BPO firm to hire 2,000 Filipinos

MANILA, Philippines - There will be 2,000 more new jobs for Filipino business process outsourcing workers as BPO firm Affiliated Computer Services Inc. (ACS) announced it is expanding its local operations this year.

In an interview, Ann Vezina, executive vice president and Group president, ACS Commercial Solutions said that they can easily add 2,000 more workers to expand its operations in Pasay City.

On top of this, Vezina said they are open to putting up an additional facility in Manila, their fourth in the country, in the near future. One contact center requires an investment of $10 million.

She said their new investment is highly dependent on the needs of their clients. Vezina stressed that the country remains as a highly attractive investment destination for BPOs because compared to the neighboring countries, the Filipinos speak better English.

Aside from the capacity of labor, Vezina said a major consideration for ACS when looking at investing is the inflation of wages.

In the country, Vezina said “the basics (for investments) are there.”

Vezina said their local operations are more for specialized service instead of the usual call center activities. In fact, 60 percent of the services they offered are backroom, technical support services.

Last year, ACS opened its latest facility at the OneE-Com Palm Coast Aveneue.

“This new facility will allow ACS to offer our clients and their customers, even better service and support than before,” ACS Philippines country director Charlie Bognot said. “Based on our extensive experience, we know that this new facility will allow us to be more responsive to our customer needs,” he added.

ACS performs healthcare support, finance and accounting client services, mortgage insurance claims processing, inbound credit card acquisition, membership retention, level one technical support, healthcare provider customer service, healthcare payer web support and travel sales.

In the Philippines, ACS has nearly 3,000 employees.