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Friday, August 18, 2006
CPVDC speeds up IT park projects on growth of BPOs
The continued growth of the business process out-sourcing and call center industry has prompted Cebu Holdings Inc.-subsidiary Cebu Property Ventures and Development Corp. (CPVDC) to fast-track new developments at the Asiatown IT (information technology) Park in Cebu City.
Cebu Holdings Inc. (CHI) chief operating officer Francis Monera said about 18 hectares of the 24-hectare Asiatown IT Park is ready for building construction.
Seven parcels of land, with sizes ranging from 800 square meters to 1,000 square meters, are already reserved by interested locators, he said.
Asiatown IT Park’s commercial component, formerly “The Village,” is also scheduled to open next month.
The area, which is still unnamed, will house establishments that would operate during the work hours of Asiatown employees, CHI president Rene Almendras earlier said.
Establishments expected to open in the area include, coffee shops, restaurants, resto-bars and retail stores “that are willing to operate at night or early morning when Asiatown is alive.”
Testament
The growth of Asiatown mirrors the blooming business process outsour-cing (BPO) and call center industry.
“The growth (increase in revenue) of Asiatown for the first quarter of the year is 10 times that of the previous year. This is a testament of how IT is moving in Cebu,” Monera said in an interview.
The growth of the industry also has the Arroyo administration pursuing the country’s bid to become a dominant player in the global BPO and call center industry through activities, such as a national summit on competitiveness on Sept. 28 and 29.
The summit would seek to advance the national development of the BPO sector that has grown from four call centers with a few hundred employees in 2000 to an industry that now employees over 200,000 Filipinos all over the country, according to a statement.
Roadmap
Trade and Industry Secretary Peter Favila and former ambassador Caesar Bautista, have been assigned by President Arroyo to lead the public and private task force tasked to prepare a roadmap for the country’s BPO sector. The roadmap will be presented at the summit.
The roadmap was the product of a strategic planning session attended by companies in the BPO sector operating in the Philippines and other countries, such as IntelliRisk Management Corp. (IRMC), Li & Fung, Oracle, Intel and UPS, among others.
During the planning, Vikas Kapoor, president and chief executive officer of US firm IRMC, said an analysis of his firm’s call center operations in the Philippines, India, Canada and the US shows that the Philippines has a considerable lead in the important areas of labor cost, customer satisfaction with the call center services, and retention of staff.
He said this is the major reason the company established a new call center facility, which will initially generate 600 new jobs, at the Clark Special Economic Zone. (JBN)
For Bisaya stories from Cebu. Click here. (August 18, 2006 issue)
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