Who's the bigger issue?

The traffic always jams when it's raining, because everyone grabs a taxi home.

Working at the office with a view of Manila in the background

We spent the afternoon interviewing two of the managers at Vestas. What we learned from today’s interviews was that even though the hub was established rather short time ago, its employees are experienced, passionate and hardworking. From what we’ve learned from courses, and literature in general concerning establishment of departments in Asia, it is challenging to hire competent employees without a prestigious brand as employer. Here at Vestas it seems like it’s been a great success.

We have experienced some strategic awareness, also conflicting with some of the western prejudices. We see potential for not only outsourcing operations and development, but also strategic functions. It is also interesting to see how the managers in Manila had adopted the corporate visions and used them in understanding their work. One could think that the Manila hub would be an isolated “island”, but due to the matrix organization the Filipinos still have strong connections to rest of the organization.

The attrition rate is a common issue when outsourcing because money typically is the primary concern in the countries where outsourcing usually occur. The Manila hub has managed to keep down the attrition rate at a surprisingly low level. This might be because of the competition to attract competent employees still isn’t that bad in Manila.

In our courses in project management we have learned about three important parameters of concern when outsourcing: communication, time zones and culture. By interviewing managers in Manila we have learned that the greatest challenges are communication and time zone differences. The cultural difficulties have not been subjects for concern for the managers to the same degree as we have experienced in Denmark. They believe cultural issues are overcome by professionalism, and is therefore not a big issue in their everyday work life. Maybe our culture, or lack of understanding of the Asian culture, is the bigger challenge of the two. Here in the Philippines the employees have had courses in the western culture, how to interact and how the stereotypical Dane differs from the corresponding Filipino. Just some food for thought…