Be Better not Cheaper...

Benedict Hernandez
President , Accenture and BPAP
My Story

Benedict is a UP AB Psychology graduate, Magna Cum Laude. He is also a TOYM Awardee alongside Bro Bo Sanchez. He got his TOYM. For Business Development which has been awarded yet to big business icons like Jaime Zobel Ayala, John Gokongwei.

He has always been very positive in life. He is fondly called as sunshine kid in his early childhood days and till now exhides everything that is positive. He has that automatic mind switch from problems to solutions. Dwelling always on what can make the situation positive.

Benedict started his career with a start up company called Smart in 93. They set their sights in acquiring PLDT and what they thought as initially a joke became reality when Smart acquired PLDT in 1998. In 2000 Benedict was assigned as GM of a start up company called Etelecare. They were about 50 people when they start with most of the crew coming from Ateneo. From that group started the call center business of eTelecare which grew and became the trail blazer in the call center industry.

He was always blessed in his career. He had focused on high quality and not being cheap. In his stint under etelecare, they did not have any client, nor are they clear as to their system on the first 6 months. They had no renue but that 6 months was used as practice. After 7 years, the company grew from 50 to more than 10,000 people with more than 300M$ revenue per year.

Benedict's vision of the company is to be the most awarded call center company in the world. True enough, they were awarded with more than 100 International Awards and , given the Best Employer Award by the Philippine Government.

He has made it a battle-cry that " the Filipinos are gonna be better and not cheaper!"

In 2010, with his leadership as President of BPAP, the Hilippines has been declared as the number 1 and biggest call center business in the world!

Philippines has a 10% disadvantage in cost compared to India, but we proved that we simply are better, not cheaper.

He sees that the next big thing in the BPO is the non-voice focused on IT SERVICE for Finance and Accounting. The country will be the premier destination for this BPO service!

Accenture is a 27yr old company with dark past being connected with the massive fraudulent company called ENRON. They have risen from this and from 2009 to 2012 had ben their best years in the business growing about double in employment from about 15,000 to almost 30,000.

Benedict attributes this tremendous growth in view of their culture of OWNERSHIP. He modified MBO - Management By Objectives to Management aby Ownership. He gave the employees a sense of entrepreneurship. Making people care about the organization.

Then he shared what for him is OWNERSHIP by detailing the last four letters SHIP.

S-hared Responsibility
H-umility
I-nvolvement
P- urpose

PASSION FOR PURPOSE

He has driven his people to a commom purpose. Making all passionate with common vision and mission of the organization. Everyone believes in what they do. They make their best effort for they connect it to the higher purpose of reflecting to the entire Filipino, and the individual contribution to the Philippine economy their way of handling each person that they serve. Their employees feel that they do contribute to creating more jobs by making su they deliver their excellent service each time.

His organization believes, and he believes that the best IT professionals comes from the Philippines and this is their shared vision and mission. Connecting this to the higher purpose. Something bigger than what they individually do.

INVOLVEMENT

Real involvement of people. Asking people to co-create the vision. They involve the people to make them feel and have a sense of ownership. No longer do they use the carrot and stick method but people empowerment by making them part of the solution process. The employees feel that "this is my company and I can make a differnece".

HUMILITY

Expertise does not reside only on the leaders. Iteill be good to have leaders who are experts but is far greater to make the whole team a team of experts. Leaders should not be the lone rock star. The whole team must be the team of rock stars!

To do this, "trust the wisdom and experience of your frontliners". Do not carry the whole load on your shoulders. You have a team to carry the load with you.

SHARED RESPONSIBILITY

Sink and swim together!

Success begets success.

Success is happiness. Happiness is discovering and pursuing your passion