Of the more than 10,000 Filipino SAP consultants -- professionals who have undergone training and certification in the use of SAP system, it is estimated that 70 percent of them is based abroad.

Thus, the small number left in the Philippines is highly priced and in-demand, and is always a target for overseas employment.

"The demand abroad is huge just within Asia, particularly Singapore. We’re not even talking here of the US, Canada, and Europe," said Jenny Ligones, director at SAP Philippines, as she summed up the predicament of Filipino consultants during the recent opening of the newest training center of Kaisa Consulting, SAP’s sole education partner in the country.

The new facility, located at the Ayala Life-FGU building in Makati City, is only the second site to be built after Kaisa’s business and training facility at Ramcar Center in Quezon City.

According Ligones, Kaisa traces its origins to the time when demand for SAP consultants was beginning to rise sharply due to the increasing number of companies that were using the SAP platform.

"It used to be that only multinational companies were the only ones using SAP. That was around year 2000," she recalled. "Back then, there were no consultants so we had to fly in foreign consultants."

But when local enterprises started to embrace SAP in their IT infrastructure, so much so that the bulk of SAP clients -- about 80 percent -- are now Filipino companies, Ligones said the need to put up a training center for consultants became imperative.

"Moreover, it was very expensive to bring in foreign consultants every time we had a project," she continued.

So in 2004, Ligones said the local SAP subsidiary asked Ramcar, makers of Oriental and Motolite car batteries, to train a select number of professionals because their SAP consultants have hands-on experience in running SAP in their systems.

That training experiment became a hit and eventually led to the signing of a partnership agreement between SAP Philippines and Ramcar, eventually giving birth to Kaisa Consulting.

A deluge of enrollees greeted Kaisa’s first training site in Quezon City, allowing it exceed its firstyear target in 2006. By 2007, it was ready to expand to the country’s main financial district.

Ramon Agustines, president of Kaisa Consulting, said he’s hoping the new facility would supply the manpower pool the country badly needs. There’s no way business would grow here, he said, if the country keeps on importing foreign consultants.

"Also, we want to retain our consultants here at home because the social cost of migration is harsh for their families and for the country," he said in his speech.