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Wednesday, January 11, 2006
City eyes $1M income from first call center
By Roberto L. Bacasong
BACOLOD City will soon have a call center that will bring in hundreds of jobs to the Bacolodnons.
Dave Rizzo, regional vice president of the US-based Teleperformance Call Center Co., said they will start their operations in the next 120 days and will initially be hiring 300 persons.
But he said they plan to expand their operation to 700 to 800 slots.
"We are happy to be here. I do believe in the English capability of every Bacoleño. I'd been here several times and I am convinced with the comprehensions of the people here," said Rizzo in an interview Tuesday.
Bacolod City Mayor Evelio Leonardia welcomed the entry of the call center, saying "it will be a big help in advancing our program of income generation and poverty alleviation in this city."
He said the coming of the first call center in the city will be the first wave of big business prospects that will come to Bacolod, along with the entry of mall giant ShoeMart (SM) this year.
"It (Teleperformance) will put the City of Smiles in the global IT directory. These development augers well with our thrust to make Bacolod the new IT center in the southern Philippines," Leonardia said.
"With this American call center in Bacolod, we can now claim to be in the same league along with the other major cities in the Philippines which are now major beneficiaries of this new global market trend," the mayor further said.
It is inspiring that it comes at a time when we are at the heels of realizing our flagship projects: the new slaughterhouse, the new bus and jeepney terminals and the new city hall, he added.
The mayor also revealed that there are other call centers interested in putting up their own centers in Bacolod.
"Let us anticipate this opportunity to find work right at our doorsteps. Let us open our arms together to welcome our new partner in progress - Teleperformance. And let us support them in every way we can to make their business grow and continue to provide them and all others an atmosphere conducive to growth and development," Leonardia said.
Rizzo also said that Mikey Cojuangco, president of Teleperformance Philippines, "is very excited to be launching their new operation in Bacolod, a city with great technical infrastructure, a well educated work force and a dynamic local economy."
Rizzo said Teleperformance plans to provide inbound customer care and technical support services from the new site.
He said the group operates over 44,000 computerized workstations, with more than 50,000 employees across 179 contact centers, including 21 contact centers directly managed in clients' premises in 38 countries.
The company also conducts programs in more than 50 different languages on behalf of a diversified client base of major international companies.
According to Rizzo, they will tie up with all the schools in Negros Occidental and Bacolod City to achieve their target this year.
Meanwhile, City Councilor Jocelle Batapa-Sigue, chairman of the IT Focus team, said there are 12,000 graduates produced yearly and 18,000 graduates in Negros Occidental.
The lady councilor said according to the data of the Commission on Higher Education (Ched) for Western Visayas, there were 34,000 graduate students every year, which is higher compared to Region 7 with only 32,000 graduates produced yearly.
(January 11, 2006 issue)
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