JETRO Philippine IT Industry Update

2006 No. 5 (10/15/2006)

Copyright 2006 JETRO Manila Center

Page 1/6
JETRO Philippine IT Industry Update 2006-No. 5


Table of Contents

1 Introduction.....................................................................1
2 Industry Overview and Trends.......................................1
2.1 Philippine BPO Industry Overview................................1
2.2 PLDT Entered BPO in Full Scale by Acquisition of SPI
..........................................................................................2
2.3 Ayala Group Back Office BPO.......................................2
2.4 Guidelines for the Protection of Personal Data in
Information and Communications System in the
Private Sector................................................................2
2.5 Philippines and India: From Competition to
Collaboration ..................................................................3
3 Possibilities of Back Office BPO from the Philippines
for Japanese Market .......................................................3
3.1 Geographical Advantage: Not Utilized at This Moment
..........................................................................................3
3.2 Possible Areas of BPO for Japanese Companies........4
4 Case Studies ...................................................................5
4.1 NYK-Filjapan Shipping E-Services Corp. (NESC) ........5
4.2 Infinit Outsourcing Inc (Infinit-O) ..................................5
4.3 Re:source Partners (RSP) ..............................................6

1 Introduction

The Philippines has been known as one of the best
outsourcing destination for global call centers and the industry
experienced phenomenal growth in the past 6 years
1
. While
the growth rate of Call Center industry is starting to slow down,
Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) of back office operations
is expected to grow rapidly in the coming years following the
similar path of Call Center Industry. This issue features the
back office BPO industry in the Philippines.

2 Industry Overview and Trends
2.1 Philippine BPO Industry Overview

According to Business Processing Association Philippines
(BPA/P, about 140 member companies), an industry
association for the countrys IT Services and IT-enabled
Services (ITS/ITES) including BPO, there were about 62 Back
Office BPO service providers and around 24,500 people were
employed in this industry segment as of 1
st
Quarter 2006.
Estimated revenue in 2005 was US$ 160 Million which grew
80% from the previous year.

Back Office BPO industry size is currently only 1/10 of the
Call Center industry which generated US$ 1.7 billion revenue
and employs more than 110,000 in over 100 centers in 2005.
However, BPA/P projects the revenue of this segment to grow
at the compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 67% during
2005 to 2010 reaching US$ 2.4 billion by 2010. (See Table 1).

U.S. based offshore advisory firm neoIT has assessed the
Philippines as the second attractive BPO destination following
India, as a result of their comparative study of 15 offshore and
nearshore destinations. On the other hand, U.S. based
research firm A.T. Kearney also concluded in a similar study

1
Please refer JETRO Philippine IT Industry Update FY2006-No.1
featuring Call Center Industry.
that the Philippines is the fourth attractive offshore destination
following India, China and Malaysia. It seems apparent that
these high rating of the Philippines by the reputable third-party
organizations are positively impacting the growth of Philippine
BPO industry. Not only many of large global companies have
located captive shared service centers, but also there are
number of major third party BPO service providers in the
Philippines. (See Figure 1)

Table 1: Philippine ITS/ITES Industry Revenue by Segment
(In US$ Million. Data for 2004 and 2005 are actual, while 2006 and
later are projection.)
2

ITS/ITES
Segment 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010
Customer Contact
1,024 1,792 2,688 3,488 4,192 4,816 5,296
Back Office
120 180 288 488 880 1,496 2,392
Software
Development 170 204 272 374 561 850 1,275
Medical
Transcription 42 70 126 238 476 952 1,708
Animation
52 74 111 185 315 500 759
Engineering
Design 34 48 68 102 170 255 357
Other Data
Transaction 26 39 52 78 104 130 169
Legal
Transcription 4 6 9 13 20 28 36
Digital Contents
3 7 13 26 52 104 208
Total
1,475 2,420 3,627 4,992 6,770 9,131 12,200
Figure 1: BPO companies operating in the Philippines

Back Office BPO companies in the Philippines perform
broad range of services such as Finance & Accounting, HR
Management, Payroll, Logistics, Publishing, and so on (See
Figure 2). As a recent trend, some companies have started
offering Knowledge Process Outsourcing (KPO) services
which require higher skill and expertise in certain business
process areas. Shifting or diversifying from relatively low

2
Source: Commission on Information and Communications
Technology (CICT), Board of Investments (BOI), Business
Processing Association Philippines (BPA/P), etc. (As of August 2006)
JETRO Philippine IT Industry Update
2006 No. 5 (10/15/2006)

Copyright 2006 JETRO Manila Center

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value-added voice services to high value-added Back Office
BPO and to even higher value KPO services built upon highly
specialized expertise seems to be a natural move for many
companies that were originally voice service centric call
centers.

Figure 2: BPO & KPO Services

While the Call Center industry in the Philippines is currently
encountering a shortage of English proficient manpower supply,
Back Office BPO industry can absorb portion of the unutilized
manpower in call center industry because some of the Back
Office BPO operations do not require high English proficiency
as voice service based Call Center industry does. On the other
hand, global competitiveness of the Philippines may be
challenged by other outsourcing destinations when English
capability is not the primary criteria for selecting outsourcing
destination.

The two tables below present salary level data of Philippine
BPO industry from BPA/P and from neoIT research.

Table 2: Philippine BPO Salary Level by BPA/P
Type of Skills Annual Salary(*)
From US$ 2,824 General BPO Staff
To US$ 3,529
From US$ 3,059 HR Analyst
To US$ 4,235
From US$ 3,059 Financial Analyst
To US$ 4,235
From US$ 4,235 Engineering
To US$ 5,882
From US$ 3,059 ICT Operation
To US$ 4,235
(*)Original data from BPA/P(March, 2006) was monthly salary in
Php. It was converted to US$ by exchange rate of US$1 = Php.
51 then multiplied by 12.

Table 3: Philippine BPO Salary Level by neoIT
3

Experience Level Annual Salary
Entry Level US$ 5,748
Team Leader US$ 9,629
Project Manager US$14,906

3
SourceneoIT Offshore and Nearshore ITO/BPO Salary Report 2006

2.2 PLDT Entered BPO in Full Scale by Acquisition of SPI

One of the recent notable moves in the Philippines BPO
industry is the acquisition of the worlds ninth largest BPO
service provider SPI Technologies by ePLDT, an IT business
subsidiary of the Philippines largest telecommunication
service company, PLDT. The purchase price was about
US$160 million inclusive of debt
4
. ePLDT also operates a
fast growing call center under the brand of Ventus (4,500
employees).

SPI was established in Manila in 1980, and then it has
expanded to a global BPO provider which now operates 23
centers in North America, Europe and Asia and has over 6,000
employees. They provide BPO services mainly in four fields
namely, medical, legal, publishing and data transactions. In
publishing division, SPI has recently opened new offices in
Pondicherry, India and Dumaguete, Negros Oriental in the
Philippines
5
. In the new office in Dumaguete, more than 550
contents specialists provide services like XML structuring and
editorial services to clients worldwide.

By this acquisition of SPI, which symbolizes PLDTs full
scale entry to BPO industry, ePLDT became one of the largest
BPO company in the country with 11,000 employees. ePLDT
is enhancing its service offering lineup as a comprehensives
BPO service company.

2.3 Ayala Group Back Office BPO

Ayala Group, one of the largest conglomerate in the
Philippines established a 100% subsidiary LiveIt Solutions, Inc,
a holding company for the groups BPO businesses
6
. Their
first investment was in eTelecare Global Solutions, Inc., a large
call center company. LiveIT recently acquired an 11% stake in
eTelecare for approximately P800 million. Mr. Alfredo I. Ayala
who was appointed as CEO of LiveIt Solutions was formerly
the CEO of eTelecare and the Chairman of SPI which was
mentioned above.

While eTelecare is currently one of the the leading call
centers in Asia which has 12 centers with 7,000 employees in
the Philippines and U.S., LiveIt announced their intention to
actively invest in comprehensive non-voice service providers.

Both of ePLDTs SPI acquisition and Ayalas LiveIt
establishment to start investment in BPO industry were made
public towards the end of June 2006. This wave of
large-scale investments by leading Philippine companies
indicates that these large enterprises take the importance of
BPO business opportunities seriously.

2.4 Guidelines for the Protection of Personal Data in
Information and Communications System in the
Private Sector
7


In June 2006, Department of Trade and Industry (DTI)
issued Department Order No. 08, series of 2006 entitled

4
SourceSPI Press release, Jun 10,2006
5
SourceSPI Press release, Sep 4,2006
6
SourceAyala Corporation Press release, Jul 29,2006
7
Department of Trade and Industry, Department Administrative Order
No. 08, series of 2006
JETRO Philippine IT Industry Update
2006 No. 5 (10/15/2006)

Copyright 2006 JETRO Manila Center

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Guidelines for the Protection of Personal Data in Information
and Communications System in the Private Sector. In the
Philippines, there had been no privacy and personal
information protection guidelines, although there has been
E-Commerce Law passed in 2000. BPO industry players
have started feeling that Foreign clients became more
discerning to select BPO service providers, and they are
urged to present how they are protecting data
8
. This market
requirement pushed the government to issue the guideline.

The guideline encourages private entities to establish and
adopt privacy policies. To provide support to such private
entities, DTI newly establishes DTI Accreditation Office. DTI
Accreditation Office will accredit third-party Certifiers, which
are capable to evaluate and certify the private entity in
implementing appropriate personal information protection.
This evaluation and certification will be done based on the
voluntary application by companies which would like to have
the certification. The name of standards to be used for
evaluation, such as ISO, is not particularly mentioned in the
guideline, though it is indicated to utilize internationally
recognized data protection standard. Furthermore, Privacy
Complaints Office is established under the Accreditation Office
to accept reports of complaints concerning personal data
privacy violations under the guideline. The guideline applies
to all types of personal data without regard to whether or not
that personal data is of local origin or from foreign countries.

While this appears to be a significant initial step forward for
the personal data protection in the Philippines, it is also
perceived by some as a stop-gap measure because this
guideline is still a Department Administrative Order by DTI and
Congress has yet to pass a law on such concern. .

2.5 Philippines and India: From Competition to
Collaboration

In early September 2006, a delegation
from Indias National Association of
Software and Service Companies
(NASSCOM) lead by its Chairman Mr.
Kiran Karnik (in the picture, top) visited the
Philippines. During the visit, Mr. Karnik
signed a Memorandum of Agreement with
BPA/P Chairman Mr. Bong Borja (in the
picture, bottom) to establish cooperative
and collaborative relationship between
these two industry associations.
NASSCOM has over 1,000 member
companies (seven times as large as
BPA/P) and it has been the key driving
force behind the global success of Indias
ITS/ITES industry. NASSCOM estimates
Indias export sales of software and
services in 2006 to be about US$ 24 billion, and is targeting to
achieve US$ 60 billion in 2010.

Mr. Karnik delivered a key note speech and also joined a
panel discussion at BPA/P-NASSCOM Conference (picture on
the upper right). He said that the global outsourcing
ecosystem serves only about 10% of the total outsource-able
volume today and therefore, the potential of outsourcing
service market is still huge. For years, India and the

8
Source: Business World, article on Aug. 9, 2006
Philippines have been competing over outsourcing business
opportunities for the U.S. and European market where clients
seek English proficient personnel. The newly formed
partnership agreement between BPA/P and NASSCOM will
shift the relationship of the two countries from competition to
collaboration and they will be jointly working towards greater
success in global outsourcing market where the large demand
expansion almost guaranteed.



It will be a great advantage for the Philippines to be able to
learn from the best practices of India which is ahead in BPO
businesses. Main areas of collaboration agreed are as follows;
Strategic Communication (of the benefits of liberalization
in general and outsourcing of business processes in
particular)
Geographic Risk Mitigation (Philippines and India as a
Geographic mitigation package)
Shared Best Practices and Adherence to International
Standards
Data Security and Privacy
Workforce Development
Collaboration and Cooperation
Infrastructure Improvement

3 Possibilities of Back Office BPO from the Philippines for
Japanese Market

While back office BPO for English speaking world,
especially for US market is rapidly growing, is Japan included
in the Philippine BPO industrys target? For U.S and
European companies have been achieving cost reduction by
utilizing global resources, it is inevitable for Japanese
companies to outsource their non-core operations to match the
cost competitiveness. However, we found out that the
number of Philippine based companies offering Back Office
BPO to Japan market was really limited. It is also the fact
that in BPA/P marketing strategy Japan, a non-English
speaking market, is not a priority target even in their market
diversification strategy to expand reach to non U.S. market.

3.1 Geographical Advantage: Not Utilized at This Moment

From the Philippiness perspective as BPO service provider,
an obvious advantage of servicing Japan compared with U.S.
is geographical proximity. For Philippine based companies to
provide services to U.S. clients in the same working hour with
them, employees in the Philippines need to work midnight,
so-called graveyard shift. For Japanese market, however,
almost normal working hours can be applied due to only 1
hour time difference. Companies which already have
operations of BPO service for Europe and North America can
better utilize the facility by servicing U.S. customers at night
time and for Japanese customers in daytime.

JETRO Philippine IT Industry Update
2006 No. 5 (10/15/2006)

Copyright 2006 JETRO Manila Center

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In addition, when you need business trips between Japan
and the Philippines, it takes only 4 hours from Manila to Narita
and vice versa. If you leave Japan around 9:00am, you can
arrive in your office in Metro Manila by 2:30pm. It means
your afternoon of the traveling day could still be used for some
productive activities. For businesses that may require relatively
frequent trips between Japan and the outsourcing destination,
such geographical proximity would mean significant benefit
compared with having to travel to India.

3.2 Possible Areas of BPO for Japanese Companies

Now, if we compare the Philippines with Dalian, China
where it has almost the same geographical proximity, we
cannot deny the Philippines is far behind in terms of the
number of Nihongo capable personnel. For back office
operations that are not totally routine task, communication with
Japanese counterpart using written Nihongo such as email will
be required daily. As a matter of fact, it is quite difficult to hire
many JLPT (Japanese Language Proficiency Test) Level 1
certified or equivalent people here in the Philippines. If a
Philippine based BPO service company needs large number of
Nihongo capable resources, there would be no choice but to
employ Japanese nationals living in the Philippines who tend
to cost higher than hiring Filipino personnel, making it difficult
to achieve the desired cost reduction. Large scale BPO that
requires Nihongo capable human resource will be impractical
to locate in the Philippines at this time nor in the near future.

However, if a company could identify and isolate some
business processes in which Nihongo is not required or only
English is required, outsourcing to the Philippines will be a
likely scenario even by Japanese companies. NESC, which
is featured in this case study section later, is a good example
of successful back office BPO by a Japanese company in the
Philippines. Also, a major Japanese trading firm is utilizing
Filipino manpower focusing on the entry of its foreign trading
partners financial data and to integrate them into the
companys internal credit rating system in the headquarters in
Japan.

It is also possible for Japanese companies with global
operations to locate primarily English language based BPO
center in the Philippines in which relatively small scale
Nihongo based services team may be located too. For
example, by consolidating Human Resource (HR) services of
a company that operates in many different countries around
the world into one center, communication and collaboration
among personnel handling each country would be much easier,
and you have better chances of accomplishing the global
implementation of company-wide rules and standardization.

Although we were not able to visit and interview, IBM
Business Solutions, Inc., a subsidiary of IBM Philippines is
providing HR related services to IBM Asia Pacific
9
from Manila
delivery center which has more than 700 employees. There
are 48 people including 16 Japanese nationals servicing
Japan operation. Among the non-Japanese employees, 7
people are JLPT Level 1 and 5 and 8 people are JLPT Level 2
and 3 respectively
10
. Many of International HR related

9
They also provide HR related BPO services for Procter & Gamble
(P&G), Lenovo and Kodak.
10
Source: Reply to our questionnaire from IBM Business Solutions via
E-mail
operations has been outsourced to this center from IBM Japan.
Locally hired Japanese and Nihongo capable Filipinos are
providing services in Nihongo. We heard from a former
Japanese employee of IBM Business Solutions who used to
work for expatriates support of IBM Japan that people who
are in charge of the same task for each country such as Korea,
China, Austria, Singapore and Japan are working in the same
office next to each other and communicate very frequently to
accommodate each client; i.e. IBM employees of each country.
It is difficult to express quantitatively but those who are
working there could feel the advantage of being in one place.

Furthermore, though it is also difficult to quantify, many
Japanese who experienced working with Filipino comment
Filipino and Japanese have a good compatibility to work
together. There are many Japanese who appreciate working
with Filipinos who are generally very friendly, have little
anti-Japan sentiment, cheerful, joyful, earnest and fast to learn
new things. For Japanese companies operating globally
having offices around the world, it is worth considering
Philippines as a location to outsource their Back Office
operations.

In the next section of Case Studies, we will feature a
Japanese company that has successfully outsourced their
back office business process to the Philippines and two
Filipino companies which are planning or considering their
entry to Japanese market.

JETRO Philippine IT Industry Update
2006 No. 5 (10/15/2006)

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4 Case Studies

4.1 NYK-Filjapan Shipping E-Services Corp. (NESC)

NYK-Filjapan Shipping E-Services Corp. (NESC) located in
the port area of Manila City undertakes Bill of Lading (B/L)
data entry for all liner ships of NYK Line (NYK), issued in
Japan. NESC is a 100% subsidiary of NYK-FILJPAN
SHIPPING CORP., a joint venture of NYK and TDG
(Transnational Diversified Group)
11
and was established in
2000. They started the BPO operation from a small scale and
expanded considerably in last two to three years because both
the productivity and cost savings achieved by NESC was
highly appreciated by the NYK headquarters in Japan. As of
September, 2006, 120 employees are engaged in B/L entry
operation for Japan.

Their core operation is to input B/L and compute shipping
fare based on information sent via image files or FAX, and
then send the processed B/L data back to Japan. They have
an established process divided into teams of Rating team and
Data Entry team. Data processing time per B/L is normally
around 10 to 15 minutes. This means that it takes 10 to 15
minutes per B/L from the moment NESC receives original B/L
document, i.e. image file or FAX from Japan to the moment
they transmit the data to Japan after they performed shipping
rate computation, data entry and verification. Input data
verification is performed by both the data entry staff and
another person. They handle 17,000 B/Ls monthly on an
average basis and their error rate is as low as 0.3%. They
are still aiming to achieve even higher accuracy.

NESC says that
NYK has gained
more benefits than
just cost reduction
and quality
improvement through
offshore outsourcing.
By having to have an
offshore team handle
the data entry, NYK in
Japan also achieved
proper documentation
and standardization
of business
processes. In the
company tour we
observed their
workplace and were
impressed seeing
young Filipino staffs
concentrating on their
work in their tidy and
spacious office.
(picture: top)

According to the
NESC Executive Director Mr. Araya (on the right in the picture),
it was quite natural for NYK to transfer B/L entry operation
which use only English to the Philippines. That is because
they have already been quite familiar with business operations

11
A Filipino own company group which has business from logistics,
ship management, flight related to IT. http://www.tdg.ph/
in the Philippines as well as Filipino human resource
management long before they made decision about BPO since
they have been employing many Filipino seafarers for their
shipping line operations
12
. Although the BPO industry players
in the Philippines are expressing concern over manpower
supply shortage as the most serious challenge, Mr. Araya says
he has not felt such for NECS operation. They can easily hire
college graduate personnel who have English skill and
computer literate. NECS has so far been enjoying high
retention rate, according to him. (On the left side of the bottom
picture is the Deputy General Manager Mr. Jonathan R.
Manucat.)

While their main business currently is B/L data entry for NYK
Japan, they are considering accepting the same operation
from other NYK branches abroad and also to offer this service
to other non-NYK companies. They already had some
visitors from Japanese companies which were interested in
outsourcing services. Mr. Araya shared with us lastly that
NESC has been highly appreciated by NYK headquarter, a
world leading logistics company, so they are very confident to
provide the same level service to expand their business to
customers in other countries or other companies.

4.2 Infinit Outsourcing Inc (Infinit-O)

Infinit Outsourcing Inc (Infinit-O) was established in October
2005 by Mr. Richard Eldridge (on the left in the picture) and Mr.
Manolo Aquino (on the right in the picture) who are both BPO
experts with over 10 years experience providing BPO services
to foreign clients. As of October, 2006, they have 45
employees and
plan to increase
over 100 next
year. They are
also considering
establishing
another base in
Cebu in addition
to their current
operation in
Makati.

Infinit-O targets small to medium enterprises (SME) market
and also focuses on providing higher value BPO services
than simple data encoding type of services. Typically, today,
the majority of the large enterprises have strengthened their
cost competitiveness by offshoring work to low cost countries
such as India or the Philippines but SMEs are only now
beginning to adapt such a similar approach. Mr. Aquino noted
SMEs are now realizing they must go into offshoring too but
they are at a loss, not knowing where to turn to and where to
start. This is the business opportunity Infinit-O wants to
capture.

Services offered by Infinit-O require deeper knowledge and
higher skills in the specific domain than the more common
business processes that are outsourced such as data entry,
date conversion. For example, investment research and
analysis service covers the research of stock prices,

12
Their expectation for Filipino seamen are high, and NYK and TDG
funded to establish NYK-TDG Maritime Academy in Camlubang,
Laguna in 2007. Its cornerstone laying ceremony was leaded by
President Arroyo and former President Ramos on November 2005.
JETRO Philippine IT Industry Update
2006 No. 5 (10/15/2006)

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corporate data and relevant information on the internet, in
order to , analyze the data gathered and report to the clients
potential stock movements.. Clients in the U.S. send research
request in their evening time and they can receive the
analysis report by the next morning. Another example of
Infinit-O services is medical claims processing. Infinit-Os
personnel check the consistency between the diagnosis and
treatment on the medical claims sent by their clients. Medical
claims auditing is performed by people with medical expertise
such as nurses and medical allied personnel.

Mr. Aquino emphasized in our interview that the most
important factor in outsourcing business is building mutual
trust between the client and the service provider. At Infinit-O,
the usual engagement contract is for one year but most BPO
customers renew the contract and continue long term
relationships. Satisfied customers usually renew the contract
and often expand their operations and generate leads to new
customers by their referrals.

Infinit-O currently services customers in U.S., Australia and
in the Philippines but is strongly interested in expanding its
reach to Japanese market. They envision that a realistic
approach would be tapping the market by addressing the
outsourcing needs of international companies with presence in
Japan by taking advantage of Filipinos English capability. A
specific possibility would be processing Bills of Lading (B/L) for
global shipping companies. Infinit-O considers having a
Japanese liaison personnel, if necessary, to lead a team of 10
to 20 non-Japanese speaking BPO team. For the Japanese
market, their entry approach is to start from simple work such
as data entry and gradually moving up to higher value
services.

(Website: www.infinit-o.com)

4.3 Re:source Partners (RSP)

RSP is a Filipino company providing Design Process
Delivery for the architectural, interior design, engineering and
construction industry. We asked what triggered them;
originally a design office mainly targeted local clients, to launch
outsourcing business for foreign design offices. Managing
Director & COO Jaylou Marie R. Hernandez (on the left in the
picture) shared with us that they started to consider joining the
BPO business while they were providing corporate interior
design services, which is their home ground, to leading foreign
BPO companies coming into the Philippines. (On the right of
the picture is Director Client Services, N. America and
Japan)



Their service is to undertake all design processes after
schematic design
13
by architects. In architectural design,
there is a process which requires tedious and bulk
construction drawings. By outsourcing to them, architects will
be able to have more time to communicate with clients and
concentrate on primary designing, at the same time achieving
cost cutting. There are clients who have achieved savings of
as much as 40% to 60% in production cost. They say Design
Process Outsourcing is the one method to strongly support
architects, then by all means to save on cost, architects may
seek the support in outsourcing countries. They also provide
services like digitization of old paper drawings by using CAD
software and visualization of buildings under designing,
leading to perspectives, still images and animation.

RSP is conducting recruitment continuously to be able to
have the best people. They hire graduates from BS
Architecture so that their employees are not merely CAD
operators, but skilled and technically competent architects who
can analyze and assess the constructability of their clients
designs.

Security to prevent clients drawing data leakage is being
paid the closest attention and they are ready for the faults by
mirroring servers that are located in Makati and Ortigas office.
To maximize the resource of pricey CAD software (mainly
AutoCAD and 3D Revit is implemented partially) and hardware,
they plan to move on to shifting working schedule while
increasing workforce currently with 200 people.

Current clients of RSP are mostly design offices which
produce high rise buildings more than 40 floors and office
interior design. The main market is Middle East, where there is
currently a boom in high rise building construction, and Hong
Kong. Since all over the world, especially in Middle East,
many Filipinos are working as architects and have good
professional reputation, it was very smooth to get the first
client in Middle East. This client has ordered them seven
projects including a hotel, a hospital and a shopping mall.

In the latter half of 2006, they start marketing to US, and
then the plan of 2007 will be for expanding their business into
Europe and Asia Pacific aside from Hong Kong, especially for
Japan market. Currently its preliminary research is being
conducted. When they get to enter Japan market, staffing a
Japanese architect is already planned.

(Website www.resource-partners.com)


JETRO Philippine IT Industry Update 2006 No. 5 END

13
This is a process In American architectural design process. It is like
in between fundamental plan and basic plan in Japanese process.
Source: http://abeke.net/projectphase.htm