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Risk factors
Michael Alan Hamlin
Negative perception of the Philippines, including the tight labor market for knowledge workers, is increasingly viewed as a significant risk factor by the business process outsourcing (BPO) industry. Preliminary results of the latest industry survey conducted by the Business Processing Association of the Philippines (BPA/P) and Outsource2Philippines (O2P) suggest that negative publicity and media reports internationally are taking a toll on the Philippines’ already “not-quite-glowing” brand.
The complete results of the survey will be announced in the next regular CEO breakfast briefing conducted by BPA/P and O2P, which is scheduled September 30. That briefing will focus on the state of the knowledge process outsourcing (KPO) industry-which is bright if things go well-and the business continuity issues and risk factors that are at the core of investment decisions in an industry in which country competition has become fierce. (Disclosure: BPA/P is a client of my firm, which conducted the online survey. I am a director of O2P.)
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Posted
8/26/2009 11:50:56 AM |
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How real is Web 2.0 to business?
Michael Alan Hamlin
A recent McKinsey & Company survey of 1,700 global executives conclusively demonstrated that most companies gain measurable business benefits from implementing Web 2.0 technologies. Those benefits include more innovative products and services, more effective marketing, better access to knowledge, lower cost of doing business, and higher revenues, a report on the survey results concluded, adding, “Companies that made greater use of the technologies report even greater benefits.
Of all the respondents globally, 69% indicated that their companies have benefited from Web 2.0. Web 2.0 refers to a new generation of web technologies ranging from blogs to search marketing to social network marketing. They are interactive, and intended to provide a rich user experience, but at their core they are visibility tools seeking attention for content that increases interest in and credibility for product and service, individual, and organizational brands.
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Posted
8/26/2009 11:47:16 AM |
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Dream city
Michael Alan Hamlin
According to the Institute of Solidarity in Asia (ISA) and an independent, third-party auditor, the city of San Fernando, Pampanga is leveraging a Balanced Scorecard-based good governance system to successfully transform itself into a dream city. I spoke last week with San Fernando Mayor Oscar Rodriguez and a former city administrator about the Performance Governance System (PGS) project the city began in 2004, the results it has generated, and what it means for local citizens and businesses.
The Balanced Scorecard is a performance measurement system based on the idea that exclusive reliance on financial-performance measures hinders organizations’ abilities to create future economic value, according to business consultant David Norton and Harvard University professor Robert Kaplan. Although it incorporates financial measures, the Balanced Scorecard also promotes “measuring rates of progress in continuous improvement activities.”
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Posted
8/17/2009 2:28:54 PM |
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Corazon Aquino's legacy
Michael Alan Hamlin
The restoration of Philippines democracy
Read the Washington Times version of my tribute to Corazon Aquino.
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Posted
8/11/2009 3:48:50 PM |
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Grateful
Michael Alan Hamlin
Sometime in 1992 as the administration of the late former president Corazon C. Aquino was coming to a close, my boss at the Asian Institute of Management (AIM) called me to a brief meeting. He explained that Mrs. Aquino and her supporters were thinking about her legacy, how her tumultuous administration could best be characterized, and how she should be remembered.
Mrs. Aquino’s husband, Benigno (Ninoy) Aquino, Jr. predicted years before his brazen August 21, 1983 assassination that anyone who succeeded the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos would “smell like horse manure six months after taking office.” The reasons were obvious: Mr. Marcos had bankrupted the country, the Philippines was torn by dissent and competing interests, and its private sector was in disarray, uncompetitive, and incapable of generating enough jobs for a fast-growing population.
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Posted
8/5/2009 10:46:57 AM |
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Cory to Marcos: "All it takes is one ballot"
Orly Mercado
In the Philippines, after the assassination of Senator Ninoy Aquino in August 21, 1983, most began to feel that this was the beginning of the end of the Marcos dictatorship. The funeral procession for the slain opposition leader was unlike any in our history. Marcos appeared to have recovered from his kidney transplant, but was on the ropes, politically.
The opposition did not seem to be able to get its act together. It was divided. In 1984, there was a scheduled election in May, for the regular Batasang Pambansa (parliament). There was a lively debate about whether those opposing Marcos should participate or boycott the elections. The left was leading the movement to boycott what was feared to be yet another election to be stolen from the people. There were those of us who believed that the election by itself was to be a critical catalyst in ending the Marcos regime. It was 1984, and George Orwell’s omnipresent big brother of a government, was to receive a blow that would stagger it, and prepare it for the final round: Marcos versus Cory.
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Posted
8/2/2009 6:59:28 PM |
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