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Monday, March 07, 2005
DTI working to help outsourcing firms
* Agency partners with schools to improve quality of workers
THE Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) is helping out in the development of employees for call centers by working closely with educational institutions in the country to ensure continuous supply of human resource for the country’s flourishing call center industry.
DTI Secretary Juan Santos also said the agency is now in the process of trying to develop the country’s higher education or Ph.D education to bring the current business process outsourcing (BPO) activities in the country to a higher level.
Limited
“Unless we work toward that direction, we are going to be limited to call centers alone. We will try to bring this up to a higher level to make the country also a center for research and development. This will take time but we (DTI) will be working on that,” he said on the sidelines of the opening of the Cebu International Furniture and Furnishings Exhibition 2005 at the Waterfront Cebu City Hotel and Casino last week.
Santos said the growth of the country’s call center industry has been galloping since its beginnings in 1991.
“From 1,000 seats in 1991, the industry grew to 50,000 seats last year. The growth however brought forth the problem of shortage of supply of human resources in the country, including Cebu. DTI is aware of this problem. This is why it will be working closely with schools all over the country. DTI would encourage these educational institutions to be active in producing graduates who are qualified to work as call center agents,” the Trade and Industry Chief said.
One of the basic qualifications of a call center agent is the ability to understand and speak fluent English.
Speculations
Call centers or contact centers provide customer interaction services, such as customer care, technical support and advisory services, for other companies for a fee. They also extend outbound customer campaign such as telemarketing and sales.
Call centers is just one of the BPO activities in the country today.
BPO refers to the out-sourcing of a company of its back-office operations, such as human resource recruitment, accounting, software development and medical transcription.
In a separate interview, Business Process Association of the Philippines President Bong Borja dismissed speculations that call centers are expanding to other places in the country, such as Dumaguete, because of the lack of human resource in Cebu.
He said there are many reasons why call center companies expand to places outside Cebu. These include the fast growth of the industry and the preference of some clients to have a single facility dedicated to serving their needs only.
“The growth of the industry is so fast that Cebu or Manila, or any place for that matter alone, can’t cope with it,” Borja said.
Meanwhile Santos welcomes the movement of call centers to the countryside, as this will mean the creation of jobs in these areas, which is one of the DTI’s thrusts this year. (JBN)
(March 7, 2005 issue)
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