People Skills Creating Leverage For The Philippines In Global Outsourcing By: Myla Rose M. Reyes Total Transcription Solutions, Inc. MANILA TIMES issue for November 5, 2006 A.T. Kearney’s Offshore Location Attractiveness Index, a tool that measures the viability of countries as offshore destinations based on financial structure, people skills and business environment, ranks the Philippines as the 4th (India being the 1st, China 2nd and Malaysia 3rd) among 25 other countries. The emerging Asian competition shows the Philippines as a strong contender with its surfacing strengths in language skills, Western cultural literacy and exposure to global business. Like any other businesses relying on services, aside from having a reliable IT infrastructure, one of the most important medical transcription assets are those that ride the elevators everyday – people. In medical transcription, the 2 Q’s matter a lot – quantity and quality. During this take-off phase, both are critical in the MT global positioning. The balance between the pace of growth in number and quality will significantly define the country’s readiness from progressing to being subcontractors (local MT companies having US MT service organizations as clients) or direct contractors (local MT companies having direct contract with the physicians, groups practice, clinics or hospitals in the US). With the continued mushrooming of start-up MT companies, the need for an equally fast pace of producing quality MT graduates by training institutions is a must. Most often, start-up companies are reluctant to invest in training due to the cost and time elements involved, resulting to poaching and piracy, hurting the established players in the process. Contrary to some belief, poaching is not healthy in this take-off stage for medical transcription. This delays the growth of the established MT companies, and only causes shifting of capacity, not growth in the sector’s contribution to the gross national revenues. Furthermore, entrepreneurs should be educated enough to realize that successfully managing an MT company requires more than just having the money and the technical skills to transcribe. Despite the significant contributions of the industry leaders to establish a clear set of training regulations for medical transcription, more effort is needed to ensure the timely development of industry-wide standards governing the criteria for training and recruitment of Medical Transcriptionists in the country. Right systems and infrastructure are needed to produce sufficient and competent entry-level MTs. Acute shortage of qualified MTs is still a primary problem, and having sufficient training centers that provide quality training can significantly contribute to fast track the growth of qualified people. Setting accreditation and certification standards for training institutions are most appropriate to avoid profiteering and disregard for social responsibility. Let us not lose that edge that drove the country in its 4th place – People Skills – our only strength left in the face of continued political instability.