Outsourcing industry to start 2nd phase of BPO roadmap

CEBU, Philippines -  The Cebu outsourcing industry will soon start the second phase of the study on how to further maximize the potential of the Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) and other IT-related services.

The second phase of the roadmap followed after the completion of a similar study conducted by Tholons and Cebu Investment Promotions Center (CIPC) which identified the challenges, as well as capabilities of Cebu being named as an "emerged BPO destination" in the world.

CCCI chairman for ICT committee Jerry Rapes said in an interview yesterday that the second roadmap study will drill down what Cebu needs, to get to higher level.

"We have to know where we are going and what to do next now that we know we have the capabilities to do more Knowledge Process Outsourcing [KPO]" Rapes said who is also the president of an Information Technology Outsourcing (ITO) eXist Global.

However, even without the second phase roadmap result yet, Rapes said companies should start capitalizing on the rich capability of Cebu to excel in KPO services, this means that existing outsourcing companies should expand or enterpreneurs should look at KPO as an opportunity.

The Philippines outsourcing industry is largely dominated by voice related services. Of the close to 600 thousand outsourcing employees in the country today, about 25 percent is doing KPO, Rapes said.

Thus, the growth of the outsourcing industry especially in Cebu is largely anchored by KPO, although manpower requirement of this high-value service may not be as huge as the voice related jobs.

The Cebu BPO/IT sector now employs more or less 60 thousand people, only minimal percentage are doing the KPO jobs.

According to Rapes, companies should start talking and promoting to clients that we have the capabilities of doing more than voice jobs.

Aside from software development, animation, graphics, Cebu has rich resources to provide other back-end jobs in accounting, human resource, medical services, legal and financial consultations, among others. (FREEMAN)