STAKEHOLDERS in the information-technology-business process management (IT-BPM) will need to push more innovation and ecosystem development as the industry enters a “slow growth phase,” a normal process that takes place in any business.
From growing by double digits in the past years, the industry is now projected to grow by 6.5 percent as firms remain optimistic amid the Covid-19 pandemic.
“The industry has not declined, but we are entering a slow growth phase or curve,” said Cebu IT BPM.Organization president Pert Cabataña, referring to the country’s IT-BPM industry. “We are still growing, but we are growing slowly.”
Besides the pandemic’s impact on businesses, the industry, according to Cabataña, has entered the slow growth phase or the so-called S-curve where old ways of doing business become mature and then become superseded by newer ways.
“The industry now has to do something to arrest this slow growth for it to go beyond that phase,” he said.
One area the industry will need to immediately address is the shift from transaction-based to decision-based jobs.
DJ Moises, 2021 Transformation Summit chairman, defined transaction-based jobs as those tasks which a worker executes with rules but with little to no decision-making involved.
“This kind of task is not sustainable, which is why we need to move up the kind of jobs our employees would handle,” he said. “We need to support decision-based work.”
Cabataña said some 10 years ago, the Philippine used to handle 80 percent of transaction-based activities, but over time the transaction-related jobs decreased as companies ventured into higher-level types of jobs.
“It may take some seven to 12 years before the industry can do away with the transaction-based jobs, but during these periods, decision-based activities will have a bigger part,” said Cabataña, referring to the discovery of updated technologies like artificial intelligence and automation, among many others.
IT and Business Process Association of the Philippines president and chief executive officer Rey Untal in reports said 87 percent of the IT-BPM firms expect to book five to 15 percent growth this year while 13 percent anticipate flat growth, based on the group’s survey in April.
In 2019, employment in the industry grew 1.8 percent to 1.32 million while revenues rose 1.4 percent to US$26.7 billion. (KOC)