THE BUSINESS Processing Association of the Philippines (BPA/P) will propose to the Commission on Higher Education (CHEd) the inclusion of a service management core subject in college.

The proposal comes as BPA/P and CHEd signed a memorandum of cooperation yesterday at Eastwood City, Libis to start a five-year partnership to revise college curricula, develop a training program for teachers and an assessment tool to determine a graduate’s readiness to enter the information technology (IT) and business process outsourcing (BPO) industries.

Noting the difficulty in finding qualified individuals to fill job openings in the industry, the group underscored human resource development as key to achieving the IT-BPO medium-term road map goals of generating $25 billion in annual export sales and creating 4.5 million jobs — 1.3 million directly and 3.2 million indirectly — by 2016.

“We believe that our partnership with CHEd will give a big boost to our efforts to tackle our number one challenge of improving the quantity and quality of our talent supply,” BPA/P Chairman Alfredo I. Ayala said on the sidelines of the memorandum signing.

“We do need help in developing human capital in the Philippines. At first, I was uneasy about pushing our college graduates to work in the BPO industry. But when I was introduced by the association to the broad nature of the BPO industry, I began to learn about opportunities the industry presents to our graduates in various fields,” CHEd Chairperson Patricia B. Licuanan told reporters.

“CHEd is throwing its full support behind the IT-BPO industry because we see this as a key long-term solution toward job creation and poverty alleviation. We are expecting that, through this collaboration, we can now give significantly more options to our future graduates so that they do not have to leave the country in order to win high-paying jobs where they can learn world-class skills.”

Under BPA/P’s proposal, colleges can incorporate a “BPO 101” in their core curriculum for all students, regardless of their specialization.

On top of this introductory subject, students can also make service management their minor course, said Martin Antonio S. Crisostomo, BPA/P external affairs executive director. Such students will be schooled in BPO culture, problem solving and other analytical skills, he added.

Source: BWorld Online

The Innovation Group is pleased to report two important new contracts in Australia — Contracts involve both the Group’s Software and BPO capabilities -

The Innovation Group plc (LSE: TIG.L), is pleased to announce that it has signed two new contracts in Australia, utilising the Group’s Business Process Outsourcing (“BPO”) and Software capabilities.

The first contract is a three-year software license agreement with one of Australia’s best known mid tier Property and Casualty Insurers. Under the terms of the agreement, the insurer will utilise the Group’s Innovation Insurer Suite software to implement multiple new lines of business and will also migrate a number of existing legacy systems on to the Insurer platform. This contract is the Group’s first sale of its entire Insurer Suite offering, which includes Claims, Analytics and Policy, also making it the first sale of the new Insurer Policy product. The agreement is expected to generate approximately AU$7.0m (£4.4m) in revenue over its three year period.

The second contract is a three-year software license and BPO agreement with the Australian arm of a global insurance company headquartered in the United States. As part of its agreement with this insurer, the Group will provide its Innovation Insurer Policy software to the insurer’s Australian arm via Software as a Service (“SaaS”) model, as well as hosting the software and providing application support. The Group will also provide the insurer’s Australian arm with outsourced services to support the administration of certain policy types sold through the insurer’s Australian distribution network. This contract, the first to combine Innovation’s software and BPO capabilities, is expected to generate between AU$2.0m and AU$4.8m (£1.25m and £3.0m) in Group revenue over its term, dependent on the volume of policies sold.

Welcoming both deals Andy Roberts, Chief Executive Officer of The Innovation Group added:

“This is excellent progress for us in Australia and for our Group as a whole. These successes validate our investment in the Insurer software platform, which is winning over new customers with its flexibility, capacity and speed of implementation. I am also pleased to unveil further evidence of our ability to win business that involves both of our key service lines. It is this combination of sophisticated software and highly capable service teams which, I believe, sets The Innovation Group squarely apart from its peers.”

Source: 4-Traders.com

2,300 employees from the UK, the US, China, Finland and India transferring from Nokia to Accenture.

IT consulting company Accenture and Finnish mobile maker Nokia have closed the agreement for Nokia to outsource Symbian software development and support activities to Accenture.

The agreement was originally announced on 22 June 2011, after Nokia announced that it will outsource its Symbian OS development along with some emplyees to Accenture.

With the closure of the agreemet, Accenture will provide Symbian-based software development and support services to Nokia until 2016 and also become the preferred supplier for Nokia in its transition to Windows Phone, said Accenture.

Accenture said under the agreement, approximately 2,300 employees from China, Finland, India, the United Kingdom and the United States are transferring from Nokia to Accenture.

Accenture Communications, Media & Technology operating group chief executive Marty Cole said Accenture is focused on growing their business in mobility and embedded software.

“We look forward to supporting Nokia in the execution of its strategy,” said Cole.

Accenture said it works with Avanade, a technology service company and focuses on Microsoft technologies, to provide further services to Nokia.

Source: Outsourcing BPO

PRESS RELEASE: Logica extends contract with Victorian Cytology Service

Logica Australia has announced that it has signed an extension to its contract with the Victorian Cytology Service (VCS) and will continue to provide support and enhancement work for the National Human Papilloma Virus Vaccination Program Register (NHVPR) on behalf of the Department of Health and Ageing (DoHA).

This three year and sevenmonth extension continues the partnership between Logica and VCS thatstarted three years ago when VCS was awarded the contract to build and run the register on behalf of DoHA. Under the agreement, Logica will continue to provide application hosting and management services.

The NHVPR system facilitates the capturing of consumer, provider and associated immunisation data for an initiative managed by the DoHA. This initiative provides ongoing immunisation against the Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) for school aged females.

Optus will supply Sydney Water with a range of fixed, mobile and managed telecoms services

By Hafizah Osman

Telco service provider, Optus Business, has signed a four-year managed services contract worth nearly $30 million to deliver whole-of-business telecommunications services to Australia’s largest urban water utility, Sydney Water.

The contract merges the telecommunication services delivery to Sydney Water from a multi-supplier to single supplier model.

Under the agreement, Optus will supply Sydney Water with a range of fixed, mobile and managed services.

This includes fixed and mobile voice and data carriage, Optus Evolve network connectivity for 67 Sydney Water sites, local and wide area network management, in-bound voice services to support contact centres and service management and maintenance.

The preliminary contract term is four years, with a condition to lengthen it for a further four years.
Systems integrator, Dimension Data, will be partnering with the companies to provide certain service components.

Optus Business managing director, Rob Parcell, said the collaboration with Sydney Water adds to its track record of offering outsourced and managed telecommunications services to enterprise and government.

“This is a strategic partnership that leverages our Optus Evolve and mobile networks to help Sydney Water deliver operational efficiencies,” he said.

Source: Arnnet

By Katlene Cacho

THE Australian government wants to strengthen its partnership with local business chambers. Top officials are encouraging Cebuano exporters to take advantage of free trade agreements (FTA) to boost trade between the two countries.

Australian Ambassador Rod Smith said they have been considering Cebu as one of their potential business partners because of its thriving economy, which is buoyed by the growth of the city’s manufacturing and outsourcing sectors.

“Australia and the Philippines have a long-standing trade relationship. We want to strengthen it and we are capitalizing our efforts in Cebu and the rest of the Visayan region,” Smith said in a recent interview.

Smith said Australia’s interest in the country is mainly in mining, business process outsourcing, infrastructure and tourism.

Smith said there is “great promise” of an increased trade partnership with Australia and the Philippines with the Asean-Australia-New Zealand Free Trade Agreement (AANZFTA) going into effect last year.

Less than 3 percent

Smith reported that of the $90 billion in trade between Asean and Australia, the Philippines accounts for less than three percent or $2.5 billion.

Last year, two-way merchandise trade between Australia and the Philippines was valued at P60 billion. Major Australian merchandise exports to the country include copper ores and concentrate, medicine, copper and milk and cream.

Philippine exports were electrical machinery and parts, radio broadcast receivers, telecommunications equipment and parts.

The two-way trade in services between the two countries last year is valued at P35.28 billion, with the Philippines recording a surplus of P18.36 billion to an import of P17.12 billion from Australia.

Australia’s top service exports to the country are education-related and personal travel. The Philippines’ top exports were personal and business-related travel.

The AANZFTA is Australia’s largest FTA. It eliminates about 96 percent tariff on the country’s exports to Australia. “The importance of the agreement is that it gives Philippines the competitive position to do trade in our country,” Smith said.

He also advised exporters to look beyond traditional markets and consider Australia’s large economy as destination of the country’s exports. For Cebu, Smith said they are interested in the furniture and food processing sectors.

“We don’t only cater to finished products but we also export intermediary services.

The challenge for exporters is to make use of the Australian export-driven country, for them to get involved in the supply chain of the global market,” Smith said. “We really hope to bring more Cebu products to Australia.”

Seminars

Ross Bray, senior trade and investment commissioner for Philippines and Micronesia of the Australian Trade Commission said they have partnered with the Department of Trade and Industry in conducting trade and investment seminars for exporters.

He said that it is important for an investor to know Australian culture.
Apart from increasing trade, Australia is also promoting its country as an ideal destination for education.

Bray said Philippines is one of the country’s major recipients of scholarship grants.

He said studying in Australia would give Filipinos instant connection with other foreign students who could be future business partners.
Over 617,000 international students studied in Australia last year. The students came from China, India, Korea, Thailand and Vietnam.

Last year, over 4,800 Filipinos studied in Australia.

“Aside from the quality of education, Filipinos study there because of its proximity to the Philippines and both countries have similar time zones,” Bray said.

Published in the Sun.Star Cebu newspaper

Formation of consortium in the industry is not a new phenomenon. You often come across individuals, companies, organisations or governments (or any combination of these entities) making an association to participate in a common activity. In the process they pool their resources for achieving a common goal. That’s the idea of consortium. It seems to have now caught the fancy of the Indian Business process outsourcing (BPO) industry.

In the BPO industry, the era of simple solutions is over. Simple solutions means merely replicating inefficient business processes of an organisation by some other party at lower price points. There is no analytical, strategic and customised approach involved in those solutions. But now there is a growing demand for value added BPO services. Clients are moving away from their traditional focus on cost savings. They want to know the breadth and depth of the services a vendor has to offer. Also they look for the credibility, security certifications and service standards.

There are only a few large players like TCS , Infosys and Wipro which meet these criteria. This helps them win larger deals. But when it comes to small or mid-sized vendors, few make the cut. In fact sometimes even the larger players need to look expertise outside the organisation.

And there arises the idea of the formation of consortium in BPO industry. This brings in a larger geographical presence, credibility and a niche expertise all together. Also the arrangement serves well in case of larger projects where higher equity investments are required. As most of the times smaller firms specialise in a niche area they tend to remain undercapitalised. Hence the consortium structure suits them.

Big players in this business have already started joining hands with small niche players for their expertise. For example, Infosys BPO has formed a partnership with American insurance institutes to expand the company’s insurance vertical. According to Infosys BPO’s statement, the consortium between them and the American Institute for Chartered Property Casualty Underwriter and the Insurance Institute of America will enrich Infosys BPO’s domain expertise. Also that will help learning and development of Infosys BPO’s employees.

Other mid-sized and smaller players are also in the race. The consortium of HCL Infosystems, Accor Services and Virgo Softech has bagged a contract from the Government of Madhya Pradesh (MP) to set up food coupon-based targeted public distribution system (TPDS) in the state. Patni has made bids for some deals in a consortium to have a local language partner or a platform vendor to provide internet-based solutions. Aegis has been providing customer lifecycle management (CLM) services for a healthcare client with a help of a consortium of service providers in the Americas.

There is a definite advantage of forming consortium as it brings synergies in many ways. But this also throws up a lot of challenges. Who will lead and manage the synergies? Who will assume the risk, liabilities and service level agreement (SLA) commitments? These kinds of questions start arising. After all these, it becomes difficult to get synergy at operational level due to overlap of services, different approaches to the client delivery of different partners etc.

Despite all the problems, the idea of forming a consortium of small and mid-sized BPO companies is being considered for winning big orders. It is now the need of the hour. Just being a small niche player or sometimes even a larger player, who provides plain vanilla BPO services, does not help these days.

This kind of consortium formation also gives clients more options. Earlier clients used to choose different vendors themselves for their different requirements on the best of the breed basis. Now they can go for a big player or a consortium for their bigger projects.

Good days for big players seem to be getting over in BPO industry. Now big deals are not restricted to big players alone. Consortia of mid-sized & small BPO firms are going to give them a run for their money.

Source: EquityMaster.com

Philippines BPO industry urged to develop Public Private Partnerships to remain competitive

Senator Edgardo Angara has called on the government to fast track efforts to improve ties between government, industry, and academe to support the booming business process outsourcing (BPO) sector of the country.

Angara noted that a recent report from the World Bank (WB) indicated that the BPO sector of the country would continue to surge, and has the potential to maintain the strong growth, especially by improving on the skill level of human resources.

Oscar Sanez, CEO of Business Processing Association of the Philippines (BPAP), recently released an industry roadmap entitled, “IT-BPO Road Map 2011-2016: Driving Global Leadership” indicating that the BPO sectors revenues will rise and workforce grow at an increased rate with the proper government support.

“The study found that the industry can grow from US$9 billion in annual revenues and approximately 500,000 direct employees today to US$20 billion and 900,000 employees by 2016 if current conditions are sustained and with a lot of hard work,” said Sañez.

“But the study indicates that we can grow at an even faster rate and achieve $25 billion and 1.3 million employees by 2016 if we can significantly strengthen our Private-Public-Partnership with the government, and improve both the quantity and quality of our talent supply,” he noted.

Sanez, who is also a member of Comste (Congressional Commission on Science & Technology and Engineering) indicated that that the BPO sector is moving away from voice services into fields such as such as IT, medical, legal, which demand quality personnel.

Angara expressed concern that if these types of jobs in the country are not filled by well-trained and educated personnel, the country would lose its momentum in achieving a knowledge-based sector of the economy, creating a void in domestic growth.

Angara noted that creating productive Public Private Partnership (PPPs) would enable industry leaders to interact with academe, which in turn would develop better training and curriculum for students that can seamlessly enter the workforce.

The move from simply expanding voice services to providing more technical backroom services presents many opportunities to expand the workforce and provide highly capable, and technical employees that can compete on an international level.

Sanez also presented some of the other priority issues that the BPO sector wants addressed in order to maintain the rapid growth of the industry and remain a the Top Off shoring Destination of the Year, as awarded by the National Outsourcing Association of the US, namely the strengthening of data privacy laws, the creation of a Department of Information and Communication Technology (DICT), and the creation of a campaign to create global awareness of the Philippines as a center for BPO excellence.