Mark Philip Galutera, director of training and development of the ICT Group in the Philippines said he is not worried about the country sliding down from 67th to 70th place in the fifth World Economic Forum's Global Information Technology Report 2005-2006, 'since the report speaks only about IT, and the BPO (business process outsourcing) industry is so much more than that.'
Galutera said the Philippines continues to advance in customer contact, animation, and medical transcription (MT), which he describes as high-potential industries in their own, and IT being only one segment.
'That (ICT survey) should even inspire us because by jumping backwards from 67th to 70th, that means a lot of other countries are focusing on IT,' he said. 'What we should do is we must grow our customer contact centers, animation, and MT specialists more and then that's how we can grow into BPO and not be just devoted to IT.'
However, speaking in a colloquium at the De La Salle Professional Schools Inc. Graduate School of Business in Makati City, Galutera said BPO is not the solution to the country's problems.
'If we think of it as the solution to the problem, then we're not going to do what we need to do to manage it properly. It's just a start towards the solutions to the country's problems,' Galutera said.
He explained the emerging BPO industry should be broken down and analyzed, to identify areas where continuous growth is possible.
'We need to break it down, we need to look at how many people we need to be able to continue to grow and train the necessary people. We need to reach out to media so people learn the proper communication skills and we need to change people'' ideas to English. Then, and only then, can we really make a significant impact in solving the country's problems,' Galutera said.
Galutera added he agrees with presidential adviser on jobs creation Arthur Yap in urging foreign BPO players to raise their concerns about the current political situation in the country.
'The BPOs have appealed. We have spoken with the government and we made our own efforts to train but we can only do so much because we are limited by the profitability of our efforts. It is only government and media that could reach out to larger numbers and that's why Yap is correct -- we really need the support of media and the government to really turn the tide in the country and create a strong pool of English speakers that can make this industry grow,' he said.
Yap recently appealed to BPO players to speak up about the political scenario in the Philippines when President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo issued Proclamation 1017 -- placing the country under a state of national emergency, banning all protest rallies.
It was reported that according to foreign BPO players, the real emergency in the Philippines is the huge unemployment rate among college graduates in the country due to poor English-speaking skills.
Galutera recalled that in 1986, the Philippines switched back its teaching instructions to Tagalog, the country's national language, among schools and even educational programs on television. Thus, he claimed the generation that came after 1986 does not speak English as well as the people before them.
'Right now, the Philippine English speakers are sustaining themselves from the momentum that we had in the past. If we don't do something about it, that momentum will sooner or later come to a halt. We need to push for more English speakers to spur the growth of the industry,' he said.
Galutera added the current political crisis in the Philippines is affecting the BPO industry and like presidential adviser Yap, he urged the lessening of political bickering between erring government officials, if not totally eradicating it.
According to the fifth World Economic Forum's Global Information Technology Report 2005-2006, the Philippines' neighboring Asian countries improved on implementing ICT policies.
The report indicated there was a significant improvement in regulatory environment, governance, education, and training in some Asian countries both in the Southeast and the Pacific. Some of these countries are Malaysia (24th from 27th) and Thailand (34th from 36th), while Indonesia finished at 68th place.
The survey was based on the Network Readiness Index (NRI), which refers to the degree of preparedness of a nation or community to participate in and benefit from ICT developments. It is used to measure the tendency of countries to use ICT for development. The survey covered 115 countries worldwide.