8 BreakThroughs July—September 2012 –Vol. 6 No. 2
BPAP Updates
Business Processing Association PHILIPPINES / www.bpap.org
Work Abroad, Live Here—the Missing Piece WE’RE into the second year of Road Map 2016 and elsewhere in this publication you’ll find stories of the tremendous effort the BPAP team, member volunteers, and partners have made to keep us on track to reach our accelerated targets, principally, building a workforce of 1.3 million by 2016. There is one aspect of the talent development and recruitment effort that has seemingly been neglected, that is, the part of the program that educates the public on the benefits of careers in IT-BPOs and global in-house centers (GICs). Such a career marketing program would address negative or limited misconceptions that appear in the media and that are always asked in forums from persons who have no or limited direct experience of the industry but have the potential to influence applicants. As far back as Road Map 2010, it was known that increasing the percentage of qualified persons willing to work for the
industry would be a low-lying fruit that had the potential to rapidly expand the workforce. Using GCAT, we know that 20% of students are qualified to work in the industry. And we know that only 5% to 8% of all applicants qualify without additional training in basic competencies. This means that only 30% of all qualified students are applying for work in our industry. If we can increase the percent of qualified applicants willing to work in the industry from 30% to 50%, we could increase the direct hiring rate to at least 10%. If we could couple this with an increase in the suitability of applicants through assessment and training (GCAT, ITWSP, SMP, AdEPT, BEST, etc.) from 20% to 30%, the direct hiring rate could be as high as 15%—about double the current rate. This is the rate we will need to reach if we are to attain our 2016 employment target. This year, BPAP rolled out one of its central tools for career education and
we called it WorkAbroadLiveHere.com. This website, now in its pilot phase, will in the coming months be a repository for information on the great careers that can be had in our industry including content on why and how potential employees can join our workforce. It will also be a venue for companies to post job opportunities and for applicants to post résumés and will serve as the landing site for visitors directed to it using social media marketing (a Work Abroad, Live Here Facebook page went live simultaneously with the website). I urge all members to visit the site and the Facebook page and to stay tuned to Work Abroad, Live Here! Note: Since May this year, the Marketing and Research Units of BPAP have been combined into a single unit, which I lead with the support of marketing and research associate Indu Badlani (indubadlani@bpap.org). Please contact us for any queries on marketing and research.
Let’s Ta lk BPO IF anyone asked me during the early part of 2010 what a BPO is, I would have given them a blank stare and a tentative reply of “it’s a call center, right?” Now, more than two years and two months since moving to this incredibly dynamic industry, I not only know what AHT, RFP, EOD, and a handful of other BPO terminologies mean, I have also managed to successfully transition from being an industry “newbie” to a “tenured” member of the BPO workforce. And if there’s one thing I can say about our industry, it is that it’s in a class all by itself. I guess this is the reason why the Philippine government is more flexible
when it comes to our industry. Since we admittedly use a different business model as compared to more “traditional” companies, and we are the fastest growing sector (and the only bright spot, according to some government insiders) in the Philippine economy, our government is more willing to understand our distinctive genetic make-up and make some allowances for our idiosyncrasies, for which we are eternally grateful. But no matter how different we may be, or how atypical our operations and processes are, we make it work. As Congressman Freddie Tinga said at the recent BPAP GMAM, “You guys get it!”
And get it we intend to continue doing. To ensure that the industry will continue to “get it,” a group of gungho lawyers and wannabe lawyers from BPAP’s member companies formed the Legislative Committee some years ago. Full of passion and resolve to ensure that the Philippines maintains its attractive investment-friendly business environment, the pioneering members of the LegCom has been willingly volunteering their time and expertise for quite some time now, in the process scoring some major victories for the benefit of the industry in the policymaking front. Recognizing, however, that as the
GIGI VIRATA BPAP Senior Executive Director
Tonette Consuelo, BPAP Research Manager, 1969–2012 I am saddened to announce the death on Tuesday, September 25, 2012, of Tonette Consuelo, BPAP’s Research Manager, after a brief illness. Tonette joined BPAP in 2007 as Research Consultant and has in the last 5 years been the association’s gatekeeper of industry information and data. She maintained our Next Wave Cities scorecard and industry database.
Many of you have been helped by Tonette in your data requirements and will be able to confirm that she was exemplary in her professional, quick, and pleasant response to the hundreds of requests she received each year. Tonette was my “secret weapon” as she worked behind the scenes and mostly from home but could also be relied on to ably represent the industry at important meetings, events, and conferences. She will be much missed. My thanks to members and friends who sent kind words, prayers, flowers, and other expressions of sympathy and appreciation for the many positive experiences they have had with Tonette.
GENNY MARCIAL BPAP Executive Director for External Affairs
IT-BPO industry grows, so will the challenges that will continue to come our way. To make sure that all bases will continue to be covered policy-wise, the group decided to hold its first elections last August 23. The resulting line-up of elected officers came as no surprise as the familiar faces have been at the forefront of LegCom’s initiatives since the group’s inception.
Get to Know Your LegCom Chosen to steer the Legislative Committee to even greater heights are – Chairman: Martin Crisostomo, Governmental Programs Executive, IBM Philippines
Vice Chair – Labor: Kenneth Chua, Head, Employment Practice Group and Services Industry Group, Quisumbing Torres Vice Chair – Tax: Benedicta DuBaladad, Managing Partner and CEO, Du-Baladad & Associates (BDB Law) Vice Chair – I.T. Policy: Raul Cortez, Legal and Corporate Affairs Director, Microsoft Philippines, Inc. Vice Chair – Government Relations: Celeste Ilagan, VP for Marketing and External Affairs, SPi Global Vice Chair – Special Concerns: Kiko Victoria, Genpact Vice Chair – International Relations: Leleen Juarez, Medicall
From left: Martin Crisostomo, Kenneth Chua, Benedicta Du-Baladad, Raul Cortez, Celeste Ilagan, Kiko Victoria, and Leleen Juarez
Service Management Program—gearing up for 2016
PENNY BONGATO BPAP Executive Director for Talent Development
THE Memorandum of Cooperation with CHED continues to aid us in our goal to employ 1.3 million direct employees in the BPO industry by the year 2016. It paved the way for the Service Management Program to be rolled out in schools for students to learn firsthand about the industry and to train more teachers in the curriculum relevant to the BPO industry. In February this year, the Service Management Program was approved by CHED as a minor in business courses. It rolled out this school year in three universities—Jose Rizal University, Lyceum of the Philippines–Laguna and University of Makati. Asia Pacific College is also offering it this year as part of their curriculum in
grade 11 paving the way for secondary students to be employable as soon as they graduate. Aside from Asia Pacific College, Don Bosco College and Manila Times College have also signed up to include the curriculum in their grade 11 or grade 12 programs next school year. This pilot program has, collectively, 19 industry practitioners currently teaching the semester’s subjects, Fundamentals of BPO 101 and Service Culture, to 250 students. To enable the industry practitioner to move on to other colleges and universities and enable the program to flourish, school faculty members sit in and shadow each lesson to familiarize themselves with the teaching methods needed to properly teach the subject matter.
As part of our effort to continually improve systems and teaching methods and curriculum, we are in dialogue with our students, industry practitioner teachers and school faculty. This will enable us to further enhance our curriculum and, as a result, the future members of our industry. Next semester will see the roll out of Fundamentals of BPO 102 where more industry practitioners are needed to teach their students the operations side of the industry. Project management, Six Sigma, regression analysis and other related subjects are just some of the topics covered in this subject where experts are needed to share their knowledge with our partner schools
and teachers. Another subject to be offered in the second semester is Business Communication. Just this past August, CHED also approved the inclusion of the Service Management Program in IT courses. This act will prepare IT graduates to not only act as agents but also have fundamental knowledge for management positions. To help us ramp up our numbers and disseminate our program, teacher training is essential. We continue to work with CHED to train faculty from 13 state universities and colleges nationwide to prepare them to teach the Service Management Program in their respective areas by school year 2013. We are also working with DOST’s
Information and Communications Technology Office and its Science Education Institute to train more teachers to teach the Service Management Program using the method we find most effective in teaching our curriculum. We applaud those industry practitioners who are giving their time and effort to push our industry forward by being involved in teaching the pilot program to both students and faculty. We are still in need of more volunteers to help teach in their fields of expertise. For further information on how you or your company can help push talent development forward, please feel free to get in touch with me or email me at pennybongato@bpap.org.