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Wednesday, December 14, 2005
3 call centers eye Bacolod for expansion
By Aron D. Villaseñor
THREE major call center companies are eyeing Bacolod City for its expansion projects next year.
Bacolod City Councilor Jocelle Batapa-Sigue said the call centers may generate 3,000 jobs, the bulk of which will allegedly be given to Bacoleños.
"By January next year, Bacolod would have call centers which will provide thousands of job," she said.
That as Mayor Evelio Leonardia said in a separate interview that Bacolod has a proficiency in the English language.
"We are glad that we are able to come up with the IT Team. The city is seriously doing something to make the city as the Information Technology hub in the Visayas," he said.
Leonardia created the IT Team by virtue of the Executive Order No. 8, appointing Batapa-Sigue as the chairman.
He added that big IT companies showed interest to expand its operations in the city.
The IT Focus Team is comprised of the local government sector, private sectors, the academe and businessmen.
Batapa-Sigue mentioned that the Bacolod rate factor of applicant employee is higher compared to other provinces with a percentage of 80.
"Bacolod ranked number 4 as far as the labor pool is concerned. However, Bacolod ranked 6th among eight cities in the Philippines that are likely to develop into attractive outsourcing destinations", she added.
The other cities include Cebu, Davao, Clark, Cagayan de Oro, Iloilo, Baguio and Dumaguete, as identified by neoIT.
Meanwhile, Fr. Emilio Jaruda Jr., vice president for External Affairs of the University of Negros Occidental-Recoletos (UNO-R), said Bacolod has a number of graduates who maybe able to fill-in the possible vacant positions.
"We have graduates who have good command of the English language. I believe that the creation of the IT Team will help promote Bacolod as one of the major players in the information technology," Jaruda said.
On the other hand, Elsie Coscolluela, Vice President for Academic Affairs of the University of Saint La Salle said, "We will look in the market demands and design a new curriculum."
"A call center agent should be good in marketing, aggressive, caring, lenient and hospitable for customer service. Most of all knowledgeable in medical terminologies", Fernando Gonzalez speaks on qualities.
The scope of IT's businesses include Voice-over-internet-Phone(VOIP), networking, webpage design, call center simulation, security system(software and hardware), internet, desktop presentations(photo, video and sound editing), medical/legal transcription, business process and outsourcing, Councilor Batapa-Sigue said.
The first Bacolod Information Technology Fair is slated on Dec. 18 to 20 at the Robinsons Place-Bacolod.
The activity aims to raise the level of consciousness and knowledge of the public regarding information and communication technology.
The activity will provide a venue for all schools in Bacolod City and Negros Occidental to showcase, update and improve their IT courses.
"It aims to strengthen the network and linkage among the schools in the province in order to ensure adequate human resources for the IT enterprises in the Province and the City," Batapa-Sigue said.
The participating schools include La Consolacion College-Bacolod, Visayan Maritime Academy (VMA), Impact Computer School, STI College, ABE International College of Business and Economics, AMA Computer College-Bacolod and West Negros College.
(December 14, 2005 issue)
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