Picture this: Subic Bay and Clark Field as the business process outsourcing center in Asia. These places are very accessible with cheap flights, a huge airport that’s only a two-to-three-hour drive from Metro Manila’s business centers in case meetings are set in the city, and on very good road, I must add. Add to these tax benefits and you’re all set!

Sounds like a nifty proposition, and John Bayarong, dean of Comteq Computer and Business College, is raring to supply companies with the brainpower they need to make this happen.

You could say John is dreaming big but experts say that is the mark of an entrepreneur. Right now, Comteq has 300 enrollees; John’s long-term goal is to have 500 and cap it at that level. “That will be the maximum. After that, we will just concentrate on quality,” he said at the plenary session of Open For Business’ Business Mentoring activity.

‘Lean and mean’ — that’s his strategy. John said he won’t be training young Filipinos to answer the phone and talk to an irate consumer thousands of miles away. He wants to grow animation and graphics experts, payroll and accounting consultants in his brainy garden.

It’s a small garden as of now. John says it feels like a “mom and pop” school at the moment. But the dream is to grow and establish the system so that in 12 or 16 months, the school would have grown at a level fit for franchising – with the help of business mentoring under master mentor Willy Arcilla.

If you want John to be included among the Top Eight, vote for him by commenting on this blog entry. Watch John talk about the business of education here.

(Business Mentoring is a one-year project by Open For Business of INQUIRER.net. We are choosing eight businesses from the ones that applied by email, who will be mentored by Willy Arcilla, regional director of ZMG Signium Ward Howell and president of Business Mentors Inc. Willy is an industrial economist from the UA&P-CRC with a 25 year career in corporate planning, marketing, sales and general management across Asia-Pacific, and is a recipient of the Agora Award for Marketing Excellence. Read about the first four candidates here, here, here and here. Click here for more background on business mentoring.)