Cedfit to spearhead campaign for shared-service investments

CEBU, Philippines – The Cebu Educational Development for Information Technology Foundation Inc., (Cedfit) is going to lead the promotion of shared-services investments in Cebu, starting with the multinational manufacturing companies operating here.

"We are encouraged by the success of some multinational companies here like Lexmark, Lear Automotive, NEC, of which their global shared-service facilities are set in Cebu," said Cedfit executive director Jun Sa-a.

Cedfit is going to ask for the support of other stakeholders in Cebu to create a group to effectively convince multinational giants operating in economic zones to do the same.

If successful, this is going to boost the back-office segment in the outsourcing industry that is expected to heighten the employment generation of the province.

A shared-service facility for global firms is a center for shared services in an organization, responsible for the execution and handling of specific operational tasks, such as accounting, human resources, payroll, IT, legal, compliance, purchasing, security, among others.

It also serves as spin-off of the corporate services to separate all operational type of task from corporate headquarters.

"We will start convincing the manufacturing companies operating in the Mactan Economic Zone, and other PEZA locations to set up their shared-service facilities in Cebu. We have the manpower with exceptional skills and working attitude," said Sa-a.

Convincing these companies to follow the footsteps of multinational giants is seen to boost the outsourcing sector in Cebu, leveling up from a mere customer-service or voice service jobs, to more complicated and high paying services.

This will provide job opportunities for degree holders in various fields of disciplines, as administrative works will be done here.

Initially, Sa-a said Cedfit is looking at five to 10 companies inside the economic zones that have strong interest in opening up their shared-service operations here.

Lexmark International Inc., for instance is making Cebu as its hub for global transactions — operating worldwide supply chain, global services, accounting, finance and sales and marketing for the entire Lexmark stakeholders all over the world.

The second oldest insurer in Asia Pacific, QBE announced early this year to hire at least 2,000 people in its Cebu shared-facility before this year ends.

QBE only maintains offshore shared-service operation site in the Philippines to handle its back-office transactions, indicating the company's strong confidence of Filipinos' skills and talents that could well provide support service in finance, human resource works and other services.

The Australian financial firm picked Cebu as it offshore location to take care of company's critical back-office operations such as human resource, claims and other insurance related processes.

Last year, Manulife Group's outsourcing arm Manulife Business Processing Services (MBPS) opened a  800-seat global shared service facility in Cebu at the Mactan Newtown to hire an initial manpower count of 1,500. (FREEMAN)