William Shakespeare famously wrote,
All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances, And one man in his time plays many parts....
As You Like It Act 2, scene 7, 139–143
Sadly in the modern era, this beautiful coin of phrase has been attributed largely to political rhetoric, shady deals, and the juxtaposing of countries in a bid to highlight their differences. When you sweep away all the propaganda, the fake news, trade-wars, nuclear deals and governmental gerrymandering – what exactly is going on? Do you care to inquire?
Behind the headlines, your be sure to find SMEs, large, and international companies quietly collaborating; improving both their business outlook, internal affairs and solidifying agreements. All of this is being done on an unimaginable scale and size, incorporating each and every country multilaterally. I witnessed an interesting case of such fast pace collaboration in my recent visit to Cebu, Philippines, during my meetings with the Co-Founders of Arcanys Frederic Joye and Alan Debonneville on September 2018.
My first trip to Cebu was amazing!!! Waited on, in a genuine, honest and respectful manner, all for the price of $100.00 per night. As I’ve been living and working in Manila for many years, I was interested to observe the differences; keen to see if standards changed from place to place, mainly to find whether Cebuanos were equally nice. With the exception of the notorious traffic, busy congested streets. My stay at the Quest Hotel was impeccable; soft luxurious king size beds, spacious with an outside balcony space.
This excellent start to the day prompted me to dispel many of the pre-misconceptions that I held about Cebu and proved to be great preparation for what lay-ahead. To be completely honest, I was curious, (secretly suspicious and doubtful) regarding Arcanys' claims to grow the digital business by 50% year on year, amassing international clients through concise methods of collaboration and strategic partnering. It wasn't until I saw the shear scale of their operations, that I finally grasped the enormity of the undertaking and how far detracted they were from the sweat-shops of a foregone age.
For instance, the BPO industry is truly big business in the Philippines, so much so – large companies like Arcanys are able to leverage their collaborations with other far reaching industries – to bring free health care, free dental, low rate loans & mortgages, a raft of employee benefits and even a dedicated employee 'well-being' department of substantial size. Where SMEs focus on maximizing the output of the individual Developer, the BPO industry can afford to maximize the collaboration of differing businesses to bring about unified efficiency.
The current business model associated within the digital space largely centers on ROI targets, maximized output; centralizing skills and expertise with the given industry. This inevitably leads to higher and higher salaries, longer working hours, an increase in stress, not to mention staffing churn. In contrast, BPOs have learn the difficult lessens of the past telecommunications era and now apply systematic methods in order to achieve numerous goals simultaneously.
When many smaller companies centralize their skills base, which may lead to stagnation and increased salaries in a dwindling pool of talent. The Pinoy BPO strategy centers on a perfect work/life balance, the adoption of self-governance/management and most importantly sustainable service business models - capable of scaling up, when necessary and spreading resources across industries on the down-turn.
So! Do you care for the world stage. Does your current role involve liaising with numerous peoples across the world or does your staff enjoy the scope and liberty in doing so? ...Should you even give a damn..? Well, it's merely a matter of time, til the army of highly intellectual peoples of the emerging markets find parity in their skills set, with their first-world counter-parts. Soon to publish extraordinary works of digital art, systems and features, as development packages become more streamlined, bug-free and off the shelve ready to use.
