Allan S.B. Batuhan
Foreign Exchange

THE global financial crisis has really left its profound imprint on a lot of things.

For one, it has managed to bring down a number of venerable institutions, which have been in existence for many—some for hundreds—of years.

For updates from around the country, follow Sun.Star on Twitter

Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch are among the most venerable of institutions, which have not been able to make it through the storm.

Entire countries and economies, too, have been left to rue the damage it has brought upon them.

The once much-admired economic prosperity of Iceland—long regarded as having one of the highest standards of living in the whole world—is in a shambles, its banking system in virtual disarray after the collapse of the American sub-prime home mortgage market, to which the Icelandic banking system was heavily exposed.

The much vaunted growth in Asia has been stalled somewhat by the slowdown. China’s manufacturing juggernaut, left with few buyers after the West virtually witnessed consumer demand slow down to a crawl, is in near-panic, with scenes of frantic factory workers milling outside the gates of their bankrupt factories, anxiously waiting for news about the future of their employment.

Even at home, we have been witnessing macro level setbacks of our own.

The Gulf States—home to large populations of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs)—has also been hit hard by the crisis, particularly Dubai and the United Arab Emirates.

As companies there were rightsizing and laying off large numbers of its now-bloated workforce, a huge number of Filipinos were included in the culling process.

A good number of the laid-off are now back home with us, leaving them and their families unsure of how to make ends meet, after the source of their livelihoods has been suddenly taken away.

Less visible, although just as significant, are the consequences of the global financial difficulties at the micro level.

A number of companies, though not fatally wounded by the crunch, are having to take significant measures to realign their resources with the current and near-term outlook of their businesses.

Witness the oft-trumpeted Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) industry, which has seen phenomenal success over the last few years.

Many of the players have experienced significant drops in demand from their customers, especially those which are heavily exposed to the United States market.

Even more damaging is if their client base is predominantly in the financial services sector. In fact, a number of organisations mainly catering to American financial services companies have closed off entire facilities, and laid-off scores of their workers.

Though not mortally wounded, our organization too has not been spared the impact of the recession.

Today, I am holding an end-of-summer party at my residence, an event traditionally a festive one for all my officers and staff. This time, however, it is a mixture of emotions that will dominate the proceedings.

As a consequence of necessary internal reorganization, I will be bidding adieu to some of the people who have been working with me for some time. That will be a difficult thing to do, as we have been close working colleagues for some time now.

On the other hand, I will also be saying hello to the new members of our team, again resulting from the changes we have made to our overall corporate structure.

Many years from now, and many end-of-summer parties later, I will probably be looking back at this one with a mixture of joy and sadness.

But such is the inevitability of change in the business world, especially with the current economic volatility we are all having to live through.

(http://asbb-foreignexchange. blogspot.com & http://twitter.com/asbbatuhan)