ECOP launches IT standards training

The secret to breaking into Europe’s lucrative but hard-to-penetrate information technology market is simple: play by their rules.

Filipino IT companies disco-vered this, and learned better ways to access the European Union’s rich IT market, in the Philippines’ first seminar on European quality standards.

The European Foundation Quality Management (EFQM) Training Program was attended by over 20 managers from IT companies such as MISNet Inc., Radix Systems Services Corp., Systema Computer Solutions Corp., WebWorks OS Inc., and Zimplizity Solutions Corp.

The program, organized by the European Chamber of Commerce of the Philippines (ECCP), sought to improve the understanding of Filipino IT companies on European quality standards and assess their readiness to adopt the EFQM model.

EFQM was created in 1988 to promote world-class approaches to the management of European organizations that would lead to sustainable excellence.

Jokin Garatea and Oihana Arrieta, EFQM experts from the Association of IT Technologies of the Basque country in Spain (GAIA), conducted the EFQM course. They guided participants in interpreting the EFQM Excellence Model and how to put it into practice.

Gerry Constantino, ComQuaL project manager, described EFQM as the "passport" that will open the EU market to Filipino IT firms.

"With the European outsourcing market growing fast, local IT companies are convinced that to succeed in doing business in the EU IT market, they must play by EU rules and expectations as far as quality and IT security are concerned," he said.

"For this reason, these IT companies participated in an ECCP project co-financed by the European Commission that aims to train local IT companies in the EFQM Business Excellence Model," he added.

Constantino said local IT companies are now focusing their attention on the EU after successfully doing business in other foreign markets.

European IT firms are also showing an increasing interest in outsourcing business processes to enhance their global competitiveness.

The EU’s lucrative IT market is prompting local IT companies to work on developing an understan-ding of European best practices, especially in the IT business, in order to be ready for partnership.

Research firm IDC estimated that European businesses out-sourced $198 billion in 2004, most of this total going to business process outsourcing (BPO).

The ECCP provides training on EFQM as well as Tick-IT and IT security. It also provides business facilitation services to local IT companies in Europe through the network of the European IT Service Center, BITKOM and GAIA.

A second group of local IT companies will be selected for the 2006 EFQM Training Program. Interested parties can e-mail [email protected].