Call center group mulls creating a Cebu chapter

CEBU, Philippines - The new set of officers of the Contact Center Association of the Philippines (CCAP) will direct its focus on establishing a chapter in Cebu by next year, as the BPO industry in the province has come into maturity.

CCAP president Benedict Hernandez said that although the issues and concerns of the BPO industry in Cebu is not far from that of Manila, BPO players in Cebu should be organized in order to have its own voice.

At present, Hernandez said the industry is fighting to be heard by the government, especially in terms of cost of doing business and review of incentives given to BPO players, among others.

The two major issues that will be addressed by the industry together with the government is to sustain the talent pool and minimize the cost of doing business in the Philippines.

Thus, CCAP is also working with the foreign chambers in the Philippines, in its advocacy on “holiday” proclamation by the government this particular issue affects the cost of doing business here.

He said the government should be more careful in pronouncing non-working holidays, as it largely hit the cost of doing business, specifically for the BPO sector.

Hernandez, who is also head for Accenture BPO Delivery Lead in the Philippines, on the other hand, lauded the proactive efforts of Cebu’s local government unit, and private sector specifically the establishment of Cebu Educational Development for IT (Cedfit) in sustaining the manpower supply for the province.

Although, the concern on talent pool is not fully addressed, Cebu has an edge over other BPO destinations because of the united efforts of the private sector to sustain the growth of BPO industry here.

The establishment of the CCAP-Cebu Chapter can help the local BPO industry here to solve issues and concerns, he said.

Earlier, Cebu Investments and Promotions Bureau (CIPC) managing director Joel Mari S. Yu urged the BPO players in the Cebu to immediately form its local chapter of CCAP and the Business Process Association of the Philippines (BPAP) to address local issues that do not involve national intervention.

“There are local issues that cannot be solved in the national level,” said Yu.

According to Yu, Cebu is now the home of large BPO multinationals

such as JP Morgan, Wipro, Accenture, NEC Telecoms, NCR, and others, including those big call center firms like eTelecare, TeleTech, Convergys, and the like, so it just proper for the local executives of these companies to group together and form an industry organization.

Some BPO multinationals have already expressed some of their concerns in the local level, like the scarcity of mid-management manpower supply that will need a strong support from the local academe sector, and other support industries.

This problem, among others will be easily solved, if BPO firms will have its own Business Support Organization (BSO) that will work closely with concerned government agencies in the local level, as well as other business groups and multi-sectoral organizations.

According to Yu, now that Cebu is already recognized as number 8 emerged BPO-destination in the world, it is but proper for players to have its own industry organization to support the growth, and address specific concerns.