Profitable niche market

While the country has focused on call centers, the software development industry has been quietly growing by 16% in the last two years.

"There are currently 300 companies in the software development business producing P250 million worth of software products, of which 80% are exported and only P10 million is for the local market," said Webworks Outsourcing, Inc. president Joey Gurango. "Ours is a niche market. Our clients mass-produce our software and sell these to businesses and industries in the world."

People

The company currently has 67 employees servicing the needs of only four clients, a 500% growth in revenues from nothing in October 2003.

"Software development is nothing but ‘building a building’. For each project of a customer, we have 20 to 30 of our people," said Gurango.

Most of Webworks original employees came from Microsoft , after the company trimmed its 23 global development centers, including the one in the Philippines, down to three in 2003.

"Our project team members are all Microsoft certified professionals, with university degrees in IT, engineering, or computer science. They are all fluent in written and conversational English, and are comfortable with American values," said Gurango, a university drop-out who co-developed and sold a software company called Match Data Systems to Great Plains, which was eventually acquired by Microsoft. "The average age of our employees is 24 years old, 50% of whom are computer science graduates of De La Salle University.

In the next two years, Webworks intends to triple its business by aggressively looking for subcontracting work, on the one hand, and keeping its current and future employees happy, on the other hand.

"We gave our people a 15% stock dividend last year. In the future, we intend to give out cash dividends as well. By making them shareholders, we help our employees attain job and income stability. It’s also a good way to insure the company against piracy and labor poaching," said Gurango.