The devil’s banquet of our present economic travails has been spiced and seasoned by the unmasking of a few ALLEGEDLY unsavoury individuals; the apparent exploits of Sir Allen Stanford might not quite equal those of Bernie Madoff in scale but $8 billion’s not to be sniffed at, and according to my diligent research (ie, Wikipedia) “the FBI and other agencies have been conducting an ongoing investigation of Stanford since 2008 for possible involvement in money laundering for Mexico’s Gulf Cartel” – and THEY’RE a lovely bunch, of course. Salt-of-the-earth types. Keep their heads while all around them are losing theirs etc etc.
Anyway: surrounded by such a miasma of ALLEGEDLY nefarious activity, it’s good to know some people are still striding the straight and narrow – and working to ensure the rest of us do too. I’m thinking in particular of the good ladies and gents of the Pilipinas Anti-Piracy Team (PAPT), an agency of the Filipino government made up of representatives of the national police, the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI), and the Optical Media Board (OMB).
As the Filipino outsourcing industry grows at a precocious rate (helped by some opportunistic marketing – the country has made solid capital out of the hits taken by Indian outsourcing following the Satyam affair) the risks posed by piracy and other software theft have grown accordingly – recent reports suggest that piracy now costs Filipino tech companies over $155 million annually with an increasing portion of that afflicting ITO and BPO providers. The PAPT – driven no doubt by the need to safeguard the vital revenue generated by outsourcing to the country as well as by sheer high-minded virtue – has launched a campaign entitled “Don’t Wait Until It’s Too Late!” aimed at firms using unlicensed software; a number of firms – foreign- as well as domestic-owned – have already been raided by the team, and “the [national police] will be enforcing the law to the fullest extent as it is duty-bound to do,” according to police chief Jesus Verzosa.
Why does this matter? Because at times like these – and with the ripples of the Satyam scandal still, unfortunately, making waves in the minds of firms considering offshore outsourcing – it’s vital for companies to have faith that their outsourcing providers are completely above board. The kind of partnership created by an outsourcing deal requires a great deal of that most precious of commodities, trust: trust not just that your partner will behave as it should with your data and your mission-critical processes, but that it will still be around, rather than closed down for infringements of software legislation, for the duration of the partnership. Hats off to PAPT for its efforts to ensure that trust remains a viable proposition.
On a completely different subject far, far away from all that has gone before: I was very interested to see the discussion regarding the Black Book of Outsourcing has been reopened following my fellow blogger Phil Fersht’s recent post on “The Black Book of Hollywood”. Will the debate reach the heights (and depths) of last year’s exchanges? I’ll be following it closely and would welcome any of your thoughts on the matter.
I’ll leave you with a golden oldie: I spent yesterday evening rediscovering Tom Lehrer and thought that even those of you familiar with it would appreciate listening to this once again. Awesome.
Tags: Black Book of Outsourcing, BPO, crisis, downturn, economic, Outsourcing, PAPT, Philippines, Satyam, Shared Services, sharedservices, sourcing, SSON
