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Monday, March 21, 2005
Robillo: Hope of the future
By Oliver V. Robillo
I.T. Talks!
DURING Senator Mar Roxas' Job Fiesta sa Mindanao on March 15, I got a hint of just how many graduating students Davao City is expecting to produce this year.
For that job fair, the senator brought from Metro Manila a dozen companies that are in constant need of human resources.
Some of those who participated are call center operators, some are into medical transcription services, and still others are into customer service management.
Most--if not all--of these companies require not work experience, but rather English proficiency.
Reading, writing, speaking and comprehending English--this is the skill that the Filipino has always been known for from generations past. Can this still be our claim today? Some alarming reports are indicating otherwise. I fervently hope that what I've been reading are inconclusive, but there is a growing concern that we are in danger of losing our edge as English speakers in Asia.
On the other hand, Davao City seems to be enjoying a reputation for supplying quality graduates. This I infer from the above-average acceptance rate of call center applicants from our city.
Andre Fournier of 3G Communications, which is handling the manpower recruitment in behalf of CyberCity Teleservices, says that more than 20% of Dabawenyo applicants are successfully hired. The national industry average is 5%.
Another substantiation that might be used to point to Davao's remarkable performance is the constant presence of a number of Manila-based call center operators in the city. Bong Borja, president of PeopleSupport Inc. (www.peoplesupport.com), mentioned to me that he is often in town to hire what his company calls "eReps", their term for call center representatives.
Call or contact centers are fast becoming an industry all their own, and their need for manpower is insatiable. Borja, who is also the chairman of the Business Processing Association/Philippines (www.bpap.org), attributes this high human resource demand to the huge global customer care market, and to the brisk turnover rate of call center representatives.
The reality: Davao is rapidly losing her talent pool. While the healthy job market out there is a good thing for our graduates, it might not be so for the city in the long haul. In the interim we could be proud of our seeming success in educating our students and being able to send them off to greener pastures. But in the final analysis, shouldn't we be concerned about the proverbial brain drain?
Can't Davao be the greener pasture?
Well, some forward-looking Dabawenyos are hopefully making it so. This crop of entrepreneurs believes in the capability of their fellow Dabawenyos and in the capacity of the city for new business ventures.
A shining example of a local company that endeavors to provide good-paying and stable jobs is SSP Transcriptions. They are a medical transcription (MT) services company that currently employs almost 40 regular staff, with plans to expand even further.
Jenny Sazon, SSP Transcriptions Marketing Manager, expresses concern over the availability of medical transcriptionists due to the exodus of qualified personnel from the city. The main consideration for expansion, according to Sazon, is the availability of trainable transcriptionists.
She further stresses that the volume of MT services requirements from the US alone is very difficult to address. This should mean that the MT business is quite a lucrative one.
So much so that, SSP Transcriptions is actually willing to see more MT companies operating in Davao and other cities in Mindanao. In fact, a plan to establish an MT training facility is being drawn up by SSP, the Department of Trade & Industry-Davao City Field Office, and the Association of Solution Integrators in Davao (Asid).
On to the more mainstream sectors, it is heartening to see more software development outfits in the city. This is an indicator of the growing confidence in the IT industry as an established area of business. The desired next step is for this industry to become a provider not only of quality services to its global market, but also to become a provider of attractive jobs to its locality.
Davao's hope of the future lies not only in the quality of its human resources, but also in the capacity of its various industries to provide employment, in order to take advantage of these resources.
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To interested groups that are seriously considering venturing into medical transcription services, please contact this writer via e-mail: ovr@benvalte.com. The Asid, together with the DTI-DCFO and SSP Transcriptions, will host an orientation seminar this April. This seminar-cum-business meeting will be for discussing the ins and outs of establishing an MT services company.
(March 21, 2005 issue)
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