Cebu an IT-BPM model

OVER the years, Cebu has served as an inspiration to other provinces in the Visayas and Mindanao to level up their information technology and business process management (IT-BPM) sector, an industry official said.

National ICT Confederation of the Philippines (NICP) past president lawyer Jocelle Batapa-Sigue said provinces look up to Cebu for successully attracting foreign investors, now the country’s top BPM destination after Metro Manila.

“We want to be like Cebu too,” Sigue said, who was in Cebu City last week for a press conference of the upcoming National ICT Summit this Nov. 10 and 11 in Tacloban City in Leyte. Sigue is also the executive director of Bacolod-Negros Oriental Federation for Information and Technology (BNeFIT), which has has recorded 24,000 jobs in Bacolod City.

During the summit, local ICT stakeholders will pitch Eastern Visayas as an alternative location for BPM investors, among other key activities.

Major cities also have their success stories. Aside from Metro Manila and Cebu, the cities of Bacolod, Iloilo, Clark, and Davao have been classified as Centers of Excellence in IT-BPM by the Department of Science and Technology (DOST).

“Cebu is like a model in the countryside,” Sigue said. Cebu has also been instrumental in creating the first ICT council in the Philippines. The Cebu Educational Development Foundation for Information Technology (Cedfit) has now been replicated by 50 other ICT councils in various provinces that form part of the National ICT Council.

Early this year, advisory firm Tholons ranked Cebu as the seventh best site for outsourcing in the world.

For Cedfit managing director Wilfredo Sa-a Jr., the availability of talent and infrastructure allowed Cebu to scale its IT-BPM industry to where it is today. He said BPO in Cebu was an offshoot of the thriving manufacturing industy in Mactan.

In 2000, Sa-a recalled there were only 1,200 workers in this field. This has grown to 120,000 direct hires as of 2015. The first contact center in Cebu was Sykes Asia in 2003, but it was NEC that started IT outsourcing in the 1980s.

Outside Metro Manila, the numbers stand at 300,000. NICP targets to grow provincial employment to one million by 2022, to include all levels of IT BPM work, including home-based online jobs.
According to Sigue, the provinces need to secure four key important elements to attract investors: talent; infrastructure, which include IT parks and teleconnectivity; business environment, which covers ease of doing business and peace and order; and cost competitiveness.

A feature that provinces can pitch to potential investors is high talent retention due to competition outside Metro Manila and Cebu. Sa-a believes employees are likely to stay in their jobs, as there are a limited number of choices in the provinces.

The provinces are also pushing for impact outsourcing, which is also known as “socially responsible outsourcing,” where BPO companies employ people at the base of the pyramid as workers by operating in the countryside.

For every job generated in the IT BPM sector, Sigue said four new jobs are created, especially in the areas of retail and tourism. Generally, IT BPM workers are paid higher than their counterparts in other industries.

In another development, Sa-a said there are no big entrants to Cebu recently, but internal expansions are aggressive among existing IT BPM firms.

Source: https://goo.gl/CDn4yD