There is still hope

Time sure flies. I have been writing this column for more than five years. In my past columns, I reminded my readers that there are lots of opportunities out there but the window may close soon. Today, that window is still there although I don’t believe it will be there for long. Then again with the way our government is going (or not going), exporters of goods and services such as BPO (business process outsourcing) service providers will continue to have their cost lowered in dollar terms (as the peso weakens) and enjoy dollar revenue.

In the same period of time, India has pole-vaulted over the Philippines in terms of programming, call center and other BPO services. It has convinced companies like GE and Microsoft to build their centers of competence there. However, some of its efforts have backfired as its conflict with Pakistan encouraged its customers to look for back-up operations. (The Philippines was lucky to be a beneficiary of that hedge.) Some of Mumbai’s infrastructure is still not world-class and some Indian tech support does not have the warmth of a Filipino CSR (customer service rep). Dell pulled out of India and is now in the process of building its Philippine tech support center.

There is still hope. In the last US presidential elections, John Kerry (from the same party of the other candidate who invented the Internet; by the way, that guy was elected an Apple director in 2003) raised the red flag on offshoring and how it would impact employment in the US. He should have read the position paper jointly signed last year by the biggest lobby groups in health care BPO, including the American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA), California Health Information Association (CHIA), American Association for Medical Transcription (AAMT), and Medical Transcription Industry Alliance (MTIA). (See http://library.ahima.org/xpedio/groups/public/documents/ahima/pub_bok1_022610.html)

The group’s position was that there are currently 100,000 workers in the health care BPO field and another 100,000 will be needed by the end of this decade. If the US government shuts down offshoring, the industry would not be able to address the disruption to the system which would increase the time for patient care, delay payment processing and (my favorite) increase the cost of health care processing and therefore, health care cost for the ordinary US citizen. Translation: Just do it!

Steve Jobs. Wilson Lee Flores, my fellow columnist, recently wrote about Steve Jobs’ commencement address. I was so inspired that I thought my readers should have the link to share Jobs’ words. (See http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2005/june15/jobs-061505.html) Jobs dropped out of college, was fired from the company he founded and almost died of cancer. Today he is healthy, the Apple iPod is the hottest consumer electronic product in a decade, and Pixar is the best computer animator in the world. His lesson is to live each day as if it was your last (get your priority straight), focus on your passion, and trust in the invisible hand (Jobs referred to destiny, karma or gut; I would translate that to trust in Christ, the Big Guy up there!).

My Two Cents: There are only 525,600 minutes in a year (from the movie Rent). We should live our lives as if we have no tomorrow, seize the day and be productive (or play tennis)! And if you have kids, spend more time with them. Just imagine you spend only two hours each weekday and five hours each weekend-day. That means you only spend 20 hours a week with your family, which means you spend twice as much time with your boss. (Can you hug your boss like your kids and your wife? Well, some of my friends hug their secretaries but that is a different story.) They will have to live their lives soon enough! (Sorry got "senti" there; my daughter just turned 15. Happy birthday, Chels!)

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Dickson Co is the CFO (C is for Cheap) for Dfnn, Intelligent Wave Philippines and HatchAsia.com. For comments or suggestions, e-mail [email protected].