Contrary to reports, and if some recent announcements are any indication, the Philippines is far from saturated as a contact center location.
Catch Friday Enterprises, a British business process outsourcing (BPO) firm with a contact center in Davao reports, in a story carried via
OfficialWire that Bacolod City is now is the first among the top ten next wave cities for BPO. With a total number of eight companies attracted since 2004, Bacolod’s contact center has provided 7,000 jobs to area residents.
The latest company to open it says will be Panasiatic Call Center, Inc. which will initially be hiring 800 people on its opening in June 2010. They will be housed in a two storey building close to the Bacolod City Government Center. Nabil Edmond Salamouni, Panasiatic’s Chief Operating Officer said will be the start of his firm’s projects in Bacolod for they have everything they needed in this city, with a well educated and competent workforce.
Despite the reports that the BPO sector in Bacolod is already saturated, it continues to attract more companies thanks to its great and wonderful business environment, says CatchFriday. Mayor Evelio R. Leonardia assured Salamouni to create a healthier business atmosphere that will make growth easier, the mayor also promised to give all the cooperation and support needed from the government of Bacolod.
CatchFriday itself is developing its Philippines business. It has appointed James Pitt as Head of Operations and has just signed a Canadian client. Pitt has recently completed developing a large building-sector website in the U.S., getting it ready for seed funding by using a range of online and offline channels. He has also built an Italian portal into a leading food and wine site using a mixture of voice and online work. He has worked with a leading U.K.-based services company to build and populate its CRM system.
James has experience in getting the very best people in The Philippines up to speed to perform very high quality work. For example CatchFriday has handled programs for high-end American, Canadian and U.K. clients.
Meanwhile
PinoyBusiness.org reports U.S.-based Cybernet-Slash Support (CSS) recently opened its 1,000-seat facility in Taguig, its first Philippines site and currently has 400 employees. CSS said the new facility will be used for the company’s outbound sales, technology and other integrated BPO services for North American clients.
CSS plans to increase the number of employees in Philippines to around 2,000 people by the end of 2010. The company said it is in line with the company’s aspiration to emerge as a strong player in the country’s BPO space.
CSS chief executive Nick Sharma said they chose the Philippines as the site of its newest facility because of the “highly conducive” business atmosphere and talent pool of experienced BPO professionals.
“The Philippines has emerged as one of the key global hubs for the BPO industry,” Sharma said. The firm felt that now is the most opportune time to expand their capabilities in the Philippines and extend their “portfolio of superior, effective support services to customers.”
PinoyBusiness also reports that Salmat, an Australian-based BPO firm that has been in the country since 1996 has decided to put up an 800-seat facility at McKinley Hill in Taguig City, their first major investment in The Philippines as part of move into higher end e.g. IT support services. The center had been operating with 100 seats, but company general manager of strategy Philip Hadcroft said they were doing mostly transactional services that served on the Philippines market.
