Europe-PH News

Looking out the 17th floor window of his office at the Times Plaza Building in Manila, Global Process Manager Inc. (GPM) President Erik Moller Nielsen is greeted by the in-your-face view of the Torre de Manila.

The 46-story structure is now devoid of any human activity after the Supreme Court issued a temporary restraining order against its construction, which it deemed as ruining the view of national hero Jose Rizal’s monument.

GPM, which offers both outsourcing solutions and hosted offshoring options, occupies three floors of the gleaming glass-and-steel building, a relatively new addition to the growing number of buildings crowding the Manila skyline.

“It is a pity to stop it. Too late. I think it should be finished. It would look nice than if it stays like this for one or two decades before they agree to knock it down or finish it. These things can take years in our courts,” Nielsen said.

Nielsen’s able hand is behind the GPM success. He does his work standing up, probably to avoid back and posture problems associated with those hunched too long on computers.

“We do payroll for more than 30,000 Filipino seafarers. We do 2D and 3D animation. We have a new service where we send out a daily recap of Filipino news so maybe they can circulate to all the ships, so they can follow news from home,” Nielsen said.

He added: “We also offer hosted office or service office on our floor. That is our main activity. If a company would like to offshore some jobs in Manila but they do not want to start their own center or they are not sure if they would have the size to justify their own center in some years, then they can come to us because we will then hire the staff for them.”

At the core of things

Outside of his involvement in the business-process outsourcing (BPO) industry, Nielsen is also acting as the de facto Consul for Denmark. At the same time, he is also the current vice president of the European Chamber of Commerce in the Philippines (ECCP) and the Nordic Business Council of the Philippines (NBCP).

But, at the core of it, his work with GPM comes to the forefront. According to Nielsen, they have the capacity to adjust to the needs of companies.

“Let us say you are a company abroad and you would like to have five procurement people and 10 finance and accounting people. Then we will hire those 15 people in our office. But they work for the company abroad, so we will assign an account manager to look after them and deal with whatever they need. Also, there is a liaison for the company abroad.”

He said the advantage for the company abroad is that they do not need to send a country manager to the Philippines, because they offer flexible solutions where they can scale it up or down depending on their client’s needs.

“It is very flexible. They do not even need to have a legal entity here. No need for incorporation because the employees are hired by us. It is an incubator service. You start with five or 10 employees, and you grow it over time,” Nielsen said.

He said one of his clients moved out in March with 85 staff to open their own office inside the Ortigas central business district after more than seven years under their wings.

Nielsen agrees the Philippine time zone gives it some advantages in terms of dealing with international clients.

“We have a Danish telecommunications company as a client one floor down and they find it very beneficial to have our working hours because they need to do things in their technical network at nighttime in Denmark, which is perfect for our early morning,” he said.

He said the Philippines is an ideal place for the BPO industry because Filipinos have no issues working at night.

According to Nielsen, they pay the nighttime differential and their employees prefer to work at night because they commute outside the rush hour. He said the midshift seems to be particularly popular, reporting for work from 2 a.m. until 10 a.m.

The BPO outlook

Nielsen still expects the industry to grow at a high rate and projects a 15-percent growth this year. He said the expansion in the BPO sector is not really demand driven but supply driven.

“The demand is there, unlike five years ago, when we were still convincing the world to move their work to Manila. Now they all want to come here. Now the expansion is more supply driven. How much more talent can we supply,” Nielsen said.

Nielsen added that there is a trend now where BPO companies are moving out of Metro Manila to tap the talent pool in the provinces.

The government is targeting a 70:30 ratio in terms of BPO presence in Metro Manila and the provinces.

However, Nielsen estimates 80 percent of BPO work is still in Metro Manila, but there are a lot of quality educational institutions across the country whose graduates can be tapped for specialized BPO work.

Nielsen said the government has been providing good support for the industry when compared to other players like India and China. He also said an information and communication technology department might also be created soon.

He also said the talent pool for the BPO industry will remain healthy, owing to the 600,000 students graduating from college yearly.

However, Nielsen cautions that a college degree does not instantly qualify a graduate for a job in the BPO industry.

He then cited the work being done by the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority for those who were near-hires by BPO companies.

“The result was after another two to three months of intense training, particularly in information technology and English, more than half of the near-hires were eventually hired. Some of these extra trainings are actually taking place in the companies now and not in the schools,” Nielsen said.

Philippine-Denmark relationship

After more than nine years in the ECCP board, Nielsen is planning on stepping down to allow others to have a part in setting the chamber’s future directions.

Nielsen, two-and-a-half years ago was a key player in the formation of the NBCP—whose members are from Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Norway, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia.

Back in 2005 he was also assigned as Denmark’s honorary consul in the Philippines. In January it reopened its embassy in the country after 12 years of absence.

There are a few thousand Danish citizens in the country and there is now a growing interest among Danish companies about setting up operations in the country.

For the first nine months of 2014, Danish exports to the Philippines reached P7 billion, higher by 141 percent as compared to the same period in 2013. The Philippines is also ranked 66th on the list of top markets for Danish exports.

Philippine exports to Denmark are expected to rise as the European Union (EU) agreed to grant the Generalized Scheme of Preferences Plus (GSP+) privileges to the Philippines.

“Both Malaysia and Thailand have exited GSP+ so that their products will again be levied import duties in the EU, meaning that our relative competitiveness vis-à-vis our neighbors has improved this year,” Nielsen said.

The beauty of the Philippines

Nielsen said he loves to travel around the country, at least once a month, while also saying that he loves Filipino food.

“I like the variety. I like the beautiful scenery and the wonderful people you meet everywhere. I try to get out of Manila as often as I can, at least once a month, even if it is just Tagaytay. We are good at long weekends here,” Nielsen said.

He then added: “Adobo, of course is always nice. I have enjoyed kare-kare and sinigang.”

Source: Business Mirror