Tuesday, July 29, 2008 We're one of the best By Joy Romares-Sevilla
CALL center companies, not only based outside Mindanao, but also from foreign countries have realized the impact of investing in Mindanao, particularly in Davao City despite the negative image of the region brought about by baseless foreign travel advisories.
These call center companies have now seen Davao City's potential and advantage as the city has a lot of available untapped human resources, which became very attractive to them.
"The expansion of call centers outside Metro Manila is expected to continue despite the peso appreciation because of high global demand and availability of skilled and relatively cheaper human resources," says Nicasio Angelo Agustin, director of the National Economic Development Authority (Neda) in Southern Mindanao.
Agustin's statement was confirmed by Gil Dureza, chief of the Board of Investment (BOI) in Mindanao, saying that a Singaporean investor is planning to locate in Davao as the latter saw the huge labor market in the city.
"The director and the IT manager of the Eureka Advisory PTE Ltd, an IT company based in Singapore, have already been to Davao and they enjoyed the climate here. They moved around by night and saw the presence of several foreign companies here," Dureza said.
He said that in Singapore, the rate of the lowest IT staff is P50,000, adding that one of the reasons why the company is planning to locate here is probably because of cheaper labor costs.
On the other hand, Andrei Fournier, past chair of the ICT Committee of the Davao City Chamber of Commerce and Industry Inc. (DCCCII), also said that BPO and IT investors would have lesser expense in putting up shops in Davao.
"Some property owners are interested in Davao. There are four IT parks coming, but these are still in the drawing board," Fournier said.
Talking about investment projections, the Floirendos of Davao City are also partnering with the Ayala Land Inc. for a P2.3 billion mixed land use development project in Bajada this year.
Peter Laviña, chair of the city council committee on trade, commerce, and industry, said the Floirendos under the Anflo group of companies, will be developing a nine-hectare land in front of the Redemptorist Church.
"The development will be a mix-use property where there are retail store resembling a mall, an IT park, and a product processing operation area," he said, adding that two hectares of the land will be utilized for the construction of an IT Park.
"This may be the biggest investment in the city for the next year," Laviña said.
The availability of skilled human resources and the cheaper labor costs in Davao also enticed the Utah-based call center company to locate in Davao City.
This Utah-based call center company is the Western Wats, which has 15 call centers in the USA and the Philippines. It already inked partnership with the NCCC Mall of Davao in April 2, 2008 where it will occupy 4,700 square meters of the mall's 4th level. Its operations cost is set around P60 to P70 million.
Derek Rice, Western Wats operations director, who will also head the Davao operations, said that the facility will operate on a 24/7 basis. The hiring of agents has commenced in May starting off with 500 agents and is expected to double personnel requirements by 2009.
When queried whether the mall will also operate in the same capacity as Western Wats, Ruel Gustilo, director for NCCC Mall and Entertainment, said the mall operating hours will remain the same. But he was quick to add that if the mall sees a demand in the future, then it is ready to make arrangements.
Teolulo Pasawa, director of the National Economic Research and Business Assistance Center (Nerbac), of the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) in Southern Mindanao, meanwhile said the untapped human resources is considered as the most reason why call center companies eye Davao to be a BPO destination area in Mindanao.
"Davao has thousands of qualified graduates for the BPO Industry considering that it has the most number of schools and universities in Mindanao which produce graduates every year," Pasawa said.
In a study conducted by EU-based XMG Global ICT Research and Advisory, which article was earlier released in this paper, it said that Davao City has 689 percent more graduates than Subic, 278 percent more in Clark, and 40 percent more in Baguio.
The same research agency has named Davao City as one of the world's best investment sites for BPO industry and global offshore ICT hubs.
The other "emerging off-shoring cities" cited in the global study together with Davao is Casablanca in Morocco, Montevideo in Uruguay, and Jakarta in Indonesia.
The Davao City Investment and Promotion Center (DCIPC), on the other hand, earlier identified ten reasons for people to invest in Davao.
Roberto Teo, DCIPC chief, said Davao City is much better than other metropolitan cities like Cebu and Manila.
He said Davao City has good weather condition; has excellent public utilities like water, electricity and telecommunications; has the presence of important institutions like schools, universities, and hospitals; it is one of the most peaceful cities in the world; has the most disciplined people in the country; has competitive cost of doing business; produces skilled professionals and laborers; considered as the fruit and food basket of Mindanao; is also investor-friendly as is has a center which provides free services; and has a responsible local government, which is positive on investments.
