MANILA, Philippines (Xinhua) - After becoming the call center capital of the world, the Philippines aimed at becoming one of the world leaders in four fast growing outsourcing services, a senior official said today.

"We are the world's number one call center provider and we intend to attain market leadership in the United Kingdom and Australia as well. With our new development programs for the IT- BPO (Information Technology-Business Process Outsourcing) Industry we also intend to position the Philippines as a world leader in Healthcare Information Management Outsourcing, Finance and Accounting Outsourcing, Human Relations Outsourcing, and Animation and Game Development," said Alejandro Melchor, head of Information and Communication Technology Office of the Department of Science and Technolofy.

He said it was also a third goal of the government to double the Philippines' market share by 2016 in Information Technology Outsourcing, Engineering Services Outsourcing and Multilingual BPO.

The Philippines recently overtook India as the call center capital of the world, and in 2011 the IT-BPO industry contributed approximately $11 billion in export revenues, about 640,000 direct jobs and approximately 1.5 million indirect jobs.

The BPO industry is estimated to have contributed 5.4 percent of the country's gross domestic product last year, and government expects this to reach 8.6 percent by 2016.

January 16, 2012.  GLOBAL CONSULTANCY firm Tholons, Inc. has cited talent pool as a challenge to the Southeast Asian countries’ business process outsourcing (BPO) industry but said it foresees niche specializations of the sector to continue to grow.This, as 12 cities from the Southeast Asian region, including five from the Philippines, made it to Tholons’ Top 100 outsourcing destinations.

The five Philippine cities are Manila (4th), Cebu (9th), Davao (69th), Sta. Rosa (86th), and Iloilo (92nd).

“Addressing talent pool shortages will be the most critical issue in the Southeast Asian region’s IT (information and technology)-BPO industry as a whole. These should be immediately addressed to further drive the growth of the services outsourcing industry,” the firm said in its 2012 Tholons Top 100 Outsourcing Destinations: Southeast Asia executive summary released yesterday.

“This is especially significant as widespread cost-cutting measures brought upon by the recession in the US and UK markets are being pursued, which in turn, are driving up the demand for outsourcing,” the document read.

Tholons said BPO firms are experiencing difficulty in hiring and retaining “capable employees,” thus, resulting in higher attrition rates and an increase in hiring and retention costs.

“[Such] has resulted in greater initiatives by service providers to train fresh graduates or reskill lateral hires themselves, an exercise becoming increasingly common albeit more costly,” Tholons said.

Already, Tholons noted an initiative for skills development currently being undertaken in Manila is needed to increase the country’s talent supply.

“The Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA) of the Philippines, for example, has been continuously providing Finishing Courses for Call Center Agents targeted to near-hires in the Contact Support space,” the document read.

Despite the region’s foreseen supply problems, Tholons said niche specializations offered are expected to grow.

“Tholons sees that the region’s current niche specializations will continue to grow and pave the way for the development of higher-value services in Southeast Asia,” the document read.

Tholons said that in 2011, Southeast Asian countries have been steadily building their own outsourcing identities.

The Philippines has continued to be the premier contact support services destination, while Singapore and Malaysia have become financial and accounting outsourcing and back-office process outsourcing pillars, Tholons said.

Vietnam and Indonesia, meanwhile, have established themselves as strong providers of IT services, Tholons said.

“As confidence and maturity builds, process and delivery innovation will thrive as well. Tholons sees this as necessitating Southeast Asia’s smooth transition up the services value chain,” the document read.

The local BPO sector is expected to have booked $11 billion in revenues in 2011, then to grow by at least 20% from this number by yearend, the Business Processing Association of the Philippines previously said.

By 2016, the sector is expected to deliver $25 billion in revenues, after recording $9 billion in revenues in 2010. -- Kathleen A. Martin


Source:  BusinessWorld Online

DESPITE the  anti-outsourcing bill pending in the US Congress, a Europe-based information technology firm is hiring more manpower for its Mactan office as part of the firm’s expansion plans.

According to Willem Geert Lagemaat, Lighthouse Software Cebu Inc. (LHSCI) IP Group chief executive officer, they intend to increase their manpower base in Cebu because they see Cebu as a strategic center for their regional operations.

“The Philippine office is a bridge for us in dealing with markets in Thailand and Vietnam,” said Lagemaat, who announced the firm’s plans to focus on the Asian markets especially with the developments in the US.

Lighthouse Software Cebu Inc. (LHSCI), a Europe-based global intellectual property expert and information service provider, recently announced their plans to further expand their operations in Cebu to meet growing needs for trademark database in the region.

Lighthouse Software Cebu Inc. started with only five employees in 2009 and now they have over 300 people working at their office in MEPZ 2.

Patrick Van Dun, managing director for Philippines, said they would hire at least 100 employees this month and end the year with 500 employees to beef up their operations in Cebu.

International trademark database is a major project in LHSCI, which is currently handling thousands of trademark data from 87 different countries in the world.

In the Philippines, their main operation is into processing patent, trademark and other IP- related content for global information providers.

The firm also offers translations and software and database solutions that will add more value to its international data projects.

“Sadly, in the Philippines, awareness about IP (intellectual property) is not that known yet among companies here and that is our challenge,” said Lagemaat.

He said that the firm was serving two foreign-owned companies here.

With the current challenges in the United States of America and Europe plus the pending Anti-Outsourcing Bill, Lagemaat said that the local markets would become more important for them in the coming years.

“In Cebu, we can serve any industry. Potential clients can be from the manufacturing and production industries,” said Lagemaat.

He said  in Asia, they were seeing many production jobs going towards Vietnam from China because of the latter’s increasing labor and high inflation rates.

They also expect more locators mostly from manufacturing and outsourcing industries coming to the Philippines, which they saw as a huge market potential for IP, said Lagemaat.

Van Dun, for his part, said they could easily expand up to 2,000 employees in their current office in Mactan should the need for more people would arise.

Aside from the Philippines, Lighthouse IP Group also has subsidiary offices in China, Vietnam, Thailand, Japan, Belarus and the United States and in the process of expanding in other countries like Egypt, Argentina, Brazil, Peru, and South Korea, which are set to open within this year.

Manila, Philippines.  January 18, 2012.  KOREAN BUSINESSES are keen on investing in Philippine information technology (IT) owing to the government’s effort in developing the industry as a globally competitive sector, officials said yesterday on the sidelines of a business matching session. 

The Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency (Kotra) hosted the two-day e-Smart World Asia 2012, an information and communications technology (ICT) forum where officials from 100 local companies met with 30 Southeast Asian and 12 Korean businessmen on IT products and services aimed at improving e-government, terminal, medical, and educational services. Private-public partnerships (PPP) in the Philippines are also seen to benefit from such investments and IT solutions as the national government prepares to roll out infrastructure and public service modernization projects this year. 


Source:  BusinessWorld Online  http://www.bworldonline.com/content.php?section=Economy&title=Other-Stories&id=45279

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