Call Center 101 to address BPO manpower problems

CEBU, Philippines - The obvious problem of human resource shortage in the Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) has prompted a group of Cebuano entrepreneurs to open up a training center to equip potential manpower with employable skills.

Call Center 101 Training Center was recently opened, to provide a 10-day and 40-hour extensive training for individuals, who may want to enter to the growing BPO or call center industry.

Rolando Q. Acas, together with partners Arnold Cajilig and Nimrod Quiñones, invested at least P750 thousand to aid the growth of the BPO industry in Cebu, as the province faces manpower problems amid the growing interest of BPO investors to operate in Cebu.

For only P2,500, the training module aims at polishing the communication skills of students, confidence building, grammar, and familiarization of the American culture, among others.

A TESDA-accredited training center, Acas said the company will continue to invest on acquiring top-notch technology, and getting experts in the call center industry, in order to give its students the “best training” and sure employment after completing the 10-day course.

“We are more on hands-on training, we are trying not to focus more on the theory,” Acas said adding that the center is one of the first training centers in the country that offers “technical training” and phone simulation.

With three schedule set up in a day operation, the center can accommodate at least 45 trainers daily.

At present, the company is partnering with six major call center companies in Cebu for their manpower requirements.

In the long term, Acas said that the company will expand into offering more courses, other than call center training, to include other modules, such as software development, and other BPO related skills.

Recently, BPO stakeholders lamented that manpower supply is one of the primary problems faced by the industry today.

Butch Sison of Convergys said that about two-thirds of the company’s clients are pleading to be serviced from its Cebu operation. However, Convergys had to turn down these clients, whom Sison described as “pleading to be here (Cebu),” because of manpower shortage.

Thus, these clients had to be sent to its Manila operation. This could supposedly provide about 1,500 jobs.

“The challenge now of the BPO industry is not how to grow, but how to minimize the loss of opportunity cost,” Sison said.

Meanwhile, Jojo Ligan of the Contact Center Association of the Philippines (CCAP) said that the Philippine BPO industry could probably reach the 50 percent growth, but its projection is lowered due to the obvious problem of manpower scarcity.

“There are a lot of BPO companies that wanted to expand, but we couldn’t provide them the manpower requirement,” Ligan stressed.

Sison added that Cebu for instance, because of its strength to invite BPO companies, existing BPO stakeholders had to get their manpower needs from the neighbouring regions and provinces.

CCAP said that the BPO sector in the Philippines is still facing low hiring rate condition, as record showed that out of 100 applicants in the BPO sector only 20 percent to 30 percent can be hired.