This 2012, Cebu Philippines establishes itself as a ideal Knowledge-Process Outsourcing (KPO) destination, the province develops more training programs to produce highly skilled human resources with honed proficiencies in communication, digital technology, research and business operations.

KPO is an emerging segment in the outsourcing sector that the Philippines has yet to penetrate. Though Cebu is seen as the preferred choice of big KPO multinational companies, such as Wipro, Lexmark, NEC among others, the global KPO market is dominated by India.

Professionals in finance business analysis, human resource management, accountancy, industrial design et cetera, are required for these middle and higher level outsourcing services.

Cebu is confirmed to have the infrastructure potential and the raw talent pool, key ingredients to attract the global the KPO market.

The province has to implement plans to provide highly-trained, skilled workers for KPO to sustain a huge projected growth.

Currently, of the  about 600,000 people are employed in the province’s BPO-IT sector, about 75 percent of whom are in customer contact/call center voice-related services.

A pending US Congressional bill seeks to restrain American companies from outsourcing work to other countries. “Call Center and Consumers Protection Bill” (US House Bill 3596) deters outsourcing by making American companies that outsource ineligible for federal grants and loans for five years.

US enterprises are also required to disclose physical location of customer service facilities and agents. Companies that fail to report overseas locations risk paying a penalty of $10,000 a day.

The United States holds the biggest figure of companies outsourcing business operations to the Philippines.

By tapping other markets worldwide, the Philippines, particularly the province of Cebu aims to lessen any potential negative impact US HB 3596 on the local business process outsourcing industry.

The Cebu Investment Promotions Center (CIPC), with the European Chamber of Commerce of the Philippines (ECCP), holds an exhibition in the United Kingdom, presenting Cebu as THE outsourcing destination tentatively scheduled for the middle of 2012.

Given the province’s track record with other multinationals with satellite offices/business facilities set up here, and being prized among the top in the list of outsourcing destinations provided by global business strategy consultancy Tholons, marketing Cebu as a high-return business location would not be difficult.

To further solidify Cebu’s prominence in the global BPO industry, the province continues to strengthen its lead in information technology and business support services in innovation and creative design.

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 SOURCE:

Aznar, Mia. "Cebu to hold roadshow on
BPO services in UK." 19 January 2012.
SunStar Cebu. Accessed 23 January 2012.
Link Here.

Business technology and research firm Tholons cites five cities in the Philippines among the premier hundred destinations in the world for information technology (IT) and business process outsourcing (BPO) services.

In its 2012 Top 100 Outsourcing Destinations report, Tholons states that Southeast Asia and its countries, particularly the Philippines, is still a “dominant figure” in the worldwide outsourcing industry.

Philippine cities Metro Manila ranks 4th in the Top 100 list, Cebu City is 9th, followed by Davao City (69th) and Sta. Rosa, Laguna (86th). Iloilo City is ranked 92nd, improving by six places from last year.

According to Tholons, customer contact support/call center services remains to be a key driver for the Philippines’ outsourcing industry growth.

It also highlighted on the growth rate of IT-BPO through the launch of delivery centers for leading technology brands such as HP, IBM, Dell, Convergys, and Teleperformance.

In 2011, the Philippines’ contact center industry employs at least half a million Filipino workers.

The report forecasts that Southeast Asian region would exhibit strong growth in 2012.

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SOURCES:
Tholons. "2012 Top 100 Outsourcing Destinations."
Accessed 13 January 2012. Link Here.

loQal. "Five PH cities in Top 100 outsourcing destinations."
Accessed 13 January 2012. Link Here.

Business process outsourcing (BPO) remains to be Cebu province’s major economic driver, and is primed to expand even further in the year 2012 and beyond.

BPO service providers are persistently brought in to Cebu City, because of its vigorous business environment and skilled talent pool. Cebu’s talent pool for IT and BPO companies is provided for by the city’s nine university campuses.

There’s an expected 20 percent increase in the current 50,000 workforce with the further completion of office buildings within Cebu IT and Business Park Districts.

For clients in the North America and Europe, the BPO industry in Cebu is a viable destination in Asia where these companies can recover after the 2008 global economic crisis. The industry continues to offer opportunities.

For example, global outsourcing firm Aegis People Support unveiled its own Aegis Tower Cebu at the Cebu IT Park in the last quarter of 2011. The decision to build its own captive facility in Cebu is a sign of Aegis People Support’s commitment and confidence in the Philippines’ BPO industry and Cebu’s workforce.

Another major outsourcing company, Stream Global, is reported as hiring 60 to 70 employees on a weekly basis. One more outsourcing services company, Convergys, is also expanding with new office premises in Cebu.

Some of the firms that expanded in Cebu last 2011 include HP, Fluor Daniels, Dell and JP Morgan & Chase.

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Source:
Cacho, Katlene. "BPO still Cebu's Growth Driver." 29 December 2011.
SunStar Cebu. Accessed 2 January 2012. Link Here.

Universities and colleges in Cebu will be fully introduced into cloud computing technology, the fast growing technology trend as more and more companies are depending on the cloud-based financial and enterprise-resource planning software for their outsourcing needs.

Netsuite Inc., a leading provider of cloud-based software suites, is already partnering with the University of San Carlos, and aims to expand the program with Cebu Institute of Technology (CIT), University of Cebu (UC), and University of the Visayas (UV), and other universities.

Globally, Netsuite has 16 partner universities, which adopted NetSuite as a key component of their accounting degree curricula, these include; University of California-Los Angeles; University of Toronto; Mapua Institute of Technology; De La Salle Univesity and USC in Cebu.

These institutions have embraced NetSuite, for the same reasons that companies worldwide have shifted to NetSuite cloud from on-premise software.

Cloud computing promotes efficiency and productivity to gain a competitive advantage, to avoid hassles with system integration and break out of the vicious cycle of software and hardware upgrades with its high maintenance costs caused by on-premise software.

Cloud computing is mainly introduced in the third and fourth years of the degree programs. The next generation of graduates who can become managers, entrepreneurs, and business professionals can leave their classrooms and enter the job market with a stronger understanding of business operations and cloud computing.

As the demand for cloud-based business management solutions grow, the full introduction of cloud computing technology to tomorrow’s business leaders is required to prepare them to the new business IT work environment.

Combined with professor developed curriculum, students can expect to learn the entire business process end to end, and learn how customers can make better and faster decisions with cloud computing software.

Likewise, the college faculty new to the program can access online training and download materials, to guide develop custom content for their courses.

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 Source: Dagooc, Ehda. "Software suites provider partners with Cebu Schools."
 14 December 2011. The Freeman. Accessed 14 December 2011. Link Here.

In Australia, more companies are looking into the option of working with the Philippines’ business process outsourcing because of its world-renowned status as the ideal destination for quality voice-contact services and customer relationship management.

Australian enterprises see the advantage of highly-trained Filipino call center agents delivering voice services to their customers. The Philippines has also the potential to offer non-voice BPO solutions as well as help Australian companies achieve a strong operational presence in the Asia Pacific region.

Companies outsource for a variety of business solutions and services they require. ‘Hiring’ teams of talents who can aid the company to perform more efficiently, more effectively and more reasonably priced is what compels business executives to consider taking third-party service providers as working partners.

Like their counterparts in the United States, Australian companies now consider the BPO Philippines’ call center services because of the fast intelligence and strong service orientation of its personnel. An article in the New York Times, released just last month (November 25)  report that the Philippines is now the new “capital” for call center services.

Other than contact services, there is a deep, untapped pool of talent in the country for content and healthcare BPO that can be explored—such as data entry and index services, documentation and editing, database development and maintenance, project and resources management, aspects of knowledge process outsourcing that Filipino-owned BPO companies can provide.

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Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) companies expand operations in the Philippines as the country and its provinces, especially Cebu, continues to provide an exceptionally skilled and experienced workforce which provides great affinity our local and international clients.

The outsourcing industry in the Philippines has been growing at a larger rate than the global growth rate. The Philippine outsourcing industry has grown by more than twenty-three percent in the last decade.

There is still untapped potential in BPO Philippines, with the country’s skilled and credible workforce; the language skill of Filipinos prized around the business world.

The talent pool in the Philippines’ metro cities being exhausted. The need to produce employable talent pool is important. Thus provinces are being sought by BPO companies to open more facilities and create employment, in a way giving back to the community. These BPO companies are also working hand-in-hand with the academe to produce a steady flow of IT-oriented talent.

A current concern is the high level of attrition in the BPO business. Attrition is the reduction of a company’s workforce as employees resign from the company or their employment ended due to poor job performance and other factors. BPO companies address this concern through engagement programs that focus on making BPO employees comfortable and satisfied in the work place.

Attrition is not only caused by dissatisfaction with financial benefits an employee may receive for work, there are other factors to take into account. An employee may be willing to work for moderate pay if they believe in the work that they do, that they wake up every morning, excited since they enjoy the people they work with; they enjoy the environment they work in.

The Philippines, especially in the provinces in Cebu, is noted to have the lowest attrition rates anywhere.

The Philippines, with its BPO/ call center industry is a global leader, its success mainly to the quality and talent of the employees. The industry will continue to grow, when BPO companies working with the government and education sector ensure that the value of the Filipino talent pool improves through knowledge and technology.

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The Philippine Software Industry Association (PSIA) has recently announced their Software Skills Inventory Report which surveys and evaluates programming languages and software platforms used by e developers in the Philippines.

The study concludes that the country is not far behind with the rest of the world, particularly G-7 nations, when it comes to the latest gadgets and technology.

The study surveyed the domestic software development industry and showed Microsoft Windows Server and Windows NT are most dominant with Filipino developers at 43 percent.

Linux holds a huge 33 percent share of OS platform expertise, followed by UNIX at 13 percent.

The study also show that Filipino software engineers are more adept with C/C++, still the foremost programming language used at 19 percent, then followed by Java and JavaScript at 16 percent and 14 percent, respectively.

C# and Visual Basic have 10 percent share each, while Microsoft.NET has eight percent. COBOL and AJAX have six percent share while PHP is at five percent.

With Filipinos’ inherent attraction towards the current trends and urbanity, which includes technology, software developers are keen on the popular mobile application platforms– Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android.

According to the report, iOs is the most favored development platform for Filipino mobile applications developers. Of the 10 local companies surveyed, 32 percent utilize the iOS.

As Apple’s operating system installed in every Apple iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad devices, iOS is touted as the world’s most advanced mobile platform

Close, Google’s Android is utilized by 30 percent of local companies surveyed. Android is installed in smart phone and PC brands, like Acer, HTC, LG, Motorola, and Samsung.

The Software Skills Inventory Report’s results also show that Java ME, formerly a favorite development platform, was relegated to third place with only 17 of the surveyed companies still creating applications on this platform whilst another platform, BREW (Binary Runtime Environment for Wireless) remains at fourth place with nine percent.

Nokia’s Symbian, once an ever-present smart phone OS, is at fifth place with only seven percent of companies still developing on it. Microsoft’s Windows Mobile and the new Windows Phone OS trail with 5 percent.

The PSIA Software Skills Inventory Report, released by services and investment advisory group Tholons was commissioned by the PSIA and funded by then Commission on Information and Communications Technology (CICT), to look into the performance of the domestic software development industry.

  Full Time Employee Outsourcing – Create your own software development team!

Sources:

1. Dagooc, Ehda. “Filipino Software Developers
favor iOs, Android mobile applications”.
11 November 2011. The Freeman.
Accessed 14 November 2011. Link Here.

2. Tholons. Tholons-PSIA Software Skills Inventory
November 2011. Link Here

Outsourcing services providers in Cebu, such as those with skilled personnel in basic documentation, word and data processing and medical transcription, now venture into the wide knowledge process outsourcing (KPO) sector, focusing on providing services for customized business solutions, market intelligence and research, technical and marketing support, among others.

Today these outsourcing services providers offer diverse outsourcing services to current and potential clients, with further aims to increase and improve knowledge-based workers in the next few months, to provide solutions that beyond good English communication, towards higher technical, analytic and design skills required in back-room outsourcing operations.

The challenge now for local service providers is “customized customer service,” as well as effective market intelligence for clients who want to expand globally.

This niche in the market is now waiting to be taken advantage.

The business process outsourcing sector in Cebu, whose providers have have established themselves in the United States market, is now aimed to enter emerging markets in Knowledge Process Outsourcing, in Australia, United Kingdom and China. There are other potential markets in Europe, like Germany and Switzerland for outsourcing services.

Symantec introduces the Symantec Endpoint Protection (SEP) 12 and SEP Small Business Edition, the latest in protection software, which possess patented Insight and Sonar technologies.

Lagtime due to PC security scans will be a thing of the past.

Insight is a cloud-based reputation technology that detects and blocks new threats earlier and more accurately. This allows the security software to improve virus scanning time by automatically identifying high-reputation files.

With Insight, file scanning is optimized by skipping previously scanned files that have remained unchanged, skipping 70 percent of active applications.

Sonar, a hybrid behavioral-reputation engine, monitors running applications for suspicious behaviors and blocks threats in real-time.

An intrusion prevention system also blocks attacks at the network before it can cause damage to the computer.

The program scored high points with independent IT security institute, AVTest as the most effective in real world tests and remediation.

Tests have shown Symantec Endpoint Protection scans faster than at least five other software brands and uses the least PC memory in its operations.

Aside from scanning and eliminating computer viruses, the security software also features anti-spyware, firewall, intrusion prevention, device control, application control and network access control features.