Davao City-Being named one of the Top 10 Asian Cities of the Future in a survey of Financial Direct Investment magazine of the Financial Times in 2007 has made Davao City an attractive location for investors in offshoring and outsourcing.
Patricia M. Abejo, director of the Cyberservices group of the Commission on Information and Communication, said that Davao is also in the top 5 in human resource in Asia and the Pacific has positioned itself for BPO investments.
Abejo spoke during a recent forum in Mandaya Hotel with the title ‘Davao, The Leader City Gearing the Mindanao Cyberservice on Business Process Outsourcing Human Resource and Recruitment’. In attendance were IT stakeholders and the academe.
She said with Davao City in the top 5 for human resources are the cities of Melbourne, Australia and Singapore.
With the aggressiveness of the city on ICT, it was able to organize the Davao City IT council, where industry leaders both private and government, has set the direction even as it focuses on what and how to go about the industry, according to Abejo.
She said the IT Council did a lot as the city is already an active player within the cyber corridor.
She noted that about 3,000 are already employed in BPO companies operating in Davao City and potential workers are readily available with 15,000 graduates yearly for all disciplines in different universities.
Abejo said that, even with the economic slowdown the Philippines in three years, it still got 53 percent of the market share and hopes it will continue on a steady pace compared to other countries like the US getting only 30 to 40 percent share.
Jamea Garcia, director for Talent Development of Business Processing Association of the Philippines (BPAP), urged the academe to come up with responsive curriculum change and improvement in training program.
She said the industry needs qualified and competent workers and the only way to do it is make a responsive educational system.
Based on the 2010 roadmap of the industry she said the target is to capture 10 percent of the global outsourcing market of about 13 billion US dollars or an additional 1.5 million of indirect jobs created by the industry.
She said the one million employees would translate to 6.7 billion US dollars annual salaries and benefits of workers of which spending, among others, would include 10 percent for housing and 20 percent for tax payment, an additional revenue for the government.
The BPO is supply driven and currently only 15 percent of global outsourceable market is being captured.
The value of the whole outsourcing market is 450 billion US dollars but what is only being outsourced is 130 billion US dollars and a lot of companies are looking at the industry, she said.
In terms of competition in the supply side, India is leading but it is facing a lot of issues while other countries are far behind the Philippines in terms locating their investment.
“The Philippines is ready to capture that market but we need to work together because the supply and quality of talent will determine our growth,” she stressed.
She said producing qualified workers and managers will help capture the market. (PIA)
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