Manpower supply shortage could derail BPO growth

CEBU, Philippines - One of the country’s largest BPO (Business Process Outsourcing) firms, Aegis People Support, has called the attention of the government to immediately address the problem on human resource, otherwise, expansion plans will be derailed due to lack of people.

Aegis global chief executive officer (CEO) Aparup Sengupta specifically mentioned the human resource shortage in the Philippines, that the government should seriously look into.

He said the Philippines should work into enhancing its level of workforce pool, quantity is not a problem because the country has over 90 million people, but the quality of manpower supply for BPO should be improved.

Because of this problem, Aegis People Support is now scouting for good expansion site—outside of Metro Cities in the Philippines to get the its needed number of people.

“The Philippine government has a huge role to play in this problem,” Sengupta said.

Although, the company committed to stay long in the Philippines, especially in Cebu wherein it invested about P2 billion for the establishment of its own building facility at the Cebu IT Park, Sengupta said that the lack of manpower supply will not only threaten the company’s bullish outlook for expansion in the Philippines, but the entire BPO sector here.

The company which currently employs close to 12,000 people in its Manila, Baguio and Cebu operation, aims at reaching to 15,000 headcount by year-end.

Aegis has emerged as one of the fastest-growing companies in the world. Sengupta revealed that the company aims at becoming a US$1 billion company, crossing the 60,000 market oin headcount by March 2012.

Based on a survey done by Cebu Educational Develoment for Information Technology Inc. Or Cedfit, Cebu’s major BPO companies, mostly call centers need at least 3,500 more workers between the months of October to December this year.

On the other hand, as the manpower issue has become one of the most popular concerns of the BPO investors, the Cebu Investments and Promotions Center (CIPC) earlier said that the pro-active stance of Cebu to improve the manpower capability initiated by the Local Government Units (LGUs) here, and private stakeholders, such as Cedfit, could well aid on this problem

According to Yu, the academe sector in Cebu is responsive of the calls from the BPO players, saying, “the academe is already working hand-in-hand with the players.”

What is good in Cebu, is the pro-activeness of both government and the private sector to arrest the top concern of manpowersupply in the BPO/IT sector here, Yu explained.

At present, the industry in Cebu is supply about 32 thousand seats. This number is multiplied by three with the 24-hour operation. That makes it an average estimate of 96 thousand people working in the outsourcing in both voice and non-voice services.

Last year, global outsourcing and investment advisory firm—Tholons, declared Cebu as the number eight “Emerged” BPO investment destination in the world.

“We will be expecting more big names in the BPO sector in the world to look at Cebu, as a location. In the last few years, when were only named as an emerging destination for BPO, big companies only considered the emerged sites such as Manila, making us as an alternative destination. Now, we are ‘ripe’, and is bound to attract big ticket investments in the BPO and IT investments,” Yu added. (FREEMAN)