BusinessForum@JohnClements:
Challenges and Opportunities in the Sunshine Industry
by Paul Catiang

On May 3, 2005, John Clements Consultants, Inc., sponsored the forum, “Challenges and Opportunities in the Sunshine Industry” as part of its series, BusinessForum@JohnClements, which was held at the Mandarin Oriental. President and CEO Carol Dominguez spoke of the BPO industry as the fastest-growing field in the Philippines today, an industry that is in constant need of qualified people.

The highlight of the event were speakers Phil Hidalgo of TeleTech Philippines and Penny Bongato of Convergys. Both speakers tackled the growing need for human resources in the BPO industry. Good HR will be needed to manage the hiring, management and turnover of the large number of people employed by call centers and other BPOs. This need might be filled by HR people with experience managing large numbers of employees in other industries, such as hotels, restaurants or healthcare, which promises a new era in Human Resources Management.

Mr. Hidalgo’s talk centered around the need for good HR people in customer management and business process services. Given that there will be an estimated 200,000 call center jobs in the Philippines by 2007, a lot of businesses will want to take part in the BPO industry.

He went on to say that as a people-centered industry, BPOs will need skilled HR professionals to manage the hundreds of new hires and terminations, as well as the thousands of employees that work there, which gives rise to his mantra: “Manage people effectively.” No strategy or approach will work other than putting people first. If people are not managed well or successfully, he said, there will be no business to manage. This, according to Mr. Hidalgo, is the raison d’être of human resources.

The benefits to human resource managers are also apparent. Firstly, as the Philippines expands its resource base to regions outside of Metro Manila, so will the need for HR professionals. This provides them with regional growth opportunities. More importantly, the BPO industry will become the new proving ground for HR practitioners. They will be faced with challenges like managing rapidly growing businesses hiring in great volume, identifying talents and developing them, and retaining as much competent employees as possible.

With this, HR professionals have their work cut out for them, courtesy of the BPO industry.