City’s BPO sector gets boost

THE business process outsourcing (BPO) sector in Davao City gets boost after it was cited as the most viable alternative city in the Philippines for the BPO companies, an official said.

In the January 2014 publication assessment of Cushman & Wakefield Philippines, a branch of the New Yorkbased commercial real estate services firm Cushman & Wakefield, singled out Davao City as the only city in the country being “highly recommended as the best alterna- tive location for BPO activities in the Philippines.”

According to the firm’s research publication, this is based on the 2012 Business Process Association of the Philippines’ Next Wave Cities (NWC) and the geohazard maps produced by the Ateneo de Manila University’s Mapping Philippine Vulnerability to Environmental Disasters project.

According to the study, Davao City makes a viable alternative city for BPO companies because it has relatively low climate and geophysical risk and relatively high results in the NWC scorecards for presence of relevant infrastructure and business environment and risk management, solidifying itself as a good alternative to Metro Manila and Metro Cebu for occupiers and tenants.

“With these assessments, foreign property consultants are expected to lay down some of the ground works for BPOs and other related companies to start locating operations in the city to join a considerable number of big players which have already established their presence,” said Ivan C. Cortez, officer-in-charge of the Davao City Investment Promotion Center (DCIPC). At present, some of the major BPO companies in Davao City are Concentrix, Convergys, Ibex Global, Sutherland Global Services, Teleperformance, and VXI Global Solutions.

Cortez said opportunities in the outsourcing business is not only limited to the voice-market but also in other growth areas such as in applications and software development, analytics, big data, and mobile.

Aside from the projected boost in the BPO industry, Cortez also projects that the services sector will face challenges this year.

“The challenge lies on how to continually serve and attract a huge market given the uniqueness of the city with due consideration to the restrictions being imposed (smoking ordinance, time limits, restrictions for serving liquor, and operating videoke and similar sing-along facilities),” he said.

Cortez also said Davao city being a convergence place in Mindanao “can only mean more opportunities for cashing in on the economic vibrancy that has been enjoyed by business players in at least the last ten years.”