Amcham Monthly Meeting

It was the usual monthly meeting of the ICT Committee co-chaired by Frank Holz and Don Felbaum of the American Chamber of Commerce in the Philippines. The invited guests for the meeting include the Business Process Association of the Philippines and John Clements Consultancy with the Harvard Business School Publishing. John Clements was the lunch sponsor of the meeting.

Before the start of the meeting-presentation, sandwiches were offered. I had a packed lunch of tuna sandwich with crisp sweet potato chips and bread pudding. I did not take some pictures as I might be chastised for doing so in a meeting of executives from the IT Industry, hehehe. The packed lunch was prepared by some entity that specialized in food delivery and I should say, it is quite decent and tasty. The three-layered tuna sandwich came with egg omelet and coleslaw, all in wheat slice bread and cut into bite size portions. Truly an easy meal packed with a lot of goodness and satisfaction.

The sweet potato chips were crisp and sweet. It was a great companion to the sandwich bread, except that, you can't help by make munching noises and it was a bit distracting especially in a luncheoun meeting. The dessert was bread pudding. I swear I could have finished it, but in the absence of a dessert fork, I was content on nibbling only a chunk of it. The pudding was topped with some caramel sauce that was so yummy I caught myself licking my fingers, hehehe.

It was indeed a good lunch with a regular flavored Coke soda to quench my thirst. Today was a free meal and I missed taking down the name of the food company that prepared it.

The presentation of Oscar Sanez, the CEO of the BPA/P on the initiatives of the group was quite comprehensive and scholarly done. It was a collaboration of the group's think tank with the McKinsey people, so no doubt about the technical frameworks used and the methodical presentation of the desired goals of the association in the next decade. The presentation was all about the initiatives of the IT Sector particularly the challenges for Off-Shore Outsourcing/Business Process Outsourcing and the IT Services in the Philippines. It tackled what the Philippine government should be spearheading, that of promoting the Philippines as the choice destination for IT Sector investors and identifying the demands of the industry to develop and sustain the demand and supply of the important commodity of the sector, human resources. The BPA/P asserted itself as the important group that carried the voice of the infant industry and wanted to creat and learn from the India experience to be able to build the competitive advantage of the Philippines for IT Outsourcing.

It was comforting to know that some private associations take on the responsibilities to build upon the vision and promote the business climate for the IT Industry to thrive.

The subsequent presentation on Talent Retention was dismal, lacking teeth and without much tangible answers to questions affecting the IT Industry which is the high incidence of turnover. It was introduced thru a case analysis - Harvard style and drummed-up as if nobody heared of case analysis before, it was repulsive to my senses. John Clements should improve on their way of presenting a subject matter and make it informative and helpful to its targeted audience. The only practical idea came from an executive who volunteered his secrets for keeping his talents in the company for long-term - make the employees not only salaried-individuals, but share with them the profits of the organization thru stock options, bonus plans anchored on transparent basis, etc.

With me attending the meeting was Tina, our outgoing HR Manager. It promptly started at around 12 noon and ended close to about 2 hours after.