Tholons: Cebu must work on improving survey rank

CEBU, Philippines - Cebu needs to exert extra effort to improve its ranking as an "Emerged BPO Destination" in the world as other cities are also doing their best to take over Cebu's rank in the survey.

Tholons president for Asia Pacific B. Paul Santos recommended that Cebu should act immediately on further improving infrastructure designed for BPO investors, with careful attention on managing the cost of doing business, and be on its toes to manage the manpower supply problem.

Although, the scarcity of BPO manpower is not unique only for Cebu, but rather a nationwide issue, he said Cebu should continue to be ahead in solving this problem.

In general, he said the business environment in Cebu is already much conducive and attractive to BPO investors, however more work must be done in order to improve its ranking.

Meanwhile, Cebu BPO and Information Technology (IT) prime movers and investment promoters have already planned of coming up with extensive roadmap to sustain Cebu’s charm to the BPO global investors, as it targets to take a lion share in the projected US$250 billion BPO market in the world by 2016.

A BPO/IT roadmap will soon be implemented as stakeholders are committed to act double-time in sustain its attractiveness to the world’s outsourcing sector.

One of Santos’ recommendations also is for Cebu to specify its “real” niche in the BPO sector, while everybody is into attracting same investors to their provinces and cities.

On the other hand, Tholon’s consultant Jonathan   De Luzuriaga urged players to sustain collaborative efforts, as well as implement strong “management expectation” program.

Now, that Cebu’s position as one of the top 10 “Emerged BPO Destination” is threatened by the obvious lack of quality manpower needed by industry players, De Luzuriaga said the local government unit, and the stakeholders, including the support sectors such as academe, should strongly join hands together to pull up Cebu’s position into higher ranking in couple of years.

While there is a growing number of outsourcing firms around world, also looking at Cebu as their expansion site, the problem of manpower supply should be addressed immediately, while existing BPO companies here are expressing their difficulties to get more manpower here, this could discourage potential investors.

Industry players, he said should “lay their cards on the table” and formulate a sound “management of expectation”, while the world is now looking at Cebu because of its attractive rank.

Cebu should move up in terms of ranking, and this is only a normal expectation from outside spectator, which are also closely watching Cebu’s movement in terms of further development in the BPO sector.

Cebu Investments and Promotions Center (CIPC) managing director Joel Mari S. Yu said that, Cebu is geared towards addressing to cost of doing business, along with the providing solutions on the manpower issue, in order to sustain its attractiveness to BPO investors.

According to Yu, in order for Cebu to step up its position as the world’s top 10 emerged BPO destination, it has to seriously leverage on the cost side. This means that rental rates and employees’ pay should remain much competitive.

In this cost management concept, Yu said CIPC along with other BPO stakeholders should involve the building developers closely so that rates of building and office space rental should remain attractive. (FREEMAN)