Visionary tycoon initiates BPO triangle strategy

MANILA, Philippines - In the late 1990s this visionary businessman changed the Philippine business landscape forever by enlisting Eastwood City Cyberpark as the country’s first accredited information technology (IT) park. Today, Eastwood City Cyberpark is the country’s largest IT park, #1 in terms of employment figures and salaries paid for 2010, according to data from the Philippine Economic Zone Authority (Peza). Top business process outsourcing (BPO) firms such as Citibank, IBM, Stream, Dell, Siemens and Accenture call Eastwood City home.

More than a decade later, this same businessman, albeit now on a bigger league and stature, is embarking on what he envisions as the country’s “BPO triangle” that will make the Philippines even more competitive globally and a desirable investment location for outsourcing and offshoring (O&O) firms.

This businessman is no other than Andrew Tan, chairman & CEO of Megaworld Corporation. Now a taipan, the chief of the country’s #1 BPO office landlord is enticing BPO companies and executives to venture out beyond Metro Manila and help spur development in the countryside.

The tycoon declared, “Now that we have successfully engineered, and continue to build up, the concentration of BPO activities in Metro Manila via our three cyberparks – Eastwood City, McKinley Hill and Newport City – it is high time that we at Megaworld embark on developing the urban countryside as well, specifically Iloilo and Cebu, with our high-profile BPO projects. Together with our cyberparks in Metro Manila, Iloilo Business Park and The Mactan Newtown encapsulate our BPO triangle strategy.

Taipan Andrew Tan of Megaworld envisions a ‘BPO triangle’ that will make the country even more globally competitive.

“All three offer BPO companies advantages in terms of location, lease prices and talent. Iloilo and Cebu are highly urbanized and their university systems produce quality graduates annually. The locals, due to their native dialects, have a pleasant vocal intonation that BPO firms can take advantage of in servicing their clients,” Tan shared.

He added that once BPO firms expand into the countryside, this will improve family incomes and create a ripple effect in related industries in these two provinces plus their neighbors.

Megaworld started constructing the Richmonde Tower in Iloilo Business Park last May. The BPO component of this tower will run from the second to sixth floor, offering more than 9,000 square meters of prime office space for BPO locators. The upper floors, meanwhile, are slated for Richmonde Hotel Iloilo. The hotel will host 90 guest rooms, ranging from superior rooms to junior suites. Its seventh-level amenities deck features play amenities such as a lap pool, children’s pool and fitness center, while the business center on the same level will include meeting rooms and a conference room.

The first retail component of the project, Festive Walk, will be completed in the latter part of 2012. With these anchor projects, Megaworld aspires to turn the 54.5-hectare former Iloilo Airport into a new business center in Western Visayas.

With its strong Work-Play-Learn components, Megaworld is projecting that Iloilo Business Park will fill more than 24,000 seats for the BPO sector, whereas its retail component will infuse more than 200,000 square meters of space for the commercial sector. All in all, Megaworld expects to help create about 40,000 new jobs within Iloilo City, thus helping spur up the local economy.

Meanwhile, One World Centre in The Mactan Newtown is now ready for occupancy. The first BPO building to rise in this new 16-hectare township project in Mactan Island, Cebu, it offers 7,000 square meters of prime office space across five storeys. Retail space for restaurants, fast food outlets and convenience stores are slated for the ground floor. The location of One World Centre near Punta Engaño gives the employees of BPO locators easy access to beach destinations after a hard day’s work.

Also slated for development in The Mactan Newtown are the five-storey Two World Center and the township’s first mixed-use, four-cluster development, 8 Newtown Boulevard, three floors of which are dedicated for BPO offices and the rest for luxury residential condominium units.

Megaworld expects to create, through its locators, 2,000 new jobs in Cebu with these first two BPO towers.

Over at Eastwood City Cyberpark, TechnoPlaza Two is set for turnover to BPO tenants this November. The building offers 15,000 square meters of prime office space across five floors and easy access to the shopping and dining outlets at Eastwood Mall via an elevated walkway. A supermarket on the second floor will serve the needs of the Eastwood City community.

TechnoPlaza Two can accommodate up to about 4,000 new workers in total among its BPO locators, according to Megaworld’s estimates. This will further beef up Eastwood City Cyberpark’s employee count.

Since all of Megaworld’s cyberparks are Peza-certified IT parks, locators to any project within Megaworld’s BPO triangle are entitled to exclusive perks such as income tax holidays, duty-free importation of office equipment, hiring of expatriates and repatriation of earnings, among others.

“With our BPO triangle strategy, we as a company are making our contribution to help the Philippine BPO industry reach its five-year goal. As the industry is expected to generate US$11 billion in export revenues this year, with more prime office space in the pipeline from Megaworld in strategic locations in Metro Manila, Iloilo and Cebu, we will certainly help propel the BPO industry to register $25 billion in exports by 2016,” Tan declared.

New and expanding BPO firms may check out the advantages of locating in Megaworld’s BPO triangle by calling the Business Development division at (02) 912-0708 or checking out www.megaworldcorp.com.