Academe urged to revive Spanish language offering

The Philippine academe is urged to revive language capabilities in Spanish, in order to capture the call center operations needing Spanish-speaking agents.

Kiran Karnik of India's National Association of Software and Services Companies (NASSCOM) recommended that the Philippines could capture call center investments specializing in Spanish-speaking inbound and outbound services, having a background on Hispanic culture.

This niche should be developed by the Philippines, Karnik said and make it the country's niche to attract more call center or other BPO investments here.

If the country could develop this kind of niche, Karnik said India in turn, could extend help in this particular field, as most call center companies based in India, are looking at investing call center plants in those countries which human resource are capable of handing Spanish-speaking consumers.

Spanish-speaking clients is one of the largest consumer-base in the world. According to Frank Holz, chief executive officer (CEO) of Outsource2Philippines, the country could leverage on this area, provided that it could revive the Spanish language capability skill.

This is possible, if the schools or universities will also recognize the importance of reviving the Spanish subject in their curriculum, so that the Philippines could provide a pool of Spanish-speaking manpower.

Commission on Information Technology and Communication (CICT) chairman Dondi Mapa said the Philippine government has started to develop that area, which is capable of accommodating call centers needing Spanish-speaking agents.

Zamboanga's "Chabakano" dialect, which is known as "broken" Spanish is the number one pick of the government that will be showcased to the investors.

In this way, Philippines can collaborate with India in offering the Spanish-speaking niche in call centers, based on Karnik's recommendation.

Mapa said Zamboanga has the human capital base in terms of capturing the call center investments which requires Spanish-speaking manpower. Moreover, Zamboanga also has the real estate capacity to house call center plants.

Karnik, in his talk during the recently concluded Cebu International ICT Conference and Exhibition said India, do not have a Spanish-speaking manpower pool, thus it can pass on these investments to the Philippines.

The NASSCOM official invited the Philippines to be India's partner in arresting the multi-billion dollar Business Process Outsourcing, IT, and IT enabled services investments in the world, so that both countries can grow together. Karnik stressed his faith on the Philippines capabilities to grow as the Global Center for IT and IT enabled services, but mentioned several loopholes that the industry leaders and as well as the government should immediately work for, such as data security assurance, among others.

SPI Technologies president Ernest Cu, on the other hand, is skeptical about the capability of the Philippines to leverage on the Spanish-speaking niche on call center.

Cu said it is now hard to develop Spanish-speaking workforce especially that the academe sector had already phased out the offering of Spanish subjects.