My Thoughts On FilAm’s going back to the Philippines

Just got this message from a connection on LinkedIn.

Thought a blog post might be the best way to reply.

“I am a Filipino-American who was born in the Philippines and moved to Chicago when I was 10 years old. I always wanted to come back home, but hesitate to do it since the Chicago and Manila have totally different economies. I saw that you studied at Indiana University and now work in the Philippines. How did you do it? Do you like it? I usually go home every year and I will be coming home again this Christmas season. Any feedback would be very appreciated.”

I think there is a lot of opportunity for FilAms to be successful in either working in and/or setting up businesses in the Philippines.

From my experience, some of the advantages you will find include:

• You can add a lot of value to businesses with American clients by role modeling your business acumen, your English and your understanding of American culture.
• With big call centers you can find work in management or working with the clients.
• With smaller call centers you can find yourself in a pretty senior position.
• If you want to get into being a BPO broker by matching U.S. clients with call centers there is always room for that.

After getting your feet wet, you can probably set up your own small business that focuses your talents and interests like I have done.

I train people to be better analysts, introduce analytics to college students and do some consulting on analytics projects as well.

As for how I got my start, I worked for Wells Fargo as a business analyst for about 10 years and during that time got involved with some outsourcing projects. Things all fell into place about 3 years ago an I moved to the Philippines to set up my own business.

So, I am a big advocate of doing the something similar yourself.

A couple of other things to think about thought is getting paid in pesos doesn’t go as far as getting paid in dollars. The bureaucracy and the corruption can be maddening at times. The poverty and the congestion are not easy to see every day. But all in all the Philippines is probably in the best places it’s been in a while as far as business climate.

With the right planning and execution you can have a much more rewarding life in the Philippines.

Hope that helps!