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Thursday, June 08, 2006
Cebu needs to raise IT capability - IBM
Cebu needs to develop its workforce especially in the areas of software development and other information technology (IT) services to be able to target the United States, Japan and the European Union.
Speaking during the recent Cebu ICT (information and communication technology) Strategy Summit, IBM Solutions Delivery Inc. president Erik Joseph Tabuena said “competitive advantage comes from expertise.”
Tabuena said there is a need for Cebu to upgrade its capability on software development, engineering services, media and content, electronic components and business process outsourcing (BPO) to remain competitive in the global market place.
Career paths
“We believe that Cebu can capitalize on current sectors to provide career paths for current employees (towards) economic growth,” Tabuena said.
He cited the results of online discussions of the iCT summit workgroup organized to tackle the need to develop a critical mass of quality IT professionals.
According to Tabuena, the workgroup saw the need to improve several priority workforce areas.
Collaboration
These include demand or capacity planning, talent assessment, talent sourcing, education and training planning, curriculum and content development, learning delivery and administration, testing and certification, talent marketing and talent deployment.
All these undertaking, he said, requires community outreach and collaboration.
“Workforce development, by nature, does not have a single owner but is a shared responsibility across five major stakeholders in each sector,” Tabuena told summit participants. These stakeholders include the government, the local communities, the education sector, the citizens and the employers.
He stressed the need for a more structured and systematic approach to matching capacity with market demand.
Only about 2,200 of the 35,000 students in Cebu graduate from IT courses each year, he pointed out.
Tabuena also noted that the acceptance rate in IT jobs is between 13 percent to 14 percent, largely due to mismatch of skills.
Because of this, he said, there is a need for multi-sectoral collaboration, especially between the industry and the academe, to ensure that IT graduates have the skills needed by the industry. (PR)
For Bisaya stories from Cebu. Click here. (June 8, 2006 issue)
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