BPM sector taps academe to upgrade Phl talent pool

CEBU, Philippines - The Philippines’ computer and business process management industry has vowed to level up the nation’s pool of skilled professionals to be able to respond to the competitive global market.

To do this, the industry has partnered with the academe for the realization of the 21-unit Service Management Program course for students eyeing a career in information technology and business management.

The SMP, already recognized by the Commission on Higher Education, teaches necessary skills to students to have an entry-level position in the IT-BPM industry, said Jomari Mercado, the president and chief executive officer of Information Technology-Business Process Association of the Philippines.

The short course, he said, is the key to meet the growing demand for highly qualified employees.

In 2013, IBPAP said it had 685 teachers for the training and around 2,800 teachers were trained on Basic English Skills Training and Advanced English Pre-employment Training language tracks. It expected to have 20,000 students joining the course.

“We have 17 SMP participating state universities and colleges in the country and our end target is to have additional students and teachers to participate in the program,” Mercado said this during the two-day ICT/BPM Conference, as part of the Cebu Business Month celebration this June.

The association reported that the ICT-BPO sector’s revenues last year grew by 17percent to $15.5 billion, up from $13.2 billion in 2012. The industry’s workforce reached to 900,000 last year, with Cebu having about 100,000 workers.

A road map for the industry is eyeing to become a $25-billion industry and employ 1.3 million Filipinos by 2016 in the IT-BPO and global in-house centers (GICs).

The CEO said the Philippines remains to be the companies’ top choice for voice and non-voice services.

SMP in the K-12

The change of the country’s educational landscape has also pushed IBPAP to integrate the SMP into the K-12 system as a technical vocational course specifically intented for senior high school students.

Through this, the IBPAP executive said students enrolled in the alternative learning system  of the government can find a stable career in the IT-BPM sector, adding that 30percent of HS graduates generally cannot continue a college education because of lack of money.

“How about this 30 percent of senior high school students?” he asked. “We also need to give them opportunities.”

The 2012-2016 road map for the Philippine IT-BPM has said key initiatives must be done to improve talent, branding, research and enable the sector ecosystem and maintain the growth and drive of the industry as well.

“We are working closely with the Congress on bills affecting the industry,” he noted.

Despite the seemingly high momentum, Mercado shared some challenges that surrounds the industry.

One of those is the decrease of experienced middle managers or those lower executives and employees who manage supervisors overseeing the daily operations.

“The lack of middle management, that remains to be our biggest challenge,” he said, noting that some middle skilled managers may be tempted to go to other countries or work with other industries. “That will always be something we need to think about.”

Producing workers with niche skills is another critical challenge as more and more companies and clients are looking for specific and specialized skills from the industry: “Specialized skills that are needed for competencies. We also need to work on that.”

To address this, he said the industry has linked with the Department of Science and Technology-Information and Communications Technology Office to have  ICT training program for areas of specialization in ICT and raise the size and employability rate of the talent pool.

Another is the growth of the tourism industry which employs workers with good communication skills and service culture, the very same talents needed in the IT-BPM, he said.

Meanwhile, he emphasized that in the Southeast Asia region, the Philipinnes is number one in the BPM sector which he said is a very big advantage for the ASEAN economic integration in 2015. (FREEMAN)