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

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.