Tags: Internet, Outsourcing, Technology Industry
By Alexander Villafania
QUEZON CITY, METRO MANILA – Amid a flurry of Filipinos wanting to leave the country to look for greener pastures, the opposite seems to be happening in the information and communications technology (ICT) industry.
Foreign companies are said to be coming over and mining the country’s most valued resource: the highly technical and creative Filipino.
One such company is Finland-based Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN), a carrier-level telecommunications equipment solutions provider that has set up a research and development facility called NSN NetworkLabs at the UP-Ayala Technohub in Quezon City.
Since facility was opened last year, it has hired around 400 people, mostly graduates of computer science, electronics engineering, and ICT.
NSN creates applications on 3G and 4G, which are next generation telecommunications networks. These are integrated into equipment that the company also manufactures and sells to major telecommunications carriers around the world.
Just recently, the company opened its doors to some journalists and gave a “walk-through” of its research and development facility, a rare event by any R&D office standards.
Serving as tour guide around the four-floor office is Said Berrahil, head of NSN NetworkLabs. He gave his guests a tour of two floors of their office, which feels like a mix of a business process outsourcing (BPO) office and a mall.
After every isle of cubicles and whiteboards, peppered with post-its is a little nook, where workers can lounge and relax. One room has two egg-shaped enclosures where workers can discuss their work when needed.
There are also corners in the sprawling facility that have either Filipino or Finnish-themed lounges. One room in the first floor is designed with the island resort of Boracay, complete with padded lounge chairs and foot rests. The same room has a hidden videoke room that could fit around four to six people.
Meanwhile, the second floor is mostly themed after Finland. Certain corners of the floor have ski lift chairs, which Berrahil said had to be imported. One meeting room in the second floor is designed like a steam room, which is popular in perennially-subzero Finland.
“We’re making it more relaxing for people because what we need from them is to be creative. We don’t force them to work since what we need from them are their brains,” he said.
Berrahil said that most of their workers have been trained on Agile methodology, which is a process used in software development where developers are separated into specific teams to work on certain aspects.
The idea is for each one to find a specific problem and input their solution into the entire software development lifecycle. The process is effective as each team can review the entire development process from their end.
“One good thing about being located here [in UP-Ayala Technohub] is that we’re so close to tertiary learning institutions where we can have direct access to students and graduates. We have programs with the University of the Philippines to tap their best students where we train them even before they graduate,” he said.
Berrahil stressed that while many fresh graduates look at working abroad, there are still a few good graduates who choose to stay in the Philippines, which, he said, “keeps the best minds in the Philippines”.
This also provides additional incentive for foreign offices to set up shop in the Philippines in order to tap knowledge-based workers.
“NSN NetworkLabs is giving its employees a sense that they are continuously learning and also a sense of purpose. They have to keep developing their creativity by learning, and then use what they learn to make something that serves the needs of others,” he said.
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