Transcending excellence in the ‘new normal’
THROUGH the years, the International ICT Awards (IICTA) has been widely recognized as the “leading and most prestigious private-sector awards event for identifying and recognizing the most outstanding companies in the Philippines that provide information and communications technology services.”
Founded in 2007, the awards-giving event has earned a reputation of setting the gold standard with its objective and rigorous judging, as all criteria and procedures for judging are published in advance. According to organizers, its adjudication process is executed by a completely independent panel of judges, with members recognized as top professionals in industries and the academe, as well as those from the Philippine government—all of whom are engaged in ICT in their line of work.
Organizers describe the competition for its coveted awards as fierce, with the announcement of results eagerly awaited each year.
Against the backdrop of the current health crisis, this year’s finalists and winners of the 14th IICTA will be announced on August 3 as a gala show on prime-time TV via ANC, and as a virtual event streamed on Facebook. It will also be displayed on the giant LED screen at the Edsa-ortigas Avenue intersection, then uploaded later on Youtube. As its first virtual presentation, the IICTA will demonstrate the execution and delivery of progressive recognition events under the new normal.
Citations for the IICTA are now only bestowed for specific categories. There are at least three eligible nominees to ensure competitive adjudication. Seven category awards will be handed out this year for the best companies in health services, software development and information technology (IT), contact center and business-process outsourcing or BPO and global in-house center. It will also recognize the Best Company of the Year Outside the National Capital Region (NCR), Best Foreign-owned Company of the Year and Most Innovative Company of the Year. The highlight will be the announcement of top enterprises vying for two premier awards: Best Employer of the Year and Best Company of the Year.
Companies which are awarded in the same category for three consecutive years are inducted into the IICTA Hall of Fame. To date, these include Accenture Inc. for Best Company of the Year, Affinity Express Philippines Inc. for Best Company of the Year-animation and Games Development, Convergys Philippines Services for Best Company of the Year and Best Employer of the Year, Lexmark Cebu for Most Innovative Company of the Year, and Pointwest Technologies for Best Filipino-owned Company of the Year.
The IICTA is organized and produced by the Canadian Chamber of Commerce of the Philippines (Cancham), with Globe Business and PLDT Enterprise as title sponsors. The event is now funded entirely by private-sector sponsorships, with no fees for nominations and viewing. Payne clarified that neither Cancham nor any sponsors are involved in, or influence, the independent judging.
Broadening the scope
IN an exclusive interview with ENVOYS&EXPATS, Cancham President and CEO Julian Payne explained that, as the country’s IT-BPM (business-process management) industry has grown spectacularly over the past decade, the concept for the IICTA had evolved and broadened.
“The IICTA was launched to promote the nascent industry, and to demonstrate to the public its potential by recognizing and publicizing excellence,” Payne explained. “[It] was started in 2007 by Richard Mills, Cancham’s former vice president. The IT-BPM industry was then just developing in the Philippines. At the start, it was almost entirely focused on voice and nonvoice contact centers.”
The Cancham executive recalled two key developments that subsequently influenced the evolution of the IICTA: “First, the IT-BPM sector became very well-known, so the objective of publicizing the industry became superfluous. But the value of identifying and recognizing excellence continued, as provision of ICT services became more competitive with excellence and innovation being critical for international competitiveness.
“Second, the use of ICT expanded exponentially across all business and industrial sectors, ranging from banking and creatives, to education, health and retailing, [among others],” he shared. “Indeed, the potential for provision of ICT services by companies in the Philippines to international users is most likely beyond what we now imagine.”
The chamber’s president added, “The award categories for established IT-BPM companies remain as the core of the event. In recent years, however, Cancham—as the organizer of the IICTA, [and] in consultation with the title sponsors—has expanded the scope of the categories to include other ICT services. We intend to continue this expansion.”
Payne also pointed out that the focus of the event is on companies located in the Philippines that provide ICT offerings to international markets. “We are promoting excellence to support the export of ICT services to international markets. They include Australia, Canada, Europe, Japan and Korea, as well as the huge United States market.”
The Cancham chief added the IICTA not only generates profits for companies, but also significant levels of well-paying local employment and tax revenue for the benefit of the country.
He cautioned, however, that ICT services provided by companies in the Philippines must continue to be internationally competitive. That includes quality as well as cost-effectiveness of their locations, support services, industry incentives and ease-of-doing business procedures, such as those currently available with the Philippine Economic Zone Authority (Peza).
“The Philippines has to recognize that the level of international competition is increasing,” Payne opined. “It must take necessary measures to match up with the main players or yet, be better than them.”
Regarding the IICTA, Cancham’s top executive clarified that “it is called such, as the ‘international’ aspect is ingrained in it. That is, companies that provide services exclusively within the Philippines are not eligible. There has to be an international component of the ICT services provided.”
“In short,” he emphasized, “nominees must be engaged in some minimal level of international business to be eligible for the various awards.”
Challenges, past and future
PAYNE admitted that the limited number of nominees being submitted by smaller and new companies had been somewhat of a “disappointment.”
“One of the things we need to do better is to make sure we facilitate nominations being submitted by small and new start-up companies [where] creativity and innovation is ‘born unseen’—not just the large and ‘repeating’ ones,” he explained. “We need to encourage nominations from outside the NCR, and [those] from Filipino-owned companies. These were addressed by adding new categories with eligibility criteria designed for such companies. While we have made some progress, in some cases, we have not yet received the required minimum of three nominations for such categories to allow necessary competition.”
With a level playing field for smaller companies established, another challenge that arose was the need to make requirements for supporting documentation user-friendly: “One impediment we noted early on was that some nominees would send voluminous, sophisticated documents. Those were wonderful, and obviously cost a lot to prepare. We realized that the system of allowing such paper documents actually worked against small companies.
“Around 2014, we decided to do away with paper submissions. This is an Ict-based awards event, and we should use the potential of technology. So, we changed the process to require mandatory use of online submissions using our IICTA web site [www.ictawards.org. ph], with limited fields for essential information related specifically to the judging criteria for each award category, with no more elaborate paper submissions,” Payne elaborated. “Since then, all nominations had to be submitted using the forms available on the web site. Any company with a computer and Internet connection can now easily prepare and submit a nomination.”
A third hurdle was gaining acknowledgment from the wider business community beyond the IT-BPM industry, as well as with other chambers of commerce. “We are pleased that this annual event is now gaining wider recognition with support sponsorships by business associations such as the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the Federation of Filipino-chinese Chambers of Commerce and Industry, Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry, as well as others.”in 2019, for the first time, the IICTA also received an official endorsement of support from the Department of Information and Communications Technology, Peza, and the National ICT Confederation of the Philippines, which was again accorded to the awards-giving body this year.
“We greatly value these sponsorships by business associations and the endorsements, because they indicate [that the IICTA now] has a ver y broad base of support and credibility in the local business community,” Payne acknowledged.
A more recent challenge has to do with the increasing public demand that private-sector companies ensure their activities are sustainable in economic, environmental, social and commercial terms. In response, the IICTA introduced in 2020 a sustainability element in the judging criteria.
Payne notes that this year's theme, “Transcending Excellence,” triggered them to reflect this demand and incorporate sustainability in the awards:
“This year, we added a criterion in every category determining a nominee’s action supportive of sustainable development, as a manifestation of its performance beyond and surpassing standard commercial factors in running an excellent enterprise.”
Private-sector funded
CANCHAM’S CEO was quick to point out that the IICTA is purely an initiative of, and is fully funded, by the private sector. It never, and does not, receive any financial or in-kind support from the Philippine or any foreign government, nor is any payment required to submit a nomination.
Up until this year, financial support was through private-sector sponsors, led by title sponsors Globe Business and PLDT Enterprise. Tickets to the gala dinner event also generated revenue until this year.
“Cognizant that potential sponsors are facing difficult times with reduced businesses due to the pandemic, we particularly appreciate their continued support this year,” the Cancham president revealed.
While it was difficult to raise funds in these times, Payne is adamant in limiting support to those from the private sector: “It means we have to be responsive on how [they view] the event, and that it can be entirely free from government inf luence in establishing categories and judging the nominations.”