiative will make it easier for Philippine companies to market in Europe as it reduces the effort in “selling” the Philippines before they can sell their own services.

Second, Europe consists of many countries with many different cultures and languages. With the exception of the United Kingdom, Ireland, and little Malta, the European countries have non-English mother tongues, a fact that makes communication more difficult for Filipinos. There are however, several countries, in particular those in Scandinavia, as well as the Netherlands, which have citizens who speak English very well. Starting with these countries makes a market entry into Europe easier.

Another possibility to minimize the communication problem is to partner

with European IT-consultants or software companies. Many of these have reached their capacity limits as demand is rising and finding experienced staff is getting more difficult and expensive. A partnership with a Philippine firm would enable these companies to increase their business and also to be more competitive price-wise. Cooperation partners won’t change with every new customer, as an established Philippine-European-team works within a long-term relationship and communications structure.

This business model also eliminates the issue that many European companies prefer local counterparts which speak their language and that are more accessible during their business hours. A partner company in Europe takes over this part and reduces cultural differences.

Yes, there are difficulties in entering the European market, but it’s not necessarily an impossible task. It might take more effort and you may have to modify your strategy over time, but the potential there is definitely worth more than a try. Keep in mind that the outsourcing companies in India, China, and Vietnam are facing the same problems — yet they are already working hard to get a piece of the European outsourcing cake. Don’t let them take it all! z

For questions and more information, please contact weber@eitsc.com or (632)-845-1324.

By stePhAnie WeBerBusiness DeveloPment mAnAGer

euroPeAn it serviCes Center

Why Europe?

Members of the Information and Research (I&R) Power Team, on January 28—the first Power Team meeting for this year—set clear directions for the BPA/P information and research service line: to provide timely information and data relevant to all members of all sizes in all industry sectors.

There was general agreement in discussions led by Arup Maity, the Research Head of the Philippine Software Industry Association and Frank Holz of Outsource2Philippines that the information needs of all industry sectors should be addressed—not just for voice but also for non-voice, IT, animation, transcription, gaming, and engineering services companies. Needs of smaller companies must also be met.

Members also acknowledged that there were cross-cutting issues that could be examined in joint research efforts. As an initial activity, Holz agreed to focus the next O2P-BPA/P periodic survey on the effects of the peso appreciation and to report the results to the membership.

Nerissa Mendoza of PriceWaterhouseCoopers suggested that the group also mine Offshoring and Outsourcing Philippines: Roadmap 2010 and use this as a guide for ensuring that the Power Team’s efforts remain aligned and focused on priorities.

Other suggestions involved coordinating with the other BPA/P Power Teams. For example, success stories and case studies were identified as effective information tools and the effort to produce these materials

By GiGi virAtABPA/P exeCutive DireCtor

For inFormAtion AnD reseArCh

Power Team Directs BPA/P to Address Members’ Info Needs

A strong peso and huge growth potentials in Europe should spur Philippine BPOs to take on the challenge

“Europe is now the world’s most active outsourcing market … in

2007 Europe surpassed the Americas in both the number of contracts awarded in the region and in total value.” (TPI

quarterly index, January 2008)

Already reaching a saturation level in the United States, outsourcing is now starting to grow tremendously in Europe. On the basis of a stable economy, European companies have started to catch up in outsourcing, making the continent the outsourcing growth market for the next few years.

Looking at the Philippines’ supply side, we find the following picture: currently

65% of the BPO business in the Philippines deals with the United States, in contrast to only 10% with Europe. Taking into account history, language, and the past outsourcing trend, this share is understandable. But these figures also show that the European outsourcing boom has a huge growth potential for Philippine companies.

In the last years the Philippine BPO industry has grown with the US outsourcing trend. Now it has to be careful not to get directly affected by a slowdown of the US economy. A more balanced export target country structure would make the Philippines less vulnerable to trends in one of the market countries.

This is already obvious in the development of the peso as compared to the US dollar. In 2007, the peso gained 20% against the dollar. If you go back five years, the appreciation adds up to 31%. If you look at the peso-euro exchange rate over the same periods, you find a much better picture: last year the appreciation of the peso was 8%, and today the peso is still 6% under the exchange rate it had five years ago.

The outlook for the next two years does not give an indication that the peso-dollar trend will change; on the contrary the appreciation

Agne of the Commission on Information and Communications Technology (CICT).

The larger, but older, scorecard ranks 43 cities across the country, while the smaller but updated scorecard ranks 15 locations that have organized ICT Councils under the guidance of CICT. The latter does not include cities in the National Capital Region (NCR). ICT Councils are composed of stakeholders in each location representing private and public interests such as universities, chambers of commerce and industry, real estate companies, and local government officials.

BPA/P members acknowledge that the scorecard is most useful for the expansion of larger companies to sites outside of the NCR, or even to NCR sites outside of Makati, Libis, and Taguig. It has also been used by members from the support industry to plan their expansions or investments. It was pointed out during the meeting that the information is less useful for smaller companies and may actually make competition tougher as such tools attract more foreign investors. It was suggested that the BPA/P databases thus be sliced in more ways to provide focused perspectives for specific sectors and not just present the larger picture.

Aside from the companies mentioned

above, the good turnout at the meeting included representatives from Accenture, Asiatype, BayanTrade, BPI, CB Richard Ellis, DTSI, Eximius BPO, HSBC, MTIAPI, Sutherland Global Services, TeleDevelopment Services, and Thomson Philippines.

DTSI’s Gerry Topacio, who was practically the one-man I&R Power Team before this year, noted the good response and participation of members to the call for more concerted efforts to improve BPA/P’s information and research service line. He enjoined members to sustain this level of response in a variety of ways, such as in participating in subcommittees, providing information, responding to surveys, and continuing to provide comments and suggestions to the BPA/P research team. z

WITH REPORTING By TONETTE

CONSUElO AND lAURA NOEl OF BPA/P

Regular meetings for the I&R Power Team will be held on the last Monday of every month, before the regular BPA/P general membership assembly. Notices will be sent out. Any member wishing to join or send comments and suggestions may contact Gigi Virata at info@bpap.org.

could be done jointly with the Marketing Power Team. The Human Resource (HR) Power Team, meanwhile, would be the ideal partner for gathering vital HR-related data, including the tracking of IT graduates.

BPA/P Research Consultant Tonette Consuelo and I, using FutureProof Asia’s QlikView business intelligence software, presented BPA/P’s Offshoring and Outsourcing (O&O) Inventory. This database, currently with over 600 entries, keeps track of Philippine companies engaged in exporting O&O services. The data, including numbers of full-time employees, can be sorted by sector and subsector, location, size, and association membership.

The discussions that followed covered two concerns: 1) how best to improve the timely flow of data to and from BPA/P and its members and 2) what technology tools or platforms would facilitate this information flow. Suggestions to address these concerns included the following:• Companies must have incentives to respond

to the surveys, i.e., to get data D, they must participate in activities A, B, and C;

• Companies could be made to upload or update their data before being given access to BPA/P data;

• Oblige members to provide data as part of the membership requirements, as well as to provide regular updates;

• Survey companies on cross-cutting issues faced by the industry;

• Explore other technology (including web-based and interactive) solutions for producing and disseminating timely data; and

• BPA/P should firm up partnerships with members and other suppliers for data management solutions and non-technology research initiatives. Examples are Asiatype, Kaisa, Leechui & Associates/Jones Lang LaSalle, PLDT, FutureProof Asia, which were all represented at the meeting, as well as with research committees of the industry associations.

The City Scorecard was presented by the scorecard team, which includes yours truly, Consuelo, then Undersecretary Carissa Cruz-Evangelista and Rhauline Lambino of the Department of Trade and Industry’s Regional Operations Group (DTI-ROG), and Commissioner Mon Ibrahim and Mae

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JANUARY - MARCH 200810 BreakthroughsBPA/P Updates

request for a table on which our delegation could park their brochures. We are indebted to NASSCOM for turning a blind eye to these transgressions.

On the more serious side, NASSCOM 2008 was very well attended—using the lack of seats at sessions, dense traffic of people at networking events and breaks, and SRO at meals and eating outlets as indicators of the overflowing participation. The sessions were also overflowing with information and insights with consistently high-quality speakers and panelists. Among the salient publications launched at the convention were the NASSCOM-Everest India BPO Study (India’s road map to 2012), the Indian IT/ITES Industry 2008 Study by NASSCOM and Deliotte, and NASSCOM’s Strategic Review 2008 which is a mine of information on the

IT-BPO sector in India (BPA/P has a copy for browsing at its office).

A key takeaway for the Philippine delegation was that our own industry had been marked as the main competitor to India. While any mention of the Philippines was absent for most of the conference, except for the misinformation cited above, our country was repeatedly cited by the Everest Group speaker and the NASSCOM panelists in the concluding forum: “Taking India to the Next Level of Global Leadership.” First described as “a small island somewhere in the Pacific,” the Philippines was then portrayed as having quietly but systematically produced 300,000 workers in the offshoring and outsourcing industry. We were held up as the reason why India had to improve its education system (“the Philippines teaches US GAAP in their university curriculum!”) and to prompt its

By JAmeA GArCiA, CAthy ileto, AnD GiGi virAtA

BPA/P “Angels” Work NASSCOM �00�

The Business Processing Association of the Philippines (BPA/P) held two general membership assemblies for the first quarter – with a third by the time this publication is released.

The January General Membership Assembly was held last January 30 at The Blue Leaf, 100 Park Avenue, McKinley Hill Village, Fort Bonifacio, Taguig City. The speakers were: Mr. Wayne Tollemache, Executive Vice-President of First Advantage – Asia Pacific, who spoke on “Talent Acquisition Made Easier, Faster, Better, and Risk-free”, and Dr. Cayetano Paderagana Jr., Chairman of IDEA, Inc. who discussed “Philippine Competitiveness in the O & O Industry.”

Almost a month later, the BPA/P members again convened on February 26 at the Renaissance Makati City Hotel, Makati City for the February General Membership Assembly. One of the guest speakers was Ms. Corazon D. Conde, Senior Vice-President of the Development Bank of the Philippines, who talked about “DBP-SME Facility for IT.” The second speaker, Mr. Tomer Vernik, Regional Sales Director of Nice Systems, spoke on “The Real Value of NICE Smart Center for Contact Center.”

Both evenings ended on a high note, as information was shared, ideas exchanged, and BPA/P members mingled and bonded as a community. z

BPA/P Jan. and Feb. Membership Assemblies

BPA/P officers and members participated in the first two assemblies for the first quarter.

A preview of how India sees the Philippine BPO industry

On the first day of NASSCOM 2008, our boss, BPA/P CEO Oscar Sañez, sent an SMS asking how we were doing. We, the three female BPA/P Executive Directors (a.k.a. “Oca’s Angels”), reported back to him that we had attracted some attention in the first four hours of the three-day Leadership Forum. Gigi Virata had publicly corrected a speaker who had declared that “the Philippines was not part of Asia,” and the waiters of the Grand Hyatt had very kindly acquiesced to Cathy Ileto’s

From l-r: Karmeli Kintanar, K-Search Consulting Director; Rubi Ann Barcelona, K-Search Sr. Manager; Beverly Satsatin, Jebsen & Jebsen Account Manager; Precy Katigbak, PlDT Asst. Vice-President; Cathy Ileto, BPA/P External Affairs Director; B/PAP Information & Research Director Gigi Virata; NASSCOM Asst. Vice-President Md. Shahabuddin; BPA/P Talent Director Jamea Garcia, and Nora Terrado, Headstrong Country Manager.

legislature to keep India’s tax incentives (sound familiar?).

We also learned that all countries participating in this industry face the same challenges: producing enough talent, fighting attrition and currency appreciation, improving infrastructure, etc. There were, however, some interesting nuanced differences. For example, NASSCOM’s Assistant Vice-President Md. Shahabuddin told us that “Indians don’t listen” and thus their near-hire training focuses on teaching listening skills. It probably says something about us that we focus on logical reasoning in our training.

In addition to Shahabuddin, we were graciously hosted by our other NASSCOM counterparts, our colleagues in the Asian-Oceanian Computing Industry Organization, and other international organizations (though one host failed to feed Jamea Garcia lunch—a big mistake). Most importantly, our entire delegation, which included representatives from Colliers, Kaisa, KSearch, Headstrong, Jebsen and Jessen, PLDT, and Rockwell Land, received plenty of attention from potential investors and other interested parties wanting to do business in the Philippines.

To sum it up, the attention that the Philippine O&O industry received in NASSCOM 2008 was tacit acknowledgement of the achievements of our industry. We have been recognized by astute global businesses that we are an important space in which they must play.

As Oca’s Angels, we felt we did our part to create more awareness of our presence at the conference by sticking up for our country and using our resourcefulness to lay claim to some space in an international arena. But we will fully understand if Oca says that, in the future, he will attend the NASSCOM events himself. z

Dr. Cayetano Paderanga Jr., Chairman IDEA Inc. and PeopleSupport President Bong Borja

Hans Montenegro, Senior Manager, Corporate Recruiting, Convergys; Mitch locsin and Oscar Sañez

Present in the January assembly were (l-r): SITEl Phils. Country Mgr. Dan Reyes; Affinity Express Pres. Jose Moran; Headstrong Phils. Managing Consultant Raymond lacdao, Jobstreet Select Country Sales Manager Raffy Maramag

From l-r: BPA/P Industry Affairs Dir. Mitch locsin, Dan Reyes, Jose Moran, Raymond lacdao, Raffy Maramag, and Anand Chopra, President/CEO Citigroup Business Solutions Pte. ltd.

Business Processing Association PHILIPPINES www.bpap.org

JANUARY - MARCH 20081� BreakthroughsExecutive Profile

For any IT/BPO company, nothing signals success more than the awards and recognitions it continually earns. SPi, together with major global players Genpact, WNS, EXL Services, among others, were recently named in the Global Services 100 list soon to be featured in Fortune Magazine. The Global Services 100 list is a compilation of the world’s most innovative service providers. SPi has been named in three categories:• #3 among Leaders in Emerging Asian Markets • #6 among Best Performing BPO Providers •#9 among Leaders in Human Capital Development

For SPi, success is made sweeter because it is a David among many Goliaths — a David who chose the right strategy at the right time. The company was founded as SPI Technologies in 1980 by New Zealander Alan Fraser. He saw the opportunity to take advantage of the country’s highly trainable force, familiarity with the English language, and favorable cost structure to provide data entry and content conversion services to the likes of Sony, Citibank, and Boeing, among others.

SPi pioneered the growth of BPO in the Philippines. In 1997, it ventured into the Scientific, Technical, Medical (STM) journal content production services. Two years later, SPi ventured into the call-center business with eTelecare, one of the world’s leading independent call centers and, at that time, was the most publicized call center operations that focused on US outsourcing.

“While we are 28 years old, the company as people know it today – and we have a high brand recognition globally – is actually probably not more than 8-10 years old,” says Peter Maquera, SPi’s President and CEO. “We’ve consciously moved from being a project-based low-level outsourcing company to a much more diversified higher-value service provider with one of the broadest global delivery platforms in the industry.”

SPi’s transformation took place under the leadership of Maquera’s predecessor, Ernest Cu, who would later on become the 2003 Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year in the IT category.

Global clients started to take notice in 2003-2004 when SPi did a major job for Elsevier, the world’s leading publisher of science and health information.

“We built what was at that time the largest online repository in the world with nearly 40 million pages on the Internet,” says Maquera. “It demonstrated this Philippine company’s ability to do large-scale contracts. That put us on the radar screen and was the impetus for securing other large contracts from marquee customers.” Today SPi has around 450 customers worldwide.

Maquera recounts: “We were a bit difficult to understand in those days because there were only a handful of BPO companies in the Philippines. Large-scale non-voice companies are very few; these are independent companies who have over a thousand people in the non-voice knowledge outsourcing space. We were alone for quite a while. We’re very proud of being a catalyst in the BPO industry and a lot of companies are now coming in.”

In July 2006, ePLDT acquired SPi and later formed SPi Global Solutions, which, together with ePLDT Ventus, employs more than 134,000 people in 22 locations across the United States, the Philippines, India, and Vietnam and with revenues in the range of US$240 million (US$200 million for 2007 and US$240 million for 2008).

A matter of expertise “Our competitive edge is differentiation,” Maquera says.

“Our business and our success is really about being best in class in the domains we target. What we’re trying to do, especially with the help of the PLDT Group, is to become a full service

Knowledge Process-Customer-Interaction-IT services strategic partner to our customers.”

To be successful in the industry, a BPO company must have core expertise in three fundamental areas, says Maquera: HR, which is recruitment, training, and leadership development processes; process engineering, which involves making processes lean, efficient, and reliable; and quality, which is about developing a system for measurement and continuous improvement.

“We’ve customized those fundamentals specifically and very effectively for publishing, legal, and healthcare,” says Maquera.

He explains their vision: “We want to be the employer of choice, vendor of choice, and investment of choice. I don’t

think of our business in a static way. It’s BPO today but we’re really just trying to build a legacy – something greater than when we first found it. So if you need to adapt, how you will do so depends on competitive forces, changes in technology, and changes in consumer demand. That’s why our vision is a bit general and yet we focus on the job at hand.”

It’s a vision that allows them to stay ahead of the curve. A big challenge today is that the major IT and call center companies are converging into non-voice BPO. Maquera says,

By inA B. tevesPhotos By shishiir mAnzo

SPi: Defining the Competition in Their Space

“The challenge is to compete effectively against companies that are so much bigger than you, that come from outside the industry, and have a history of transforming industries. It will be an interesting next five years.”

He adds, “We can’t compete with the big companies in everything that they do, but if we specialize, we can be successful against them in our chosen target market.”

Getting the best from the bestWith the dollar falling, how does one company preserve its

margins and keep good people?“You have to find higher value services where you

can earn more,” says Maquera. “And you have to look for ways to improve productivity, so that your people can produce more than they produced before.”

Higher-value services and increasing productivity through automation are the main hedge sagainst currency risk. “Our franchise centers on our customers and people. We continually strive to do higher value work for our customers and spend significantly on our people,” Maquera says. SPi’s HR cost – salaries, recruitment, training and development – are in the order of 60% to 70% of its total expenses.

Providing higher-value services requires hiring higher skilled people to do more than just traditional data entry. One example is in the medical billing business which has very complex and highly regulated rules for reimbursement. SPi’s employees prepare and process bills for thousands of people in the US. The employees have the education, training and experinece to code and process bills so that the hospital can get reimbursed quickly and accurately by the patient, the insurer, and the government. In this relationship, as a result, the hospital can focus on their core competence because SPi freed them from back-office work.

“That’s way beyond data entry,” says Maquera. “Because this work is more complex, the employee doing it will make more money than the average college graduate who only got basic training for a couple of months and started in a low-level function. We’re also hiring Filipino lawyers who have passed the bar exam and have a number of years’ work experience in a recognized law firm. We have them working on legal documents involving US court cases alongside US attorneys. Now, that’s really high-level work that you can pay a premiium for.”

For Maquera, who left the Philippines at age seven and came back 10 years ago, the five past years with SPi have been most fulfilling. “We’ve grown by over four times in revenues and the SPi brand is now recognized globally,” he says. “Others saw our success, and it gave them confidence to also set up business here. It’s exciting to have played a part in transforming the Philippines into the preferred BPO destination.”

Maquera wants to see SPi continue to grow into a truly global company, demonstrating operational excellence wherever the work is done. “We want to be recognized by customers as best in class in the industry, and their preferred strategic BPO partner.”

In 2007 SPi was recognized as the Top Offshoring Provider for 2007 by the International Association of Outsourcing Professionals. The 2007 Socha-Gelbman Electronic Discovery Survey ranked SPi among the Top 20 Overall Market Leaders. The same survey also ranked it among the top 10 providers by law firms and corporations.

It is in the top 10 in collection, processing, review, and analytics as well.

Maquera says, “The most exciting aspect about this industry is that it’s new, huge, and global. You’re coming in at a point where life is what you make it. Your success is a function of your creativity, perseverance, and will to win. To achieve in this business, you’re held to such high standards because you’re competing globally – and if you’re successful, it’s validation that you are completely world-class.” z

SPi President and CEO Peter Maquera

Business Processing Association PHILIPPINES www.bpap.org

JANUARY - MARCH 20081� BreakthroughsSpecial Profile

currently being offered by our competition,” Pilao points out.

Innovation is also constantly being applied to the main core of BPO International, which is its human capital. The company is implementing a program that will provide training to each staff member from entry level to executive management. This is a form of investment that will gauge the performance of every employee and measure the skills that need to be strengthened, improved or both. The training stems from a belief that Pilao describes this way, “Every individual plays an important role in an organization in terms of leadership, innovation, good corporate citizenship, and their role in the collective ability to move forward.”

Returning homeTo Pilao, moving forward meant going

back to his homeland. The University of the Philippines (UP) alumnus took his post-graduate studies in the East Coast and then did consulting with KPMG in New York.

He was one of the youngest to be promoted and at that time, the only Filipino KPMG partner in the US. For years, Pilao enjoyed a successful career abroad, but something was missing.

“Having lived in a lot of the choice destinations in the world in terms of culture and sophistication, like Munich, London, and New York – it gets taxing at some point,” he explains. “I used to come back here for a visit every year during Christmas for a couple of weeks, and I always struggled to leave because I really enjoyed coming home, and (being) close to family and friends.”

Pilao grabbed the opportunity when it did present itself. “I bumped into BPO International during my exploratory venture into the Philippine BPO industry,” he recounts. “I met with their chairman, looked at their history, and saw both the business potential and the value I can add to the organization. It’s really a good way for me to re-apply what I’ve learned, especially for homegrown companies like

BPO International. Our eventual success can also help in the creation of jobs directly and indirectly related to the industry.”

He is more than eager to share what he knows, saying, “Having been exposed to global business and management best practices, I can combine all that (knowledge) and bring them here, not only in this company, but share them among different companies here in the Philippines.” Again, that prescient ability to see the road ahead has widened his vision. He hopes that what he begins in BPO International will create a domino effect that will benefit the industry as a whole.

“I think positioning us to really be at a level where we can compete with the best is a great challenge, but a necessary goal,” Pilao says. “We have this year to make sure that we are on track on our fundamentals and our go-to-market strategies. It takes a little bit of time to get everybody’s headset aligned towards a shared direction. We have to be vigilant but patient.” z

Giving Back Means Going GlobalBPO International’s new president intends to take the company global

By BernArDo v. FrAnCo Jr.Photos By shishiir mAnzo

If there is one skill that Paul Pilao, President and CEO of BPO International, Inc., has mastered from his extensive professional experience, it is his ability to foresee the necessary step to take himself and his company to the next high level. Now couple that with the ability to accomplish whatever task he puts his mind to, and one sees a driven achiever.

BPO International, Inc. stands to benefit, as Pilao is set on making the company a major player in the global business outsourcing market. He carries with him a network of global consulting companies, as well as significant knowledge and expertise in Western management culture and services.

“The challenge that we have right now is that, although we’ve been in the outsourcing business for a while and have an excellent client list, the transactions we support are still predominantly local,” he reveals. “We’re basically not there yet. We currently don’t have sales offices in the United States or in Europe. What we intend to do is use different sales channels to reach those markets. The thrust of our business over the next two years, beyond continuing a healthy domestic growth, is to reach the North American and European markets.”

One advantage that BPO International has is its shared legacy with the prominent firm SGV & Co; the company had acquired the latter’s outsourcing practice. “People have a natural respect for our finance and accounting heritage coming from SGV,” Pilao acknowledges. “We compete in the higher value services BPO space — finance and accounting, payroll, and HR (human resources). As far as local competition is concerned, we’re favorably positioned, based on reputation and depth of service.”

For providing outsourcing services for almost 30 years, BPO International has enjoyed the loyalty of clients who are always open to the new services that the company is developing. “We can continue to build on those relationships,” says Pilao.

Initiatives are being developed that will raise even higher the standards of excellence of the company. “In this business,” he says, “the more efficient and innovative you are, the higher the quality of service and value you can deliver to your clients. That would guarantee that new opportunities will continue to come and existing clients will stay.”

BPO International’s new CEO believes in applying creativity and imagination on business fundamentals. “We are focused on investing in the two most critical levers of our business: our people and our technology.” Pilao hints that the company will launch a new platform-based services model running on tier-one ERP applications that can be offered to clients on a subscription basis. He says, “Our aim is to fully leverage processes and technology solutions to effectively exploit the key drivers of BPO value: economies of scale, process optimization, and low labor cost.”

This new offering will give their potential clients (both local and foreign) the option to subscribe to a bundled solution (technology and processing services) without the traditional up-front capital investment. “I don’t believe that there is a similar service

Paul Pilao, BPO International CEO, is keen on sharing what he has learned overseas.

Business Processing Association PHILIPPINESwww.bpap.org

JANUARY - MARCH 2008 1�Breakthroughs Special Report

Global Centers of Excellence in different types of business process outsourcing and offshoring are emerging as companies worldwide have realized the advantages of O&O.

Research and consultancy firm Tholons identified these country and city Centers of Excellence in a presentation showing the results of its two-year study during the 8th e-Services Global Sourcing Conference and Exhibition held last February.

Tholons Chairman & CEO Avinash Vashistha said that in a globalized economy, some organizations have realized that they would be better off concentrating on their core business while outsourcing some related functions to other organizations – but they are not just picking one outsourcing firm or country. Instead, Vashistha said, “Key functions of organizations will get concentrated at different Centers of Excellence but would work seamlessly with each other.”

He added that organizations are “sourcing the best possible skills from the locations which can best deliver them.”

Players and expertiseThe Tholons study

identified India as a Center of Excellence in IT & back office while the Philippines has been recognized as a Center of Excellence in customer support. It identified other Asian countries as Centers of Excellence in various types of outsourcing: • China: Embedded

Software, Japan focus; • Vietnam: Basic Transaction

Processing, Hi-tech Product Engineering, PC-based Applications;

• Thailand: Engineering Services;

• Sri Lanka: F&A Services, UK focus;

• Malaysia: Engineering Services (Automotive Industry);

• Pakistan: F&A services; and• Singapore: Data Center,

Regional HQ.In the larger O&O arena,

Tholons identified some Central and Eastern European countries as viable contenders to their counterparts in the Asian markets:• Poland: European back

office, German language skills;

• Hungary: European back-office;

• Russia: Engineering services, Custom development; and

• Romania: Custom development, French language skills.

Although not mentioned by the Tholons presentation, Africa is viewed by O&O analysts as the “last destination” of outsourcing because of its huge but under-utilized talent capable of communicating in various

Trends in global outsourcingThe talent pool is what sets apart a country as an outsourcing destination

European languages; this lower-value work comes at relatively affordable cost.

Latin American countries like Argentina, Chile, Brazil, and Costa Rica are developing the necessary infrastructures to support the domestic IT and BPO industries. The last two countries in particular are known for enterprise resource planning (ERP) and shared services, respectively.

Nearer to the United States, Canada still wields strong IT and back office capabilities, and Mexico is attracting investors requiring custom development, customer support, and Spanish language skills.

Vashishtha said that in deciding where

to outsource or offshore, companies are not looking for a big location such as India but instead are splitting processes depending on a particular location’s strengths. Thus, the Philippines is getting outsourcing projects requiring its talent pool’s English proficiency. Companies not requiring English proficiency, though, would outsource to non-English speaking countries such as China.

Vashistha estimated that US$1.2 trillion is outsourced to third parties yet not a significant portion of this has been offshored. This spells a lot of opportunities for other countries participating in the global O&O market.

What will set a country or city apart as an outsourcing destination is talent. Vashistha said that in categorizing a country or city as a Center of Excellence, “in the long term, it is talent that will separate the best from the rest.”

He said that although cost is an important consideration in choosing the place to outsource, the more critical factors for companies are the workforce quality and the location’s ability to muster an adequate service supply to meet rising demand. These conditions are crucial to sustained business operations, especially if service providers are confronted with high attrition rates. z

REPORT By ARTEMIO F. CUSI III

Business Processing Association PHILIPPINES www.bpap.org

JANUARY - MARCH 20081� BreakthroughsIn Sights

The Philippines: From Agricultural Producer to KPO Powerhouse“The success and emergence of the BPO space are just the beginnings of a major re-positioning of the Philippines.”

Greetings:I would like to congratulate everyone involved in the

establishment of this Philippine office of Integreon. If I may borrow the words of the first man on the moon, this is one small step for this company, one big step for this country. Let me explain in these brief remarks why we can justifiably borrow these inspiring words to describe this modest event.

The Philippines had long been regarded by the world as a source of agricultural products like coconut and sugar in earlier times and pineapples and bananas in later times. In more recent years, Filipino workers in such fields as health care, maritime trades, and other services have become our country’s top export, generating billions of dollar remittances each year. By this time, more than eight million Filipinos or 10% of its total population are working abroad in a wide variety of sectors, occupations, and countries. Filipino leaders in business and politics have helped define and realize these directions of the nation, and Filipinos have responded to the economic opportunities with their feet.

The Ayala group is convinced that the time is right for the Philippines to re-position itself to become the world’s provider of high-value, professional services via outsourcing. Instead of exporting goods or people, the Philippines could very well be exporting services. The rapid growth and continuing dynamism of business process outsourcing in our country is part of this re-positioning, but it is hardly all of it. The inauguration of this office is a further step in this re-positioning.

Major shiftThe business world is recognizing that the creation,

distribution, and application of unique proprietary knowledge of corporate organizations can become a source of competitive advantage. As a result, globally competitive business organizations are investing heavily in systems to enable their workforce to manage knowledge. It is estimated that about 48 million of the 137 million workers in the US are knowledge workers, and the costs of their salaries and benefits are a major part of total operating costs. One can easily imagine the value of even just a 1% gain in productivity of these knowledge workers. This is the market that the Philippines is going for:

Mr. Jaime Augusto Zobel de Ayala, Chairman and CEO of Ayala Corp., gave the following speech at the launch of Integreon last January 30. [See Company News for related news – Ed.]

By JAime AuGusto zoBel De AyAlA

services to process knowledge in corporate organizations that make their knowledge workers more productive. And we are going after this market from offices such as the one we are inaugurating today.

The Philippines has the population, economy, and society to become a global powerhouse in knowledge process services. It has a large young population that is oriented to global engagement. Despite its recently diagnosed problems, its educational system remains viable for training and preparing future knowledge workers of the world. Our modest infrastructure provides still adequate support to global outsourcing business. Our greatest asset is that Filipinos, adequately educated and properly organized, have a facility

for operating successfully within various cultures and under various knowledge domains both on-site as overseas workers as well as off-site as outsourcing workers.

The emergence and success of the BPO space are just the beginnings of a major re-positioning of the Philippines from provider of agricultural products or manpower to provider of outsourced, high-value professional services to the world’s business organizations. This start in Philippine-based Knowledge Processing Outsourcing that we inaugurate today is a further step in this exciting re-positioning of our country. May our efforts and ambitions be blessed with success for the good of our clients, our employees, our stakeholders, and most of all, for this country. Thank you. z

The High Technology Sector, which includes the Telecommunications, Computer and IT-Enabled Services with BPO functions, posted a significant attrition rate decrease from 21% in 2006 to 17% in 2007, according to the 2007 All Industry Survey conducted by the Information Product Solutions (IPS) Team.

One reason may be attributed to the continuous growth and expansion in the BPO industry. This resulted in greater elbow room for employees to shop around for better employment, as well as an increase in employment prospects in the market. The typical reasons given for voluntary attrition are movement to better pay and benefits, culture and environment, inability to cope with work-related stress, and offshore opportunities.

Floriza Molon, Mercer’s Business Leader for the Information Product Solutions (IPS) in the Philippines, adds that the increasing migration of professional talent, which is brought about by the rising demand for skilled workers in the Asia Pacific, has resulted in a so-called “War for Talent.” As a result, “War for Talent” has been

driving up the wages of employees in the Philippines. Attrition has led to continuous increase in compensation and benefits for all industries. Though most companies remain conservative in giving increases, overall national competitiveness has driven local companies to compete with multinationals to be more aggressive in terms of base pay and premium-giving to employees.

The 2007 All Industry Survey conducted by the IPS Team surveyed 192 companies involved in the consumer, energy, freight and logistics, and high-tech industries.

In another study about the notice periods for employees who are resigning, Molon said that in the Philippines, the minimum one-month requirement for the employee notice period applies to employees with regular status. For those still on probationary and under contracted services, employment may be terminated anytime as long as this is approved by their supervisors.

Many other countries likewise require employees to give a month’s notice on resignation, although with slight differences. For instance, in most, this requirement applies to employees with one year of service. In one in three countries, notice requirements change according to an employee’s length of service. Also, individual contracts of employment may specify a longer period of notice.

In a few other countries, the difference in these practices is more significant. For example, in Mexico, employees are not legally required to serve notice before quitting. In the United States, there is also no statutory requirement, though two or more weeks’ notice is customary. Laws in Hong Kong, Ireland, Singapore and the United Kingdom require employees with a year’s service to give minimum notice of one week. At the other end of the spectrum, employees in Switzerland, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic must give at least two months’ notice.

These data outlining the minimum legal requirements for notice periods for employees across 43 countries are taken from Mercer’s Global HR Factbook. z

Mercer is a leading global provider of consulting, outsourcing and investment services and works with clients to solve their most complex benefit and human capital issues, designing and helping manage health, retirement and other benefits. Its Global HR Factbook can be ordered online at www.imercer.com/globalhrfactbook, by fax at +41 22 329 49 04 or by e-mail at client.services.geneva@mercer.com. For more information, visit www.mercer.com.

Significant Drop in Philippine BPO Attrition Rate

Business Processing Association PHILIPPINESwww.bpap.org

JANUARY - MARCH 2008 1�Breakthroughs In Sights

I have been in the BPO industry for more than seven years now and it has been a very rewarding experience. I’m responsible for a huge client in the Philippines with a scope that covers sales, technical, and customer support in several locations around the country. I also handle several locations in India, plus 500 seasonal technical support associates.

One question that faces me constantly is this: how do you get the trust and confidence from all stakeholders to handle multi-programs in several geographical locations? The answer: genuine passion for customer service. It’s that “WOW!” experience you give customers at all touch points.

I draw my passion for customer intimacy through the nature of customer service itself. Maintaining their relationships ensures strong and long-term partnerships and professional friendships.

At the same time, I see to it that the people around me are creative, perform as a team, solve complex problems, improve quality control, and provide outstanding customer service. It can be tough, but it can also present a fulfilling challenge in finding the balance between reasonable control and letting go, or at its extremes between controlling and not being engaged.

Bringing this balance to the next level allows organizations the opportunity to go beyond dynamism and innovation in order to prosper.

I’d like to think of myself as passionate and participative, and I develop my leaders in the following way:

1. Experiential learning – showing them how to do it by doing it myself first. Learning through example is the best way to learn.

2. Learning through mistakes and opportunities. Coaching and mentoring are the strongest tools to ensure continuous development. Leadership also means daily creating that coaching opportunity.

One thing I’ve realized is that there is no such thing as a difficult client. One needs to be beyond a trusted advisor. Clients are just focused on results – and how to improve them. A trusted partner goes way above and beyond genuinely understanding how “we can” provide more value to the client’s organization through value engineering. We have to see the whole thing also from their eyes and once we do, we will understand them better. It also helps to be transparent with challenges as well as achievements.

Lastly, don’t forget to celebrate small victories with your stakeholders along the way. It can be fun battling “who gets to pay for lunch” with your client after successful QBRs. z

As outsourcing demand grows, enterprising local animators invest in original content production

After over 25 years of providing world-class outsourced animation work to foreign producers, local animation houses are now shifting gear to offer original content this year, says Animation Council of the Philippines, Inc. (ACPI) President Grace Dimaranan.

In fact, the ACPI considers this move to a higher-value business model as bigger news than 2007 revenue and growth-rate figures. “The biggest development in the industry this year is the increasing interest among animation houses and independent animators in developing original content,” Dimaranan says. “In this industry, having a portfolio of original content is a mark of distinction that animation houses can boast of.”

The spike in interest in original content creation was for the most part triggered by the successful first run of Animahenasyon, an animation-festival cum-contest that recognized original Filipino content, last year. As a result, Animahenasyon has become an annual recognition program for the animation industry’s cream of the crop.

This year also marks the release of the first full-length digital animation film. Produced by Cutting Edge Productions, Dayo (www.dayomovie.com) features the adventures of an 11-year-old boy who tries to save his grandparents who were abducted by aliens and brought to Elementalia, a magical land inhabited by some of the popular creatures of Philippine mythology. Cutting Edge Productions is a company that originally did post-production services for television commercials. Dayo is its first foray into animation.

“Cutting Edge Productions is proud to be the first to create a ‘paperless’ full-length animation using digital processes from the storyboard to the animation production,” says Cutting Edge’s Managing Director Jessie Lasaten. He says that the company decided to diversify into animation because it is the only type of content that viewers from all over the world can appreciate. “Animation transcends boundaries,” he adds, citing the international popularity of Japanese anime as an example. “In addition, we’re seeing an exciting trend among first-world buyers of animated content. There is an increasing interest in content from outside the US or Europe, especially from Asian countries.”

Cutting Edge Productions and the entire animation industry are hoping that Dayo will receive a warm response from the public, should the venture make it as one of the entries to the Manila Film Festival this December. Lasaten admits that the cost of producing a full-length movie is prohibitive, despite the fact that most of it is spent on post-

production processes that Cutting Edge Productions does in-house. “We are subsidizing this project with resources from other revenue streams,” he says. As such, whether or not the company will have more animation projects after Dayo depends on how well the public will receive this groundbreaking exercise.

It does help that the whole industry is rallying behind Cutting Edge Productions in the undertaking. “Through Dayo, we hope to uplift the local animation industry and show them that we are becoming more and more technology-driven,” says Lasaten. “Filipino talents are as good as anyone else in the world. We can be globally competitive, if we only have the resources.”

Marketing Philippine animatorsWhile visionary companies like Cutting Edge

Productions are making the bold move to develop original content, the ACPI ensures that the growth challenges of other homegrown animation providers are being addressed. “The industry has been consistently growing by 20% every year. But what limits us remains to be the insufficient supply of animators,” says Dimaranan. The US$105 million industry (as of 2007 figures) is currently composed of approximately 7,500 animators. Although the number has increased by 2,000 from 2006, it is still a long shot from the goal of 25,000 animators by 2010.

To support its projected growth, animation companies have themselves started to outsource animation work to other provinces in the country. Cutting Edge Productions, for example, is outsourcing processes to animators in Baguio, Bicol, and Dumaguete for Dayo.

Dimaranan says ACPI’s promotional activities involve both selling animation as a serious career to potential animators and selling the Filipino animation industry as the best in the league. “The government has been very supportive of our advocacies by consistently providing us with opportunities to promote the industry,” she says. “For example, the annual e-Services Global Sourcing Conference and Exhibition and the Animazing Shorts, a competition for professional and amateur animators, have served as effective venues for us to showcase our capabilities, as well as original content that we can call our own and be very proud of.”

This year the local animation industry will also explore markets outside the United States to shield itself from the possible impacts of the impending US recession. “For one, we are collaborating with the European Chamber of Commerce of the Philippines (ECCP) to penetrate the EU,” says Dimaranan. “We have also been invited to participate in upcoming promotional events in France and Prague. For the animation industry, 2008 is proving to be a year of big leaps.” z

Local Animators Push for Original Content

By JAmeson Jimenez oPerAtions DireCtor

sutherlAnD GloBAl serviCes PhiliPPines

Client Trust and Team Leadership“There is no such thing as a difficult client. We need to go beyond being a trusted advisor.”

Global promotions and institutionalized efforts will cushion impact

After posting 30% growth for 2007, the US$359 million Philippine software development industry is bullish about sustaining its growth this year, despite the possible effects of a US economic downturn.

According to Philippine Software Industry Association (PSIA) President Ma. Cristina Coronel, 30% growth is “doable,” since the local software industry has been growing at a consistent rate since 2006. The only unique major challenge that the industry is anticipating this year is the impact of the weakening US economy.

“A downturn in the US economy will have an impact on export companies like (ours), whose major market has always been the US,” says Coronel, who is also President of Pointwest Technologies, a homegrown ITO company.

While captive offshore delivery centers (ODC) like Accenture, Dell and HSBC are partly shielded from the effects of global economic fluctuations, homegrown

outsourcing vendors that make up most of PSIA’s membership have started to feel the pinch. Points out Coronel: “Our expenses are all peso-based while our contracts are US dollar-based. So as the dollar weakens, our top line decreases, causing our margins to decrease as well.”

To mitigate the risks, PSIA has strengthened and institutionalized efforts to market the industry globally. “To start off, we have just finished reorganizing the PSIA’s committees to complement the structure of the Business Processing Association of the Philippines (BPA/P). This will facilitate collaboration and allow us to better align our projects and programs with those of the umbrella organization,” Coronel says.

Brand Philippines“We’ve been reaping the benefits of our previous efforts

to promote ‘Brand Philippines’ internationally,” she says. “But this year, we want to take it further by drawing up an extensive and intensive action plan.” This task has been

assigned to the committee on International Marketing, headed by Exist Global, Inc. Chairman Winston Damarillo, and to the committee on Marketing and Communication, headed by Rosario Gruet, Senior Executive of Computer Professionals Inc.

The association is also closely coordinating with concerned government agencies such as the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), the Center for International Trade Expositions and Missions (CITEM), and the Board of Investments (BOI) to plan possible road shows or participation in trade shows outside the Philippines.

“Events like the e-Services Global Sourcing Conference and Exhibition have been very helpful to the PSIA in terms of generating interest and visibility for the industry,” says Coronel. “This is why we have always supported this annual show. This year, in fact, we will have a special meeting with the Japanese delegation within e-Services, where we will present our capabilities, the challenges in penetrating the Japanese market, and the strategies that we want to implement to address them.” z

Sustained Growth of Software Industry Expected Despite US Economic Downturn

Business Processing Association PHILIPPINES www.bpap.org

JANUARY - MARCH 20081� BreakthroughsIndustry Association Profile

By CArlomAr DAonAPhotos By shishiir mAnzo

During her trips to the United States, Myla Rose Reyes is often offered a job by some people once they find out that she is a nurse who has passed the Board exams. But the President of the Medical Transcription Industry Association of the Philippines, Inc. (MTIAPI) has a ready cheery answer: “Just give us the jobs and we will give them to the Filipinos.”

Reyes is also the Managing Director of Total Transcription Solutions Inc. (TTSI), handling its three business centers: production facilities, training arms, and e-learning which creates programs that are tailored for the academe. By establishing alliances with schools, TTSI is helping develop “ready and sufficient manpower to tap whenever we need them.”

Manpower or talent acquisition and development are among the chief concerns of TTSI and other transcription companies – and as such, are the key issues that occupy MTIAPI as well. In the recent e-Services Philippines Global Sourcing Conference and Exhibition held last February 11-12 at the SMX Convention Center, Reyes said that the industry currently employs 10,000 transcriptionists and aims to develop 32,000 in two more years.

Though other BPO companies face the same manpower predicament, the medical transcription (MT) industry has a somewhat different strategy, thanks to a “wake-up call” that the association experienced a few years ago. Reyes recalls, “Some US companies had already considered partnering with MTIAPI. But we realized that these clients were expecting a large capacity for work; however, MTIAPI is composed of SMEs.” While call centers have to fill in a large number of seats, transcription companies usually number to about 36-500.

Accuracy There are other marked differences between the call center

and the transcription company. Reyes elaborates on the nature of the business, “Our raw data is the doctors’ dictation which is the transaction between the doctor and the patient. US Federal Law requires every practitioner to talk, and this transaction between the doctor and the patient created the demand for MT. For example, this person from Florida who goes to California meets an accident and becomes unconscious. The hospital has to do some preliminary interview of this patient to treat him properly. In the absence of any person to interview, it would be dangerous to do medical procedures. What the hospital does is key in the patient’s ID number like the SSS to make available his past medical history. They find out the kind of antibiotics he may be allergic to or if he had undergone surgery.”

Reyes says that the need for MT goes beyond diagnosis. “It is used for billing, admission notes, consultation notes, follow-up notes, operative notes, surgery notes, and the discharge summary,” she says. “The price of the billing will depend on the surture, the wound, the material used, which are available in the transcript. That’s why the accuracy of the report is important; if you accidentally type in left instead of right, it will make a big difference in the transcription.”

Reyes also provides a more sober perspective to popular notions that a medical transcriptionist earns big bucks at a short period of time. “It is true that some of us can earn Php70,000 monthly,” she says, “but making that amount of money means that the transcriptionist has reached a considerable amount of expertise. These are seasoned MTs who have been in the business for three to five years and who produce very accurate reports They are very fast and have gone through a series of learning experience. Transcription and revenues are being measured in terms of lines. The more lines you type, the more money you make; the less accurate the lines, the more penalties, the less money you make.” She also points out, “We deal with doctors with different accents. We have to be very careful with the way they pronounce the words and place it in the right context.”

To manage the expectations of both students and entrepreneurs who want to get into the business, MTIAPI has launched several initiatives including the establishment of partnerships and an information campaign that will correct misimpressions while getting the word out that the industry is growing and that practitioners can build a profession in it. MTIAPI has conducted career advocacy seminars in different schools and various regions in partnership with organizations like the Commission on Higher Education (CHED), Technical Skills Development Authority (TESDA), and the National Competitiveness Council.

“We’ve done our part in educating people who think that

THE MEDICAL TRANSCRIPTION INDUSTRY’S “BIG SISTER”Alliance establishments and strategic marketing should help make

the country the preferred destination of MT outsourcing

this is an easy business,” Reyes says. ‘We don’t want them to close shop after only one year.” Meanwhile, the association is reaching out to possible employees by providing the necessary orientation to college students. She says, “Why not introduce awareness of MT to the collegiate level where there is a higher chance of us correcting the skills gap? We designed the curriculum in such a way that it can be taught to non-medical people like lawyers and finance professionals.”

Alliances and partnershipsPartnership with the academe is one way of orienting

potential talent who prefer to seek “white collar” university education than technical training. Reyes continues, “We’ve come up with a proposed elective course that CHED can use to pilot in their schools and see if there will be significant interest from their students. It will be an introduction to transcription in general, not necessarily just MT, and the general skills that can be taught across all courses; these skills include listening, typing, accents, English proficiency, research techniques, and computer operations.” The courses are designed with flexibility, says Reyes: “If the students are from accounting and they are given transcription, we can give them accounting and finance work. Transcription is not just medical, but business, legal, conference. These [dictations are] being recorded and someone has to listen to and type them.”

MTIAPI is also involved with the PGMA Training for Work Scholarship Program. Reyes says, “We monitor and make sure that the vouchers are being used correctly, although we can’t answer for the ones being given outside the association.” As of publication, MTIAPI has been successful in disbursing 72% of its assigned vouchers.

A lot has happened to the industry since the association’s establishment in 2003. India has named the Philippines its nearest competitor in the MT industry. This so-called rivalry, though, has not been a hurdle in the partnerships that are currently being developed between Philippine and Indian MT companies; MTIAPI has also met with NASSCOM on various occasions.

The industry’s growth has mirrored Reyes’ own career path; starting out work as a medical transcriptionist in a department of a Manila company, she rose to QA supervisor, unit manager, until she became the VP of a 700-member-strong firm. It was her last post before transferring to TTSI in 2002.

“We have done the initial steps,” says the industry’s self-described big sister, “but our vision is to become the premier destination of choice for MT outsourcing services.” The U.S. MT industry is estimated to be worth US$110 million in revenues, and the Philippines serves one percent of that market. Reyes hopes to increase the market share to three percent by 2010 with a revenue share of US$254 million.

One experience certainly supports her position. “Some Americans still think we live in nipa huts. Our strategy is to make them come here and let them see that things are not as bad as what the news says,” Reyes narrates. “We invited the President of the US-based Medical Transcription Industry Alliance to come and speak in the e-Services conference. He was surprised to see how beautiful the Philippines is and became an ally of the Philippine MT companies. During our second visit to the American Health Information Management Association [AHIMA], he provided the testimonial that the Philippines is a great place.” z

Myla Rose Reyes: From nurse to medical transcription industry head

Business Processing Association PHILIPPINESwww.bpap.org

JANUARY - MARCH 2008 19Breakthroughs Company News

Also present were Fred Ayala, LiveIt CEO; Liam Brown, Integreon President and CEO; and Erik Joseph Tabuena, Integreon Philippines Country Manager.

In his keynote address, Zobel de Ayala cited the Philippines’ capacity to become a “powerhouse” in knowledge-process services. He also said, “The Ayala group is convinced that the time is right for the Philippines to re-position itself to become a leading global provider of outsourced high-value, professional services. Our greatest asset is that Filipinos are well-educated and have an excellent ability to operate successfully across both multiple cultures and knowledge domains.” [Read Zobel de Ayala’s complete speech in Insights. – Ed.]

Zobel de Ayala noted that globally competitive business

organizations are investing heavily to enable their workforce to manage knowledge and to be more productive. In the US alone, there are an estimated 48 million knowledge workers out of a total of 137 million workers. The value that can be attained even with a one-percent gain in total productivity by its knowledge workers is substantial, said Zobel de Ayala. “The Philippines is well-positioned to gain a significant share of outsourcing serving knowledge-intensive businesses,” he stressed. “I expect to see rapid KPO growth here.”

Fred Ayala, LiveIt Solutions’ Chief Executive Officer, said that Integreon has a strong track record in delivering the highest levels of quality outsourcing services for the world’s top legal and financial firms. Integreon’s customers include six of the 10 largest global investment banks, two of three

Tarcs Taruc, Managing Director of Gurango Software, was recently honored as one of four e-Champions at the e-Services Awards 2008. The Awards recognize innovative products and services developed by homegrown information and communications technology companies and pay tribute to personalities whose efforts have significantly contributed to the growth and advancement of the offshoring and outsourcing industry [See Front Page Stories for related story – Ed]. Taruc was conferred the e-Champion Award for Business Development in the Software Development Industry for his initiatives in local and international promotion of the Philippine software industry, skills development, export promotion, and intellectual property awareness.

Taruc is a three-time president of the Philippine Software Industry Association (PSIA) and trustee of the Business Processing Association of the Philippines (BPA/P). As PSIA President, he was instrumental in uniting the local software industry, increasing PSIA membership by 300%, and championing the Fly High Philippine Software 2010 Roadmap. As Executive Director of the IT Association of the Philippines, Taruc successfully advocated for favorable amendments to tariff policy for IT equipment and for the

Integreon Launches RP OperationsIntegreon, a global leader in corporate, legal and financial complex knowledge process outsourcing (KPO), launched its new office last January 30 at the 6750 Office Tower on Ayala Avenue, Makati City. The ceremony was led by Jaime Augusto Zobel de Ayala, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Ayala Corp. In October 2006 LiveIt Solutions Inc., the Ayala Group’s investment arm for business process outsourcing, and Integreon announced a management-led buyout transaction that resulted in a majority stake for LiveIt.

largest global law firms, many Fortune 100 and FTSE 100 corporations, and several top private equity firms and hedge funds. Integreon’s services enable its corporate clients to spend more time on high-value work, such as strategy and competence enhancement.

“The entry of Integreon into the Philippines marks a breakthrough for the country into the high value-added and rapidly growing KPO and LPO (Legal Process Outsourcing) sectors,” said Ayala. “The opening of our new Philippine operation will enable Integreon to expand its geographic footprint, gain access to a large new pool of skilled managers and professionals, and enhance Business Continuity Planning capabilities.”

Integreon CEO Liam Brown, for his part, said that his company, which has offices in New York, Mumbai, Delhi, London, and North Dakota, has long viewed Manila as a potential strategic delivery site. Its relationship with Ayala Corp. brings a host of advantages from recruitment to commercial real estate procurement, he said.

“The quality and abundance of talent as well as the affinity for US legal and financial frameworks are definite advantages in locating here,” said Brown, adding that, among popular offshore destinations, the Philippines offers the highest percent of graduates who are suitable for knowledge intensive tasks.

According to Brown, Integreon’s presence in the Philippines enhances the firm’s ability to seize opportunities in the Offshore Legal Services sector, which is expected to grow to nearly US$500 million; E-Discovery, which involves the process of securing electronic data for litigation purposes and which is expected to grow to US$3.4 billion within five years; as well as in Offshoring Research and Analytics in banking and financial services, which is projected to grow to US$620 million within five years.

Founded in 1998, Integreon is a pioneer in the KPO and LPO sectors, and was named last year as the world’s leading provider of Research and Analytics outsourcing for the second year running. It was also named the world’s leading provider of Legal Document outsourcing in the fourth annual “Black Book of Outsourcing,” which is the Brown Wilson Group’s prestigious annual survey of outsourcing vendors and advisors. (For more information about Integreon, visit www.integreon.com.)

LiveIt Solutions, Inc. is the holding company for Ayala Corporation’s investments in business process outsourcing. It owns significant stakes in eTelecare, Affinity Express, and Integreon.

Founded in 1834, Ayala Corporation is the oldest business house in the Philippines and one of the largest conglomerates in the country. Ayala and its listed subsidiaries have a combined market capitalization of approximately US$20 billion. z

From left to right: LiveIT CFO Ginaflor C. Oris; Integreon Country Head Erik Joseph Tabuena; Ayala Corp. Chairman/CEO Jaime Augusto Zobel de Ayala; Integreon President/CEO liam Brown; Integreon CFO /CAO Preeti Mehta; and liveIt CEO Fred Ayala.

Gurango Software’s Managing Director Honored as e-Champion

approval of the National Information Technology plan by the President of the Philippines.

Gurango Software Corporation (www.gurango.com) is a multinational software company that develops and distributes products for the Microsoft Dynamics ecosystem.

It operates its global product development and customer service “back-office” in the Philippines, with local sales and support provided by “front-office” subsidiaries in Asia, Australia, Africa, the Middle East, Western Europe, and North America. z

From left: Board of Investments Exec, Dir. Celeste Ilagan, Department of Trade and Industry Asst. Sec. Felicitas Agoncillo Reyes, Gurango Software Managing Dir. Tarcs Taruc, and DTI Senior Undersecretary Thomas Aquino

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JANUARY - MARCH 2008�0 BreakthroughsCompany News

Information technology services company LogicaCMG has been renamed Logica, but promises to provide the same high-quality service that has become synonymous with its business worldwide.

Indeed, its new corporate name and revitalized, modernized logo only reflect the company’s ultimate objective: to create a single brand across all its markets in its global network and keep a single set of values, systems, and processes, which is aligned with global initiatives to provide a single, recognizable identity for the company.

At the same time, the reborn Logica company will introduce a new set of values for its customers, employees,

and the company itself, anchored on three simple words: commitment, innovation, and openness.

Logica remains committed to working with its customers and to delivering on its promise of reliable service every time and all the time. In terms of innovation, the new Logica will bring only top-notch people and best-of-breed technologies globally to provide its clients world-class services, and come up with more creative ways to ensure that the company stays ahead of its competitors as a provider of new-generation technologies and solutions. The new Logica also commits itself to a more open and collaborative working environment with its customers, always keeping in mind their needs and wants in order to understand their business, and encouraging trust so that the company and its clients see each other as co-workers. Logica pledges as well

to seek best practices possible while providing the most outstanding service to its customers.

Locally, the transition to the new Logica took effect on February 27. As part of this aggressive push for its local operations, Albert Mitchell Locsin, a known BPO figure in the country, joined Logica on March 1 as its new Global Business Development Executive. He brings to the company a wealth of industry experience, having served as executive of various BPO firms and most recently as Executive Director for Industry Affairs of the Business Processing Association of the Philippines (BPA/P), the umbrella organization of all outsourcing companies in the Philippines.

Last year, LogicaCMG had only 36 employees. Today it has 220, and plans are afoot to increase manpower to about 1,500 before the end of the year or early next year. z

After attaining ISO 27001 re-certification for its technology services last May, Accenture Delivery Center in the Philippines recently received the same certification for Business Process Outsourcing (BPO).

The ISO 27001 certification, the new industry standard for information security management system (ISMS), was conferred by the British Standards Institute (BSI)-China. With this certification, Accenture guarantees confidentiality, integrity, and availability of the valuable information it manages for the company and on its clients’ behalf.

“Accenture takes pride in providing our global clients and company stakeholders the assurance of a comprehensive information security management system that ensures business continuity amid today’s threats,” said Beth Lui, Country Managing Director. “Passing the stringent requirements for ISO 27001 certification reinforces Accenture’s credibility as a leading global delivery services company for both IT and business processes and its commitment to provide the highest quality industry standards of services to our clients.”

An Information Security Management System (ISMS) is a systematic approach to managing and ensuring the security of critical company information. The certification encompasses people, processes, and IT systems. ISMS provides a set of management standard specifications on the types of security controls that an organization should implement to recognize and address security risks by establishing controlled procedures, policies, and best practices for information, personnel, network, and physical security.

BSI - China, one of the world’s leading certification bodies, recommended the certification of Accenture BPO to ISO 27001 standard last June, with the company subsequently passing the audit. The certification covers the non-voice processing deals of Accenture’s BPO organization in the Philippines, including the service delivery operations, client services organization, business operations organization, and shared support services.

Before this, Accenture’s BS7799 certification was upgraded to ISO27001 in November 2006. This Certification for IT covers, among others, High Performance Delivery, Delivery Performance Support, Client Account Groups, Client Services Organization, Centers of Excellence, and Capability Development. z

Accenture Philippines Receives ISO 27001 Stamp for Info Security

The Tawi-Tawi GK beneficiary is all smiles as she gives the key to ICT SVP for HR Asia-PacificJovy Llanes and ICT Exec. VP for Phil. Operations John langford.

ICT Partners With Gawad Kalinga When the first seven beneficiaries of Gawad Kalinga houses in Sitio Tawi-Tawi in in Barangay Sta. Lucia in Pasig City received the keys to their new homes recently, top executives of ICT Philippines, a provider of outsourced customer management and business process outsourcing solutions to global clients, were there to witness the event. In fact, Executive Vice President for Philippine Operations, John Langford, and Senior Vice President for HR-Asia Pacific, Jovy Llanes, led the ceremonial turnover of keys.

World Pacific, the premier recruitment process outsourcing firm in the call center and business process outsourcing (BPO) industry, has been praised by eTelecare, a Philippine-based customer service outsourcing company (partly owned by Ayala) listed both in the Nasdaq Stock Exchange and Philippine Stock Exchange.

World Pacific was awarded as having the “Best Yield Rate” among eTelecare’s recruitment vendors for 2007 during the Appreciation Night at eTelecare’s newest facility in Shaw.

This is the second time that World Pacific has been lauded by eTelecare. In 2006, World Pacific was given the “Excellent Endorser Award.”

This year, World Pacific is more committed to being a valued recruitment vendor to world-class firms such as eTelecare. Receiving the “Best Yield Rate Award” is a testament to World Pacific’s aim to continuously provide quality candidates to call centers and BPO firms. z

eTelecare Lauds World Pacific for the Second Time

LogicaCMG: Name Change and a New Global Business Dev’t Exec

Gawad Kalinga, which means “to give care” in English, is an organization focused on helping the problems of poverty. Through TATAG (“to build”), GK builds colorful, durable and secure homes for the poor. The program also provides other physical structures such as pathways and drainage systems, water and toilet facilities, schools, livelihood centers, and clinics. In some areas, other structures such as basketball courts and libraries are constructed as well once basic infrastructure needs are set up.

Inspired by the thought “Customer Service, Community Service In One,” ICT Philippines joined GK’s community of caretakers, which not only gives monetary help to build houses, but also extends sustained presence in the community and the implementation of GK programs. The partnership has an end goal of creating transformation from a caring to a sharing society, uplifted from poverty.

“ICT is committed to fulfill its part as a responsible corporate citizen,” said ICT Group, Philippines President Karen V. Batungbacal. “The process of identifying where to channel the company’s resources to give back to the community was extensive. But in the end, our partnering with GK to build homes and transform Sitio Tawi-Tawi into a better community seems the best fit for ICT.”

ICT employees from across all sites, namely RCBC, UnionBank, Marikina1 & 2, Shaw, and PBCom, supported the cause. Aside from holding fund-raising activities, ICT employees contributed their talents to the community. Those with teaching backgrounds, for instance, agreed to teach English to the children of Tawi-Tawi. Future activities such as medical missions will likewise be sponsored by employees who are nurses and dentists by education and background.

ICT has pledged to build 65 houses in Sitio Tawi-Tawi. Fund-raising activities that have helped see the initial seven houses into completion include a Timex watch sale, a Harry Potter book sale, and a Krispy Kreme doughnuts raffle promo. Donation boxes and voluntary salary deduction from ICT employees are also ongoing. z

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JANUARY - MARCH 2008 �1Breakthroughs Company News

Residents of Tarlac now have a better chance of landing a call center career, thanks to the partnership between their

province and Sitel Philippines.

The agreement is part of Sitel’s Community Training for Employment Program and was facilitated by Tarlac Governor Victor Yap. This capability-building program provides free contact-center training for Tarlac’s citizens, and aims to bridge the gap between the BPO industry’s standards and Tarlac’s manpower qualifications.

Training will be conducted at the Sitel Academy, located on the third floor of the Capitol Building in Tarlac City. This facility was provided rent-free by the local government, and is staffed by Sitel trainers and coaches. All equipment and training software are likewise provided by the company.

The training center caters to the needs of “near-hires,” or those who have gone though the process of applying at various call centers but need more training before they are qualified for hiring. These near-hires will undergo 30 days of instruction on contact center skills and culture, including modules on accent, vocabulary, and other aspects of communication.

Tarlac has been heavily investing in its manpower pool, targeting skills useful to the BPO industry specifically. The province is emerging as the new wave location for BPOs, and has been grooming its manpower pool to attract potential investors.

Sitel also plans to partner with two universities in the province under its Academic Partnership Program in the near future. This will entail the integration of Sitel training programs in the curriculums of these universities, preparing students for a career in the BPO industry. z

Sitel Sets Up Free Call Center Training Center in Tarlac

Sitel President Dan Reyes hands over the Mark of Service plaque of Sitel to Tarlac Governor Victor Yap. Also in the photo from L-R are Sitel Baguio Site Director Rod Spires, Capas Tarlac Mayor Reynaldo Catacutan, and Sitel Shared Services Director Bombit Consunji.

“The Philippines recorded tremendous growth at 28%, second to United States’ 40% and outpacing Latin America’s 22%,” said Jon Kaplan, TeleDevelopment Services’ Founder and President as he launched TeleDevelopment’s 2nd Annual Call Center Training Convention held last February 19-20 at the Renaissance Hotel in Makati.

For the second consecutive year, TeleDevelopment’s Conference provided an opportunity for training professionals from the Business Processing Outsourcing community to share best practices and engage with industry leaders as they map out strategies to sustain another year of intense growth.

Judy Rienke, the US Embassy’s Senior Commercial Officer concurred with this optimistic outlook, “The workforce in the BPO industry today is more than 400,000 and is expected to climb to a million by 2010. People retention and development translates into long-term growth for these BPO companies. I believe this country will succeed because its people are its success,” she said.

TeleDevelopment’s Conference focused on training trends for fueling industry growth in the near future under the title, “Tomorrow’s Trends in Today’s Training.” Three tracks examined practical approaches to call center learning through three lenses: need for improving peformance and assessing and identifying remedies for organizational performance gaps; techniques for delivery improvement in key areas such as relevance and efficiency; and results-oriented performance delivery and measurement.

Kaplan summarized the event saying, “As the industry expands, drawing upon increasing respect for the Philippines as a premier back-office destination and a greater acceptance of the offshore model, we must continue to develop innovative approaches to develop our people. This ranges from infusing innovation into the learning environment to coaxing greater efficiency from our trainers and training methodologies, to developing a platform for growth by creating an education infrastructure ready to sustain 100% growth over the next two years.” z

TeleDevelopment’s 2nd Annual Call Center Training Convention Explores Tomorrow’s Trends in Today’s Training

John Kaplan, President, TeleDevelopment Services, Inc.; John Forbes, American Chamber of Commerce; Bryce Hayes, COO, HTMT; Judy Reinke, Commercial Counsellor, US Commercial Service, The U.S. Embassy, Manila; Judy Whisenhunt, AVP-Finance & Admin, TeleDevelopment

Business Processing Association PHILIPPINES www.bpap.org

JANUARY - MARCH 2008�� BreakthroughsCompany News

Robinsons Land Corporation (RLC), the Philippines’ second largest office space/BPO/call center provider, is setting ground in key areas in Mandaluyong City, Paco, Manila, Cebu City, and Tacloban City to meet the growing requirements of the BPO industry. “Although our present Metro Manila sites located in the Makati and Ortigas Business Districts are fully leased out by a good number of reputable BPOs, there is still a strong demand from both existing and new players,” says architect Henry Yap, Business Unit General Manager, RLC Office Buildings Division.

RLC has leased out approximately 140,000 square meters to BPOs; an additional 130,000 square meters are currently being built or are in the final planning stages. Of the five existing RLC office buildings in the Makati and Ortigas CBDs, more than 80% of the office spaces are occupied by BPOs and call centers. This is in addition to the 40,000 square meters occupied by BPOs and call centers in Robinsons Malls in Novaliches, Mandaluyong City, Sta. Rosa, Bacolod City, and Lipa City.

RLC is ready to turn over Robinsons Cybergate Center (RCC) Tower 3 by first quarter 2008 to its tenants for a fit-out. “Accenture, a major tenant in RCC Towers 1 & 2 will be our anchor tenant at the newly-built Tower 3,” says Yap. “Negotiations are also in the final stages for the pre-lease of the remaining floors.” RCC, which is currently composed of three towers, is considered an

RLC Setting Ground in Four Areas to Meet BPO Demands

The Robinson Cybergate Center

ideal area for call center operations, because of its proximity to the Robinsons shopping mall.

Construction plans are also underway for the 4th Tower within the Pioneer Cybergate Complex.

RLC is also setting the trend by building the first BPO center in Manila inside Robinsons Otis Mall, which is located at Paz Guanzon Street, Paco. “Future locators will experience ease in recruitment since Paco is less than 30 minutes away from the University Belt where big universities like the University of the East, Far Eastern University, University of Sto. Tomas, Technological Institute of the Philippines, among others, are,” says Yap. “Paco is likewise a short distance from the Taft Ave area, where prestigious schools like the University of the Philippines, De La Salle University, St. Paul’s College, and others are located.”

The Otis BPO center will be from the third to the fifth floors with a net leasable area of approximately 10,000 square

meters, and with a fit-out capability for about 1,500 seats. Another project, Robinsons Cybergate Cebu, is expected

to be completed by last quarter of 2009. It will be built on top of a two-level shopping mall

with over 7,000 parking slots located in the basement. The mall’s retail component will be on the first and second floors where food and service outlets and a convenience store will operate. “The Office Floor/Call Center area will span five floors starting at the third level,” says Yap.

RLC’s Office Buildings Division’s future plans include developments in the former lot of Medical City along San Miguel Avenue, Mandaluyong City and a call center building right beside the Robinsons Tacloban Mall.

RLC’s growing portfolio covers various operations involving shopping centers, high-rise residential condominiums and town houses, mid-to-low-cost housing and subdivisions, office buildings, and hotels. z

ePLDT, the premier information and communications Technology company in the country, recently participated in e-Services Philippines’ 8th Outsourcing Conference and Exhibition.

Organized by CITEM and the Department of Trade and Industry, this annual event is Asia’s premiere IT and e-Services conference and exhibition that provides organizations and investors the opportunity to meet and build relationships with the Philippines’ leading ITES providers. [See Front Page Stories for related story – Ed.] Visitors of ePLDT, one of the main exhibitors of the event, learned more about its diverse portfolio of IT solutions and services that include data center operations and contact-center solutions. z

ePLDT in e-Services

2008

Vice President for Sales and Marketing Jessica Powell (seated, center) and ePlDT Assistant Vice President for IP Contact Center Services yohlie Jarlego (standing, 4th from right) with the ePlDT Sales and Marketing team.

Don’t miss the forest for the trees – this was the recurring theme at the Avaya Unified Communications Roadshow held on March 4, 2008 at the Makati Shangri-La Hotel.

Avaya, the recognized leader in mobile enterprise communications, drew the roadmap towards the future of optimized business communications. Diane Shariff, Avaya’s Director of Unified Communications Solutions, said, “We are living in exponential times.” New technologies and new demands have coupled to create a workforce that is more mobile than at any time in the past. Millions have become attuned to internet and text messaging. Blogging, corporate, and social networking have become routine activities for the mobile worker.

A response to the demands of this changing workplace is Unified Communications. According to Jojo Abundancia, Avaya’s Solutions Marketing Manager, “Unified

communications is an orchestration of communication and collaboration across locations, time, and medium to accelerate business results.” The building blocks of unified communications are: calling and conferencing management, presence, messaging management, contact and information management, and personal efficiency management. With these tools, the mobile worker can access voice mail, e-mail, and fax messages from one mailbox then dial one number to reach associates, whether at the office or elsewhere. It is a universal access to communication tools, information, and applications anytime, anywhere. Abundancia added, “It is communicating at the speed of business without breaking stride. It is not a trend but a solution.”

IP Telephony solutions from Avaya are reliable, efficient, and able to support new communication capabilities that drive innovation and profitability. The significance of IP telephony is in evidence throughout companies and various organizations. It is an important tool used in call centers wherein agents move seamlessly between the phone, instant messaging, and other

tools. IP telephony enables a traveling executive to turn his PC into a deskphone and then network cost-efficiently.

Moving towards optimized business communication and radically changing the traditional form of communications, particularly the telephone, Avaya also presented the one-X Deskphone Edition. It is the next generation IP telephone that delivers a new and unique communication experience for increased productivity. Abundancia shared, “We are linking multiple communication capabilities. The Avaya one-X provides the correct solution for specific users to meet specific needs.” Some of the features of the Avaya one-X include: an adaptable and intuitive interface, modular add-ons that can be included as they are needed, enhanced high-fidelity audio, and stylish and professional designs. It is intended to make every communications function, easier and faster to accomplish.

Avaya has helped thousands of companies and organizations develop effective strategies to successfully meet the challenges presented by a rapidly changing work environment. z

Avaya Roadshow Launches Unified Communications

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JANUARY - MARCH 2008 ��Breakthroughs Company News

The recent merger of global real estate services giant Jones Lang LaSalle and agency service firm Leechiu & Associates is a strategic partnership move that responds to the space requirements of the offshoring and outsourcing (O&O) industry.

“After the talent development challenge is the development of space, next-wave cities, and metropolitan areas,” said Business Processing Association of the Philippines (BPA/P) Chief Executive Officer Oscar Sañez during a press conference launching the merger of last March 4, 2008. He further described this merger as “a marriage in BPO space.”

“They did right in looking into the outsourcing and offshoring space,” the BPA/P CEO said. This is in view of the phenomenal growth of the sector in terms of revenues that surged nearly 50% to US$4.9 billion in 2007 from US$3.3 billion in 2006. The jobs produced by business process outsourcing (BPO) operations rose 30% to 300,000 from 230,000 during the same years.

Sañez sees the aggressive attitude of investors as further boosted by the kind of insights borne out of such partnerships.

The developments in the sector have indeed been encouraging for investors and did not escape the attention of Chris Fossick, Jones Lang LaSalle Managing Director for Southeast Asia.“It is the BPO that we are interested in,” Fossick said. “It has grown tremendously and this is where our clients are heavily involved in.”

Fossick said that the merger will provide a platform for the new company to expand and allow it “to be one market leader in BPO space and real estate services.”

David Leechiu, Country Head of the newly formed Jones Lang LaSalle Leechiu, predicts that revenues from the BPO industry will “rival the OFW (overseas Filipinos workers) money.” He added, “The O&O will blossom much more than what has been anticipated.”

Because of this predicted scenario, problems on rents have been anticipated and corresponding plans have been prepared to address the issue. Lindsay Orr, Chief Operating Officer of the company, puts his bets on call centers and finds this challenge as real.

“Makati rents are going up, but those in the provinces are still reasonable by regional standards,” he said. Orr pointed out that the lease in premier buildings in the country’s leading

Jones Lang Lasalle Merges With Leechiu & Associates

business district already reached an average of Php1,200 per square meter per month. “This is not even Grade A,“ the company’s COO said.

Next to Makati and Ortigas, however, Orr noted the potential of Quezon City to develop, particularly along the Commonwealth Avenue, North Triangle area, and West Avenue.

To ease the pressure on the National Capital region and the fringe areas in generating the required manpower to serve the global clients, the highly urbanized cities in Visayas and Mindanao are being prepared as the next-wave areas to augment the increasing international demand for O&O services.

In line with the goals of the O&O industry’s Roadmap 2010, the BPA/P enlisted the help of concerned government agencies during the first 100 days starting November 5, 2007. This is to prepare the so-called “E-ready cities” to host O&O services.

Sañez said that a partnership between BPA/P, CICT, and the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) Regional Operations Group had already been worked out. For its part, the BPA/P is tasked to gather the scorecards in evaluating the readiness and capacity of the cities to become the next wave areas. The CICT would help build the IT councils while the DTI Regional Operations Group would link with other government agencies in approving the scorecards. September 2008 is the target month to complete the inventory of companies and partner cities.

With all these developments, Fossick is optimistic of the bright future for the industry and the country. Confidently, he gave this pronouncement: “We believe that the Philippines will continue to grow. We believe that BPO will continue to grow. We believe that the Philippines will be the leader in international BPO.” z

Jones Lang Salle Leechiu executives: David Leechiu, Country Head; Lindsay Orr, Chief Operating Officer; Christopher Fossick, Managing Director, Southeast Asia