Business Enterprise Centre

DESPITE the Philippines is considered as one of the third largest English speaking countries in Asia yet the report released by the US State Department, in its “2007 Investment Climate Statement” this month cited that the “English language proficiency, while still better than in other Southeast Asian nations, is declining in the Philippines.”

This report is a ticking bomb that caused alarm to the Philippine Government, the business sectors and especially the business process outsourcing (BPO) companies, which serves as a foundation of call centers in the Philippines.

“High levels of corruption, ongoing efforts to reform the judicial system, weak but improving protection of intellectual property rights, the slow pace of energy sector reform and privatization, the need for further fiscal reforms to boost depressed spending levels for infrastructure and social services, and political uncertainties combined to dampen investor interest,” are the major considerations highlighted by the US Government on basing their statement.

I learned that various sectors put the pressure to President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo on how she will address the report. She kept on saying that English should use as primary medium of instruction in all schools nationwide. In fact, Mrs. Arroyo highlighted stressed that “knowledge is the greatest creator of wealth”. With this development, the President allocated PhP150 billion, which is PhP29 billion increased last year in education budget. She stressed that that almost young Filipino professionals are employed in a call center in the Philippines and received enjoyable salary package from the different contact centers they are working for. She also reported that most schools in the country have accessed to the Internet because of the program designed by the Department of Education (DepEd).

The report alarmed the business councils both foreign and domestic because it might cause panic to our call center industry, which one of the vibrant industries in the country today. The business council noted that the Philippines is the home of the world largest call center companies aside from India, China, Singapore and among others.

The US State Department noted that “the comparative advantages the Philippines once enjoyed vis-?-vis its neighbors in attracting foreign investment need to be restored in order to attract more investment and support higher growth.”

Meanwhile, Beau Rudd, chief executive officer of Unique Interaction encourage his call center agents to always use English as the first language. Mr. Rudd said that there are so many big call centers in the Philippines and they have a strict policy about English only when you come into the office.

“I have been trying to figure it out for a long time and the only reason I thought it was for is because the customer might hear Tagalog in the background. The reason these company have put this in place is because of this, when you are always taking in English you will always think in English,” he stressed.

It sounds funny but all Filipinos may speak good English but they are converting it in the mind from Tagalog and the problem with them is Tagalog is all backwards, he added.

In a call center in the Philippines, it employed about 200,000 call center representatives working in different companies. This is according to one of the executives in a call center in the Philippines reported during the Contact Center Association of the Philippines (CCAP) roadmap conference held last July 11 and 12 this year. Call center managers relayed that this business remained to be a sunshine industry and continue to grow faster. The CCAP further revealed that the industry needs at least 500,000 contact center agent professionals by 2010, a target the organization has come up with after extrapolating its current demand but considering the 19-percent yearly attrition. CCAP is now composed of 34 contact center companies based in the Philippines.

This is no joke. Losing employees for call centers will only reflect that we, Filipinos failed to implement the English program policy. Or shall I say, the government is incompetent enough to improve the country’s learning English skills. The good focal point, however, that we Filipinos are dedicated to learn this language in order for us to have edge especially when applying for jobs. Even call center companies expressed their statement that deterioration of English sounds “painful”. These call center leaders blamed the soap operas dubbed in Pilipino, and too much focusing on cell phone text messaging. The education sector blamed the influence of pop culture and the domestic media, where the dominant language is Taglish, a combination of Tagalog and English.

The US government further outlined that the country’s fiscal conditions, helped recently by new revenue legislation, seem nonetheless to be improving and the general economic outlook is cautiously optimistic for 2007. The figures indicates that the Philippines’ GDP (Gross Domestic Product) growth accelerated from 5% in 2005 to 5.4 percent as of September 2006, spurred by a recovery in post-drought agricultural harvests, more robust export growth, the continued strength of remittances from Filipinos overseas, and a vibrant call center business.

Starting your own daycare center can be a very rewarding business enterprise especially if you love to be surrounded by children. Perhaps, you may have discovered your love for children when you were young and enjoyed being drafted on weekends to babysit for the children in your neighborhood. But while your experiences then were of behaved, lovable children who were easy to manage, running a daycare center business is a totally different way of dealing with all kinds of children. You will be in charge of caring for a roomful of behaved and misbehaved children. You will have to make decisions not only for the good of those children whose parents have trusted you to take care of them but also you will have to address all the issues arising out of this business.

Taking care of one child may be easy or hard depending on the child himself or how much you can tolerate, but taking care of many demands much more than you can give to all the children entrusted to you. It means assuming a lot of major responsibilities and being aware of rules and regulations that directly affect the conduct of your daycare business. There are licenses and permits to obtain from the proper government agencies, whether local or national, even before you open your doors to parents and children.

In these uncertain times, many people are starting to consider setting up their own daycare business because they see it as a great opportunity to earn a steady income. If you see yourself as someone who can deal easily with parents and their children, a daycare center business may be your ticket to a financially secure future. You just need to understand some of the things that will make the business work for you.

The first thing to do is to look at how the other existing daycare centers in your area are doing. This means making a market study to determine if your community can support another daycare center. You also need to know if there are families who are willing to engage the services of your daycare business. If you get positive results, the next step is to look for the right location. Whether you choose to set it up in your own house or in a separate location, the important thing is that it should be easily accessible, affordable and can provide a comfortable environment for the children.

You will also have to make an estimate of all the materials you need. It should include the staff you need to operate the center. If you need to get financing, you should also consider where you can obtain it, such as a bank loan or grants from private or government agencies. You should also not forget the important permits and licenses so you can operate your business legally and avoid future problems. Each state has its own set of requirements so be sure you inquire from your state government about them.

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