Thursday, January 25, 2007 Cybercafe owners plan to operate call centers
INTERNET café operators are now entertaining the idea of converting their shops into call center facilities at nighttime.
This was proposed by Internet café owners during the first Internet Café Owners’ Association Summit, which was facilitated by Microsoft Philippines, Intel, Innove and Level Up.
The summit held last Jan. 19 at the Microsoft Southern Philippines office at the Skyrise building in Asiatown IT Park gathered café operators from Bacolod, Bohol, Cagayan de Oro, Davao, Dumaguete, Iloilo, Tacloban and Cebu to discuss related issues faced by the industry, share best practices, and ways to increase profitability.
Magtanggol Bawal, Microsoft Southern Philippines sales operations director, said Microsoft will bridge Internet café operators and a Filipino company named Biometrix Philippines Corp., which is willing to invest in converting Internet cafes into call center facilities at night.
Bawal said Biometrix will provide café operators software solutions and training modules for Internet cafes to operate as a legitimate call center or outsourcing facility at nighttime.
Revenue
“This will mean a good additional revenue for Internet café owners since Biometrix will rent the PCs (personal computers) for P5,000 a month,” he said.
While some Internet cafés in Luzon have already explored the possibility, Bawal said Biometrix is now showing interest in penetrating the Visayas and Mindanao markets.
“They ran the pilot program in Palawan and proved it was successful,” he said.
Biometrix has been servicing clients in the United Kingdom, United States and Australia.
He said Biometrix is willing to help Internet café owners who want to maximize their existing technologies and plan to operate their own call centers, either for medical or legal transcription.
Microsoft and Biometrix will be holding a roadshow in the first quarter of this year to present opportunities to Internet café owners in Visayas and Mindanao.
“This is our way of supporting the industry and revenue reinforcement is one of the most important tool to save this struggling industry,” Bawal said.
Bawal said industry players still face the problem of “price war,” in which some café owners drop hourly charges for Internet and gaming use to P5 to lure more customers.
During the summit, he said Internet café operators have agreed to a P20 per hour average charge.
Legislation
He said café owners are hoping all industry players will abide by the agreement.
“We are working with the LGUs (local government units) to work on a legislation regarding this,” he added.
Bawal said Microsoft is also working on cleaning up the piracy problem, especially among Internet café outlets.
He said, though, that he understands that café owners face financial restrictions when purchasing licensed software.
“We cannot force them to get licensed software,” he said.
But he said Internet cafes owners who wish to turn their shops as call centers at night, will have to get licensed software due to international clients’ requirements. (MMM)
