Cebu emerges as BPO, IT destination

CEBU, Philippines – Cebu is now an "emerged" Business Process Outsourcing and Information Technology destination in the world.  This was announced by the global outsourcing and investments advisory firm Tholons yesterday.

The province has been exerting efforts in the last few years, to qualify as an "emerged" destination for BPO and IT. Now, it has achieved its goal to level up with major BPO investment destinations such as Metro Manila and other countries.

Cebu Investments and Promotions Center managing director Joel Mari Yu said that the active move of Cebu stakeholders, and the Local Government Units to support the growth of the BPO and Information and Communication Technology development in Cebu is a major contributor to hitting the goal as an internationally accredited-fully emerged BPO destination in the world.

According to Tholon's announcement, new entrants in the emerged list are Cebu City ranked number 9 and Shanghai City ranked number 10, which both have shown service delivery maturity in their niche outsourcing services.

For this year, Tholons introduces its concept of Point of Scale Resistance, a method which allows comparison of cities across geographies and regardless of their scale. POSR measures an outsourcing location's "ability to scale and sustain", highly considering the employability of a country's labor pool.

"We will be expecting big names in the BPO sector in the world to look at Cebu, as a location. In the last few years, when were only named as an emerging destination for BPO, big companies only considered the emerged sites such as Manila, making us as an alternative destination. Now, we are 'ripe', and is bound to attract big ticket investments in the BPO and IT investments," said Yu.

In fact, he said before the announcement of Tholons, big names in the BPO sector, such as IBM, JP Morgan, and Accenture had already announced their expansion plans in Cebu.

Accenture chairman and chief executive officer William Green said that Cebu is now an important destination for expansion in Accenture's growth plan for the Philippines.

Cebu had been named as a number one emerging BPO destination by Tholons for two consecutive years, 2008 and 2009. According to Yu, the Tholons announcement putting Cebu in the spotlight as finally an "emerged" destination for BPO investments, implicates the province's double of triple growth of BPO sector in the next few years.

"We have the most extensive human resource development program in the Philippines. What makes it more effective, is that active support given by the local government," Yu said.

Cebu Educational Development for Information Technology Inc. executive director Jun Saa said that this development putting Cebu as a "legitimate" world-class destination for BPO investments, means more challenge in providing quality human resource, significantly to solve the looming power shortage in the province.

In June of this year, CIPC and Tholons started a thorough study on Cebu's potential to rake bigger chunk of the US$50 billion BPO market in the world.

In an earlier interview, Tholons managing director for South East Asia Jonathan Defensor De Luzuriaga said that there is a need for Cebu to find out its real niche in the BPO industry, thus a scientific study must be done.

"Cebu needs direction in hitting the growing BPO market. I am surprised of the jobs done here in BPO sector, not only in voice, but in more complex jobs like animation, graphic design, hardware and software development," Luzuriaga said.

According to Luzuriaga, Cebu's potential should be complemented with scientific and study-based results on Cebu's capability to attract BPO investors.

"The study will act as a funnel to provide real information on the industry's potential," Luzuriaga said.

In 2009, the BPO industry in the Philippines generated a total of US$7.3 billion revenue, employing close to 500,000 workers. While majority of the investments are in Luzon, Yu said Cebu expects to contribute significantly to the growth of the BPO industry in the country in the coming years. (FREEMAN)