For those of you who are from the BPO, GSS, SSC industries in the Philippines. I am one of those and the benefits are immense.

Posted by Edwin Lacierda

BPO

There is a debate on Twitter who started the BPO industry.

The nascent stages of BPOs really started w/ Mar Roxas as Trade Secretary under Erap.

Mar tells this story of Erap’s US meeting with Bill Gates. On the plane en route to meeting Bill Gates which Mar arranged, Erap asked what outfit should he wear: coat & tie or his usual leather jacket.

Since it was a formal meeting, coat & tie was recommended. Erap agreed.

At their meeting site, Erap who wore a coat & tie was met by Bill Gates who wore a leather jacket [emoji3]

Out of that meeting, Bill Gates donated Microsoft licenses to the PCPS program.

Clothes maketh the man.

How the meeting came about was much more complicated. As there were various interests that each cabinet secretary had to pitch to Erap, one had to convince the President which was more vital to our country. For example, given the limited time a working visit has, the President needed to prioritize who and the purpose of the meeting.

Mar argued to Erap that the way forward for our country was information technology. Meeting with Bill Gates was important because at that time, Microsoft was the most ubiquitous operating system. That it can also bring in potential employment, potential revenues, not to mention the entry of new technology to our country were reasons to make the meeting. President Erap was convinced of Mar’s pitch and therefore decided to meet Bill Gates in Washington State.

And that started Mar’s Make IT Philippines which, among other measures, he undertook to make our country attractive to BPOs and earned him the title of “Father of the BPO Industry” and which is now one of the highest dollar earning industries in the country.

Sent from my SM-N970F using Tapatalk