Walk the talk on outsourcing

All the hype we are hearing today on how outsourcing will employ millions of jobless Pinoys and earn billions in forex for the country is likely to disappoint us all. Our problem is, we have a government that talks a lot but is a couch potato in terms of walking the talk.

For instance, there is this press release from NEDA that in so many words says it is certain the country would ride the outsourcing boom. NEDA Chief Romulo Neri, the statement said, was very upbeat about the business process outsourcing industry’s prospects and encouraged investors to take advantage of the country’s educated and English-proficient workforce.

Neri says the Philippines should aim to capture 10 percent of the medical transcription market and improve on its current 1 percent share. He cited the report of global consultancy firm McKinsey that the US still lacks about 80,000 medical transcriptionists.

I just returned from a trip that took me to Silicon Valley, which gave me the chance to touch base with an old friend who was one of the early investors in a medical transcription operation here. This friend of mine, who knew Neri from college days at the UP College of Business Administration, wanted me to ask his former schoolmate this one basic question: where are those so called educated and English-proficient workforce he is talking about.

As a pioneer, he is disappointed that the early gains in the business proved unsustainable for the simple reason that there are not enough educated and English-proficient workers to take on the jobs . As I reported in an earlier column, his company gave up a couple of big accounts due to manpower lack.

Yet, this administration continues to market our supposed capability to take on as much business as we can convince to move to the country even if we do not have enough qualified manpower for it. Paano ito? Bahala na lang? I think this is the fastest way of giving our country a black eye that would make it more difficult to win business later on.

The NEDA press release proudly proclaims that "according to data from the Board of Investments, Business Process Association of the Philippines, and Commission on Information, Communication and Technology, around P12 billion is expected to be invested in call centers and other outsourcing services in 2006, which is estimated to translate to US$3.8 billion in revenues and an additional 102,520 jobs this year." Under normal circumstances, this should be very good news. But given the reality on the ground, it is certain that we are about to have very disappointed investors on our hands.

There is no doubt that the market for BPO is very large and should prove to be profitable. Ayala Corp. and First Pacific Co., two large local conglomerates have moved to take equity stakes in large independent global business process outsourcing (BPO) providers.

The Ayala holding firm purchased an 11-percent stake in Scottsdale, Arizona-based eTelecare Global Solutions Inc. worth P800 million. ePLDT Inc., has purchased SPi Technologies Inc., a business process outsourcing (BPO) company for $135.34 million in cash. ePLDT also assumed a $7-million debt SPi Technologies owes to previous shareholder SPi Tech L.P, and it advanced $15.43 million for the full payment of SPi Technologies’ debt with DBS Bank Singapore.

Now that the local big guns are in the business, they will most likely attract the limited number of qualified manpower to join them and thereafter, dry up the manpower pool for the rest of the industry. Once this happens, it would be the beginning of the end. To some extent, India has started to suffer the same problem of shortage of qualified manpower, which explains why the Indians are also invested in BPO operations here.

For our government to walk its talk, we must see a comprehensive program put in place that will do emergency mass training of our college graduates who are unable to meet the hiring criteria of the BPO operators. This training program should enable our work force to speak and understand English like a native speaker. Unless this first step is undertaken, all the talk about riding the outsourcing boom will prove to be nothing more than hot air.

In other words, it is not enough for Mr. Neri and Mr. Favila too, to make positive noises about BPO as if the business is just there for the asking. They must do their homework first and make sure we have what it takes to compete in these businesses. At the top of their "to do" list is massive manpower training. Without that, we can forget ever winning enough market share to really matter.

I agree with them that expanding our share of the market is of vital importance to our economy. Aside from investments, revenues, and employment, the BPO sector is also spurring the growth of other sectors, such as the office property sector and 24-hour food and retail establishments. These industries will also employ a lot of people, those who are not as well educated and would otherwise be at the fringes of the economy.

Less talk and more focused action are definitely called for. Based on what we know of our government however, that seems too much to expect.

Nurses

The other forex earner government should protect by assuring quality is nursing. The recent mass resignation of health experts from a CHED technical committee on nursing education is definitely alarming. This is even more so because the reason cited for the resignation is political interference in their work.

The members, led by Marilyn Lorenzo, director of the University of the Philippines’ Institute of Health Policy and Development, said CHED had failed to act on their recommendations to upgrade the quality of nursing education and uphold the integrity of the nursing profession. The members of the technical committee, who help CHED uphold nursing standards, believe the commission has "buckled down to pressure from vested political and economic interests, sacrificing quality for mediocrity and business interests."

The strong demand for Filipino nurses abroad has resulted in nursing schools sprouting like mushrooms after the rain. It is almost as if it was enough for an aspiring nurse to get a diploma and never mind that these schools failed to provide a proper education… not even enough to pass local licensing examinations.

Less than half of those who take our local nursing board exams pass… what more foreign tests? Yet, the current CHED chief admits he is opposing the closure of schools with a passing rate of 30 percent or less in government licensure exams. Pity the parents who shell out good money for tuition in the hope of having a child earn it back by working abroad or even being able to work here at home. It is government’s duty to make sure they get value for hard earned money.

The health experts in the CHED technical committee wanted to impose stricter quality standards on nursing schools but the politicians and the bureaucrats won’t let them. In fact, some months ago, the Chairman of CHED, a respected Dominican educator, resigned when Malacañang overruled him with regard to a politically connected owner of a diploma mill who wanted to put up a nursing school.

Other than the low passing rate in the licensing exam, there are other tell tale signs of deterioration in our nursing education. With about 100,000 new nurses graduated by close to 500 nursing schools last year, one wonders if there are enough teachers and available hospital facilities available to assure proper training. Actually, we are told that most nursing schools have trouble getting a full time dean so that some schools share a dean. But the situation can only get worse because the deans themselves are choosing to migrate.

All these diploma mills mass producing nurses are doing the country a disservice. Ill-trained nurses damage our reputation and because we are not the only country that is sending nurses abroad, the comparison can be very revealing. Soon, our government’s hopes to use these nurses to bring home the dollars may no longer be viable, all because this same government allowed greedy diploma mill owners to damage our brand.

Nothing less than a presidential declaration of support for the resigned technical committee members for nursing education will do. This means, no more interference or granting of favors to political supporters to allow diploma mills to operate. This is the only right thing to do.

Laughter

This one’s from Chito Santos.

I finally did it, one friend said to another, I finally got my boss to laugh.

How did you do it?

I asked him for a raise.

Boo Chanco’s e-mail address is [email protected]