BPOs bare wish list for ICT industry

Wednesday, August 24, 2011

WHILE it welcomed the appointment of the country's new information and communications technology chief, business process outsourcing companies said much work is needed to achieve industry targets by 2016.

According to the Business Processing Association of the Philippines (BPAP), the industry has the potential of generating $20-billion export revenues, 3 to 15 million jobs and $6-billion tax revenues by the end of President Benigno Aquino III's term on 2016.

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But in order to sustain market growth and momentum, BPAP president Alfredo Ayala said that both the public and private sector "need to make investments now, especially in growing the talent base of our country."

The group proposed to the government a partnership that will implement an improved and expanded "Training-for-Work" scholarship program being implemented by the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (Tesda).

Under the project, the government will train 58,000 scholars in 2011 and 2012, of which 37,000 can be guaranteed jobs.

Aside from this, a faculty trainer development program can further expand the base of trained scholars.

Both programs will require P350 million and P150 million investments annually, respectively, according to BPAP.

Also, the 320-member organization said they are asking the government to infuse at least P60 million for promotions yearly.

"The private sector will develop the creative concepts and campaign strategy and we will also participate through sponsorships to increase reach and sustain the campaign," BPAP external affairs director Martin Crisostomo told Sun.Star.

Specifically, Crisostomo said they will continue promoting the BPO sector in the markets where more investments are expected to come from like the United States, Europe and Australia.

"We will pay a courtesy call to newly-appointed ICT Office head Louis Casambre soon to further discuss our plans," he said.

For his part, Budget Secretary Florencio Abad mulled of a joint national government-BPAP program that can be implemented for the rest of the year and on 2012.

"For the employment and the revenue potential of the industry, we see this as a reasonable investment that the government should consider. We agreed (in our meeting last August 19) that both sides should craft and present proposals by the first week of September," he said.

Based on IBM's Global Locations Trend Annual Report, the Philippines emerged as the world's largest recipient of new outsourcing business in 2009, besting India.

BPO companies in the country earned at least $8.9 billion last year, up 26 percent from $7.2 billion in 2009.

The BPO industry has already provided jobs to more than half a million workers in customer care; back offices; medical, legal and other data transcription; software development; animation; engineering design; and digital content services.

The Aquino administration has earmarked P438.9 billion for the economic services sector for 2012, or an increase of 21.3 percent over the sector's P361.9-billion budget this year.

Meanwhile, to support the development of competent human capital, the proposed 2012 budget for the education, culture, and manpower development sector amounts to P308.95 billion.

This is an increase of 13.8 percent over its P271.49-billion budget this year. (Sunnex)