PPP process just like BOT: official

By Mia A. Aznar

Monday, January 24, 2011

THOSE interested in going into the government’s public-private partnership (PPP) will find that the processes are still very similar to the build-operate-transfer (BOT).

Although the official guidelines are yet to be released by the National Economic Development Authority (Neda) central office, Neda 7 project investment budgeting division head Boy Tagalog said those familiar with the BOT process will find that the PPP has the same principles.

“The principle is that there will be no cash outlay on the part of the government and that the private sector is allowed to charge a fee to pay for their investment,” he
explained.

The difference, he said, is a more rigid evaluation of the kind of projects that are proposed for PPP.

He said the feasibility study of a project that is proposed under PPP undergoes economic, financial and technical feasibility evaluations. Tagalog added that they will also determine if fees the private entity wants to collect from the public to pay off the investment is reasonable within a prescribed period.

For now, Tagalog said that as far as Central Visayas is concerned, no government agency has announced solicitations for a PPP project and they have not received any proposals from private entities wanting to fund a project through PPP for this year.

Like with the BOT, Tagalog said any private entity that wants to fund a project through PPP will make their proposal to a government agency or local government unit, depending on the kind of project they would want to undertake.

He believes that by next year, such undertakings could take place.

President Benigno Aquino III recently renamed the BOC Center to the PPP Center and transferred it from an attached agency of the Department of Trade and Industry to the Neda.

In his executive order signed in September, Aquino said processing for solicited PPP proposals should be completed within six months.

Published in the Sun.Star Cebu newspaper on January 25, 2011.

Relocation company opens in Cebu

By Katlene O. Cacho

AN INTERNATIONAL relocation services company has expanded its operations to Cebu to facilitate the settlement of domestic and international clients who wish to relocate in Visayas and Mindanao.

Santa Fe managing director for the Philippines Vedit Kurangil said on Friday said the company’s expansion to Cebu is a good move because of the province’s improved economy.

“Cebu is one of the important cities in the country with the largest commercial operations next to Manila. There are a lot of investors coming to Cebu and we wish toprovide settlement and mobility services to this growing market,” Kurangil said.

Santa Fe is the logistic and mobility arm of East Asiatic Company Ltd. (EAC). It provides individual and corporate clients services such as visa and immigration requirements assistance, cultural training, school search, tenancy management, financial management and moving.

The company was established in 1988 in Hong Kong. It currently operates through offices in 13 countries across Asia like China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Macau, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, and Vietnam.

Its Cebu facility is located on Plaridel St. Alang-Alang, Mandaue City. It started commercial operations last September.

Kurangil said the company hopes to make the Cebu facility the main hub serving the Visayas and Mindanao areas. The company hopes to attract the call center market as well as expats who already consider the VisMin area as their choice area for business or retirement.

Aside from the company’s assistance on relocation services, Santa Fe also provides records management services across Asia and general cargo and logistics services in China and Hong Kong.

Published in the Sun.Star Cebu newspaper on January 17, 2011.

Plan BPO growth by city, not by country, says official

By Mia A. Aznar

RATHER than plan the business process outsourcing sector’s growth by country, a “city-centric” focus is more ideal, a leader in the industry said.

Jonathan Defensor de Luzuriaga, executive vice president of CIBI Information Inc. and former executive director for industry affairs of the Business Processing Association of the Philippines, said that in choosing an area to outsource their services to, multi-national companies no longer compare by country, but by city.

In comparing cities, he said there are more efficient means to highlight local value propositions. He added that it is also more responsive in decision and implementation capabilities and that there is a greater ability to distance a city from the general image of its country.

De Luzuriaga pointed out that Cebu does not have problems projecting itself as a safe city because it is far from Mindanao and has, so far, not had any serious security issues, unlike some cities in Mindanao.

De Luzuriaga said that Cebu should be less dependent on national marketing because a city-centric approach has more focused marketing and promotion efforts.

This way, cities will also be known for specific services that they provide.

He explained that one-stop shops for outsourcing are no longer the norm in the industry.

In his presentation during a recent forum, de Luzuriaga said that though the demand for BPO is global in nature, clients have consistently required localized and focused development and assessment strategies.

He noted that clients of CIBI, which is a provider of business and personal information, require very specific data from their advisory and location service assessment services.

“Broad, country-level overviews are becoming less relevant in a more focused and competitive landscape,” he said.

For Cebu, he said BPO companies here can compete with Colombo, Sri Lanka in offering knowledge process outsourcing (KPO) services.

Quoting the Business Monitor International Philippines Information Technology Report for the last quarter of 2010, de Luzuriaga said Cebu is estimated to contribute to six percent of the country’s BPO revenue.

The report also said that about 14 percent of BPO employees are employed in Cebu.

Published in the Sun.Star Cebu newspaper on January 18, 2011.

Bickering ‘blocking Cebu’s progress’

By Mia A. Aznar

POOR political climate, poor infrastructure and no planning are some of the challenges facing Cebu’s development, a business leader said.
Gordon Alan “Dondi” Joseph, president of the Cebu Business Club, said the number and values of investments in Cebu are going down.

Joseph, who spoke on business and governance before members of the Rotary Club of Cebu West (RCCW) Tuesday evening, said it was time politicians ceased their squabbling and start planning for Cebu’s future.


“Political bickering has to stop. It’s blocking progress,” he said.

For Cebu to be competitive, Joseph said Cebu needs strategic planning and good governance, just as good businesses need planning and management.

Showing figures on Cebu’s investments for three years, Joseph showed that from 2007 to 2009, investments in Cebu (both foreign and local) dropped from P14.8 billion in 2009 and P22.4 billion in 2008 to just P1.4 billion in 2009.

Quoting a Global Urban Competitiveness Report, Joseph also told members of the RCCW that Cebu is ranked in the bottom—475 out of 500 cities in the world.

The 2009-2010 report was prepared by experts and scholars around the world. The report showed that Cebu dropped 10 places from the previous report in 2007-2008.

He also showed a report from the World Bank stating 20 percent of the country’s national budget goes to corruption.

Joseph added that doing business in Cebu is difficult.

Other factors that he feels affect Cebu’s development are the quality of education, land use and transportation, water supply, power supply, competition with emerging economic centers and the decreasing quality of life perception.

He particularly lamented that no one has yet been able to address the water supply problem.
“And we’ve known about it since the 1960s,” he added.

He also hopes education and job creation will be given more attention, saying getting jobs for the unemployed is the quickest way out of poverty.

Joseph said such problems have led a group of business leaders to form the Cebu Leads Foundation Inc., which he described as business and civic society’s response to the current problems Cebu is facing.

He said the foundation will build a consensus for a constructive, developmental vision for Cebu.
Its first undertaking is helping to solve the worsening traffic in Metro Cebu, as it organized the first Metro Cebu traffic summit.

Published in the Sun.Star Cebu newspaper on January 20, 2011.

‘Mid-sized firms should leverage enterprise tech’

RAYMOND Goh, the author, is Symantec’s regional technical director for systems engineering and customer advisory services, Asia south region. He has more than 18 years experience in the IT industry and is responsible for strategic engagements with organizations in the region on their security, storage and systems management requirements.

LARGE enterprises are not the only ones looking into advanced technologies. Mid-sized businesses are increasingly looking into leveraging enterprise technologies that help them meet the challenges of managing their information daily. As their business grows, midsized businesses will have a jump start on their enterprise IT plan by considering these solutions early.

Today, tools like deduplication, archiving and virtualization are being packaged in ways that put them within reach of midsized business. The following are some key technologies that midsized companies could consider to increase efficiency, save money and maximize IT resources.

Deduplication

Deduplication is one of the most effective technologies mid-sized businesses can deploy to address both rapid data growth and tight budgets. By eliminating redundant data across multiple backups or systems to reduce the amount of data stored,deduplication can reduce the amount of backup data stored by up to 90 percent or more.

As a result, businesses can dramatically reduce backup storage costs by consolidating and reusing existing storage resources.


Archiving

Many IT administrators in mid-sized organizations would agree that keeping old, infrequently accessed and redundant data on expensive servers is a waste of space. It is also a costly and time-consuming challenge to manage, maintain and back up the data. Symantec has found that it is 1,500 times more expensive to review an expired document than to store it. Businesses that are reviewing expired documents are wasting precious hours they could have saved – if only they had a proper archiving system in place. Archiving takes infrequently used information off of primary storage, indexes it and moves it into less expensive disks for longer-term retention.


Endpoint Virtualization

Today, many mid-sized businesses are finding that important information is scattered across their desktops, laptops, PDAs, and servers. Endpoint virtualization can separate information that matters from the rest of the IT environment, so that it can be better protected, managed and secured.

As the use of mobile devices has been increasingly popular in midsized businesses, it is more important than ever to protect and manage endpoints, whether physical, virtual or hybrid. The point of virtualization is to make the end user more productive and secure, regardless of what device they are using.


Looking Ahead

With the rising IT storage costs, delivering an effective strategy to organizations looking to address the challenges of managing their information is critical for businesses today. Midsized businesses should not be afraid to look at advanced technologies in their IT planning that will enable them to manage their information more effectively.

Published in the Sun.Star Cebu newspaper on January 21, 2011.