Recruiting the right people is a skill and a challenge at the same time.  The resume and the interview will only give a sneak peak of what the true worth of the candidate really is.  His/Her performance, once accepted, will prove whether the candidate will be an asset or a liability.

It is a given fact that Bill Gates' and Steve Ballmer's hiring philosophy has always been to 'hire smart people and figure out where they can contribute the most.'  Hiring people with the right experience and leadership skills to a particular position is always an advantage.  But what if hiring too many smart people goes overboard?

For months now, Microsoft Philippines has been recruiting people left and right.  A majority of the country's seasoned I.T. professionals are now with Microsoft Phils.  People from IBM, HP, Oracle and more are with Microsoft.  The new hires are not just ordinary employees.  Most of them were occupying important positions in the companies mentioned. 

Prior to the hiring spree, Microsoft Philippines relocated its local office from The Enterprise Center to 6750 Ayala Office Tower also in Makati.  I visited their office once and if I am not mistaken, they are occupying two floors.  The higher floor is where the offices are located.  The lower floor (which I visited) contains their training rooms, audio/visual room, conference rooms, play room, pantry and others. 

To be honest, it's an ideal office; a dream office I must say.  But an office as extravagant as the Microsoft Philippines office surely is expensive.  I can just imagine how much they're paying monthly - not to mention the cost of the renovation and the facilities installed.  Before I left the office, I jokingly said that with the new office, I expect Microsoft products would announce price increases soon.

And with the new hires, I won't be surprised if the monthly operating expense of Microsoft Philippines will be in the millions of pesos.  So why is Microsoft Philippines spending this much?

The first thing that comes to mind is Microsoft Philippines is investing and building up its knowledge capital.  Microsoft Philippines is transforming itself to become a knowledge-based enterprise to encourage innovation, new ideas, new strategies and better customer support and education, which later on, may or may not translate to sales.  If it does translate to sales, then the investments made are all worth it.  What if it doesn't?

We have to remember Microsoft is a business.  The reason why a subsidiary was setup here in the Philippines is to do business, to make money in other words; that's a given fact.  We also have to remember that Microsoft Philippines as a company is not allowed to sell directly either to corporations or consumers.  They appoint distributors, dealers and retailers.  These partners are the ones making the sales for Microsoft.

It's not a rocket-science thing to know that for a business to survive and to make a profit, the revenue should be higher than its operating expense.  So with the high operating expense Microsoft Philippines is incurring now, I can only guess that Microsoft Philippines will force their partners to increase their sales--something that is beyond the control of Microsoft.  All they can do is to support their partners, via marketing activities and/or education and information campaigns. 

The computing space is changing and it's changing fast.  Competition from the open source community is getting stronger.  Given the present economic situation where the only thing left that is free is the air we breathe, companies that will be investing in their software infrastructure will not be as profitable as the previous years.  So Microsoft partners will have competition and the economic situation to contend with.  Another problem for Microsoft is to make the talents (with different corporate cultures and working habits) to work cohesively with one another.

All I am saying here is hiring too many people with high salaries and spending too much on offices and facilities, coupled with lower sales will bring a company down.  The worst thing a company would want is for a company to have lower sales, higher costs and too much overhead.

So where will Microsoft Philippines get its revenue? From new sales, upgrades and the anti-piracy campaign.  Tragedy occurs when none of the above work out.  While it's true that the knowledge capital of Microsoft Philippines has increased, the bottom line still will be the sales figures.  Microsoft Philippines should be able to prove that the knowledge capital investment they made will translate to revenue.  If not, a big, big problem will occur.  And that would be a sad sight to see.

So is Microsoft Philippines doing the right thing?  Their sales figures will decide that for them.  Good luck.

I’m logging off.  God bless us all!

*****

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