Losses force IT firm to leave RP

Complete Business Solutions Inc. (CBSI), which entered into a joint venture with Rizal Commercial Banking Corp. (RCBC) last year, has decided to pull out of the country due to its continued weak performance which led to heavy losses.

The firm said it will concentrate its offshore software development center in Bangalore, India, since CBSI already has big investments in that country.

The CBSI headquarters in Michigan, US, decided to concentrate its operations in Bangalore to fully utilize and maximize the manpower and their investments in India.

CBSI Philippines, which was set up as an offshore software development center, does not have any sales and marketing operations in the country and was just relying on projects given by its affiliates.

CBSI Philippines claims it has been suffering losses since it started operations in the country. It said that the billing rate charged by its affiliates (CBSI Singapore, CBSI Australia, etc.) was mandated by its US headquarters.

In the case of the Philippines, its local operations could not increase its billing rate per hour since CBSI India has a lower billing rate/ hour compared with its local counterpart.

The firm said its local operations were also affected by the reorganization of its US headquarters where changes in key officers and board members were effected.

It said the economic situation in the US has caused the CBSI headquarters to implement a cost-cutting scheme prompting the closure of some development centers in the US and the shutdown of operations of CBSI Australia last February 2001.

CBSI is a global technology service company specializing in Web-to-enterprise integration, industry specific solutions and strategic outsourcing. It was founded in 1985 and has successfully delivered fast, focused, high quality, yet cost-effective business and technical solutions.

Its headquarters is located in Farmington Hills, Michigan and it has over 5,000 full-time employees worldwide.

It entered into a joint venture with RCBC last year to provide IT services to the banking and finance sector.