CONSUMER products maker Procter & Gamble Co. (P&G) is reviewing its support services center in the Philippines and operations in Asia to further leverage on the company’s information technology (IT) investments.

Chief information officer Filippo Passerini likes what’s happening so far. So much so, he told reporters last week, that the company was right to have “a large contingent in Manila” and to have “created a bigger center.”

When asked if there are plans to further expand P&G’s center, the global business services (GBS) division chief said: “We will continue to invest here. We will continue to expand the services we provide here.”

That may be logical since the company has saved $1 for every $4 invested in its GBS center in Manila, one the only three hubs providing back office support for the multinational company’s worldwide operations. The other two are in San Jose, Costa Rica and Newcastle, England.

In 2006, Passerini was quoted as saying the company has saved about $600 million because of this IT investment.

Hatched in 1999 with 29 employees, the GBS centers are now run by 800 people, according to Passerini, an Italian.

“The center has reduced costs significantly as well as provided local employment opportunities,” he added, noting that the video-conferencing technology has cut down requirements for travel for product research. Likewise, technology was also able to reduce product development processes from building prototypes to consumer testing of packaging.

“The intangible benefits include the ability to collaborate and run our business more and more in real time as speed is becoming a major differentiator in the market.”

Passerini said before this investment in IT, it takes the company several months to show their products to consumers and to get feedback.

With IT, he claims this only takes between six to seven weeks.

“We can change the product on the fly, reducing time-to-market for innovation.”

Passerini points to the four liquid crystal display monitors arranged in a row in front of an arc-shaped table. Four cameras are positioned atop to beam images from the 83 rooms in countries where P&G operates. These rooms are all similarly decorated, from the wallpaper up to the plant in a pot on a cabinet at the room’s far-end.

A video-link with the company’s video-conferencing room in Japan showed five employees appearing to just be sitting in front, completing the table’s circle shape.

The investment coup that Passerini launched began with the outsourcing of nonstrategic segments like IT infrastructure and maintenance and human resources.

According to him, some of the IT parts outsourced included running the IT infrastructure, computer centers and networks virtualization.

He said they kept the functions strategic for their business like integration of acquisition and IT architecture, market research, purchasing, supply chain solutions, product life cycle management and customer business solutions.

Passerini said currently there are no plans to offer the GBS outside of P&G.

“We do get requests to serve other companies but we have many opportunities in P&G. We also don’t want to be distracted.”

The Philippine unit of the Cincinnati, US-headquartered P&G expects sales to reach between P27 billion and P30 billion for the fiscal year ending June thanks to the increasing demand for laundry and paper products. Its best-selling products are under the brands Tide and Pampers.

Source:-http://businessmirror.com.ph/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=26977:procteragamble-cites-gains-in-it-investment&catid=24:companies&Itemid=59