BPO-related investments to pick up before yearend

CEBU, Philippines - Despite the noted slowdown of fresh investments in the Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) industry in Cebu, the Commission on Information and Communication Technology (CICT) expressed optimism that the province will get more BPO-related investments within this year.

“Cebu is identified as a preferred disaster recovery area by several ICT firms. This development translates into greater investment for Cebu as more ICT firms may transfer or replicate their operations in the island province as a precautionary measure for any disruptions of operations in Metro Manila. IT-BPO providers are counting on the ICT infrastructure of Cebu to provide their clients with uninterrupted services,” said CICT commissioner Ray Anthony Roxas-Chua.

Aside from the interest of BPO companies to expand or open voice related services of call centers, Cebu has also find its niche as the preferred site for disaster recovery requirement among ICT companies, he said.

According to Roxas-Chua the Philippines is expected to hit the 20 percent growth in the BPO industry this year, despite the threats of the global crisis.

“Despite the current global economic crisis, the IT-BPO industry is expected to grow approximately 20 percent for 2009. While the bulk of revenue still comes from voice services, the industry is now focusing on diversifying into the higher value-added non-voice services, such as software development, which will provide higher paying jobs to Filipinos,” he stressed.

He added that the Philippine IT-BPO industry is indeed something that all Filipinos should be proud of.

“We have already gained global recognition, with the Philippines being named Offshoring Destination of the Year, Manila as the number three outsourcing city in Asia Pacific and, of course, Cebu as the number one emerging outsourcing city in the world,” Roxas-Chua said.

The industry employed about 372 thousand workers as of year-end 2008 and generated 6 billion US dollars of export revenue for the year.

He emphasized that although the Philippines is slightly affected by the slackened mode of investors to put up new investments now, due to the economic uncertainty, he said that in ICT or BPO sectors, “tuloy-tuloy pa rin ang investments.”

Roxas-Chua added that in order to solidify the gains that the Philippines has achieved in the BPO/ICT sector, the government has to provide the appropriate legal and regulatory framework for the IT-BPO industry to flourish.

Given the proprietary and sensitive nature of the data handled by IT-BPO operators, including source codes, credit profiles and medical records, it is of utmost importance that the government will ensure the privacy of data and punish those who commit breaches.

“It is for this reason we are aggressively pushing for the passage of a Data Privacy Bill by leading a technical working group in reviewing and consolidating existing data privacy bills,” he said.

Recently, the CICT played host to a data privacy consultative forum attended by local and international experts to help formulate a privacy regulatory framework that is responsive to the needs of the country.

The ICT/BPO industry is also heavily dependent on ICT infrastructure and cannot afford any disruptions caused by attacks on that infrastructure.

“That is why we are also actively pushing for an Anti-Cybercrime Bill that defines the various types of cybercrime and prescribes corresponding punishments. This Bill has been approved by the Committee on Appropriations in the House of Representatives,” Roxas-Chua concluded.