Eyeing another growth area in its outsourcing operations in the country, an American firm is all set to start a 500-seater call center operation in Cebu this November.
ICT Philippines, a member of the American firm ICT Group, recently gathered representatives from the city’s local government sector and the academe to establish partnership before they officially start their operations in the area.
Among those who joined the meeting included representatives from the University of the Philippines-Cebu College, Southwestern University, University of San Carlos, University of Cebu, Velez College, University of San Jose-Recoletos, University of Southern Philippines Foundation and the Asian College of Technology.
In an interview, executive vice president for its Philippine operations John Langford discussed that their initial 500-seater operations could be expanded up to 750 depending on how their operations will flourish here in the city similar to that of their existing sites in Manila.
Langford said that they will be organizing a job convention on September 20 at the Waterfront Cebu City Hotel and Casino, and they are looking at inviting graduating students from each academic institution in Cebu to participate.
He said that by the end of October they will already start the training program for their agents after they slowly fill in the available slots.
ICT is a Nasdaq-listed company and they started their worldwide operations in 1987 in their headquarters in Newtown, Pennsylvania.
ICT Group provides customer care and management services, plus related marketing, technology and back-office business process outsourcing solutions to Global 1000 companies.
The company opened its first center in the Philippines last April 2003 with an initial 200 seats in Makati.
After five years of operation, ICT now has five centers in Luzon and it just recently opened its Cabanatuan site.
ICT’s operations at the Cebu IT Tower in the Cebu Business Park will be their first site in the Visayas area and Langford said that they will be initially occupying three levels in the building.
He said that their upcoming Cebu operation was actually influenced by two of their major clients coming from the telecommunications industry in America and a financing institution.
Langford added that right now, they are looking at second tier cities for further expansions as major urban cities are already saturated.
Among second tier cities in the Visayas that ICT is eyeing include: Iloilo City, Bacolod City and Dumaguete City.