Client of the Month: Manulife Business Processing Services
By Paul Catiang

On May 30, 2006, Manulife Business Processing Services was officially inaugurated at the 8th floor of the ELJCC Building in the ABS-CBN Compound in Quezon City. The event was attended by Peter Sutherland, Canadian Ambassador to the Philippines. Guy Mills serves as the president and general manager of this subsidiary, which had 55 employees at the time of the inauguration. Plans of expanding were announced, aiming for 200 employees by the end of 2006. Moreover, the Manulife Financial subsidiary is poised to expand its ranks by another 250 employees by 2007.

Established to provide administrative and accounting support services Manulife Financial and its affiliates in Canada, Hong Kong, and the US, Manulife Business Processing Services set up shop in the Philippines to centralize their processes and to tap into the country’s human resources to do the work. As a shared service center, the newly established BPO will provide transaction processing, accounting and other administrative services to Manulife business units and other corporate functions worldwide.

In a released fact sheet, the company said that “Manulife Financial will achieve cost efficiencies through economies of scale and the competitive labour market in the Philippines. Additionally, geographical location permits MPBS to “follow the sun” and take advantage of time zone differences to improve administrative cycle times.”

Manulife believes that the Philippines has a labor pool that’s skilled enough and an information and communication infrastructure that make the country an ideal location for its offshore center. Given the company’s presence in the Philippines since 1907, establishing Manulife Business Processing Services here becomes a continuation of this shared history into the future.