Upscaling fund pushed to drive Phl as KPO hub

The Information Technology and Business Process Association of the Philippines (IBPAP) is pushing for an institutionalized upscaling fund in the Philippines in a bid to make the country as knowledge professional hub of the world.

"We are pushing for national college upscaling fund. There is no such thing in the Philippines right now," said IBPAP trustee Jonathan de Luzuriaga.

As the Philippines is on its way to reverse its outsourcing and IT employment volume from largely voice to high-value jobs, De Luzuriaga said there is need for both the government and industry players to work together, and funding for upscaling the capabilities are badly needed.

The fund will not only help the facilitation for training in partnership with academe and industry players, but it would also provide funding for individual for training and skills development.

Academe will also be exposed to current industry needs, as well as upgrade or update their curriculum.

At present, 700 thousand of the 1.14 million jobs in outsourcing are voice-related services.

But, with the entry of Artificial Intelligence (AI), the voice services maybe affected and that the industry has to move up a notch higher to seize the opportunity for high-value jobs or what is called as the Knowledge Process Outsourcing (KPO) sector.

"The [job] requirements now have changed. There is a strong need to do upscaling both in the academe and the working community" said de Luzuriaga.

The Philippines has been positioning itself as the Knowledge Capital in the world in the recent years, but this initiative should be given a much stronger push as the competition getting tighter.

Although Contact Center sector or the voice-service accounts for about two-thirds of the headcount, but there has been impressive growth KPO jobs such as health information management, corporate shared services (finance and accounting, HR, procurement), financial services and banking operations, IT services and software development, engineering services, and animation and game development.