THE Canadian Chamber of Commerce of the Philippines (CanCham) supports the push for the establishment of an Information Communication Technology (ICT)-focused “center of excellence” to address the lack of qualified human resources and the required talent pool in the ever-evolving Business Processing Outsourcing (BPO) industry.
The center of excellence was proposed Thursday, December 8 by Davao’s Next BPO Solutions’ chief executive officer and president of BPO Association of Davao Inc. (ADI), Xavier Eric Manalastas in a media briefing of the upcoming 11th International ICT Awards Philippines 2017 at the Marco Polo Hotel in Davao.
The 11th International ICT Awards is spearheaded by CanCham Philippines in partnership with IT and Business Process Association (IBPap).
“We need a center wherein IT graduates can accelerate their capacity because current realities on the ground shows that our IT graduates are not that ready and competent enough to face the challenges and demands of the real world,” Manalastas said.
Cora dela Cruz, national executive director of CanCham, echoed Manalastas’ proposal saying the “center of excellence” will significantly upgrade the country’s talents.
“Philippines overtook India in terms of voice call but when we say highly-trained engineering skills which we refer as level 2 and 3, India is still best for that, Philippines is still in the level 1 or 1.5,” Manalastas said.
Samuel Matunog, president of the ICT Davao, Inc. said earlier that the industry’s present trend is investors are now looking for talents that are qualified for Knowledge Process Outsourcing (KPO) and language specialization.
Matunog said that there is indeed a huge talent pool that can be tapped in the city but the challenge is how to turn those into qualified human resources responding to the present market demand.
“Aside from favorable climate, improving infrastructure, responsive governance, reliable power, the talent workforce is definitely on top of the vision of the BPO investors, our talents to be qualified in this ever-changing industry one must have a good grasp in Mathematics, Science, communications and must be also creative,” he said.
Dela Cruz urged all the industry players to participate in next year’s ICT International Awards. She said they are eyeing to receive over a hundred nominations for next year, up as compared to this year’s 87 nominations across the country. The chamber also encouraged those IT firms outside Metro Manila to actively participate in order to be recognized.
In a letter, CanCham president Julian Payne said that the award giving body is embarking on a subtle shift for next year, focusing on the best companies and their teams in the industry.
For 2017, 15 award categories will be given out, of which four are new awards.
Instead of awarding individuals and personalities, the ICT Awards 2017 will highlight the Best Company of the Year and the Best Employer of the Year as the two top awards. It will also launch the new Best C-Suite of the Year to recognize the importance of the management team, replacing Best CEO of the Year.
CanCham and IBPAP will launch a new First-Time Nominee of the Year Award to encourage new nominees. It will also launch a new Best Mobile App Developer Company to replace Best Mobile App of the Year.
The award giving body will also adjust the Most Popular Team Leader Award to Best Front-Line Team of the Year (to be represented by the team leader) using online voting and to recognize front-line teams.
Payne also announced they will not continue the Cities for ICT Award and the Best Individual Contributor of the Year Award.
CanCham will start accepting nominations by January next year and will be closed by the middle of February. The awarding is slated on March 22 at the Marriott Resorts World Grand Ballroom. (ASP with KOC)