By BEGT Zabala/PGMA
The country raked in $ 7.3 billion in 2009 in the field of Information and Communication
Technology (ICT) and Business Processing and Outsourcing (BPO), which has livened up
regional economies by stimulating business which provided half a million jobs in key cities
and provinces such as Cebu, Pampanga, Iloilo, Bacolod and Davao since 2000 in the cyber
corridor.
But Bohol up to now hasn’t much reaped from this boom as with it’s neighboring provinces,
despite active promotion and linkages with prospective investors.
Though learning institutions have enhanced their curriculum to capacitate their students
in having even the requisite skills to make it in the ICT industry somehow, not many
Boholanos are able to make the cut.
Clearly showing that much is needed to be done in further improving the ICT manpower
skills of the Boholanos. Add to it, the lack of large suitable areas for infrastructure both for
locators and for training centers as well. Thus, big players in the industry somehow cannot
yet find it feasible to locate.
This was one of the key points of discussions by the council members of the Bohol
Information and Communication Technology Council (BICTC) Meeting held at the
Department of Industry Bohol Provincial Office last Wednesday March 10, 2010 as the
council reviewed it’s plans and programs to prepare for the next steps in making Bohol take
full advantage of the ICT/BPO (Business Process Outsourcing) boom and exploit it as one of
the poverty reduction strategies in further moving the province up among the ranks of the
country’s richest provinces.
National Scenario
Currently, India is leading as the worlds number one BPO. But as time passes by, the
Philippines is clearly showing signs of being number one in terms of partnership, due to
the Filipinos trainability and better command of the English language.
There is a projected $100 billion revenue for the Philippine outsourcing industry not just in
contact centers but also in other BPO services like information management outsourcing,
applications support in terms of technology updates and other knowledge in process
outsourcing services as what is gaining ground here in Bohol.
Based on this growth, the Philippine industry will be employing 4.5 million jobs and would
thereby open more outsourcing sites in the provinces.
But employment target has been revised as the industry expects between more that a
half million more jobs as of last year only. Under this scenario, the industry is supposed to
employ between 760,000 by 2010.
So far, the voice still accounts for two-thirds of the total outsourcing industry while the non-
voice accounts for about 15 percent and the rest are into animation and software.
The hope is that the non-voice is growing double for the last two years with revenues hitting
$ 1 billion last year.
“The non-voice is expected to grow 50 percent annually,” while the voice will grow between
10 to 15 percent because of its higher base.