Davao next stop BPO Hub

Davao can become country's biggest BPO hub

THE  Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) industry in Davao City has a high demand for additional talents to expand its workforce, needing around 3,000 to 4,000 call center agents in the next two months.

Bert Barriga, vice president for the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Davao, speaking at the weekly Kapehan sa Dabaw at SM City, said there's a big possibility that they can surpass their target of generating 30,000 workers by 2015.

Davao City has over 14,000 workforce for the existing BPO industry, but the demand increases with the coming of additional areas of service such as health, agriculture, finance and accounting and creative designs.

Barriga said three multinational companies are putting up business in Davao within this year, two of which will be setting up their facilities at the SM City Davao and the other one is at the Abreeza Ayala Malls.

"Two of those companies are among the biggest in the world," Barriga said. 

These companies will initially employ around 2,000 talents, he added.

For the BPO industry in Davao, there is a clamor as to how they will present the city as the world's biggest IT park in the world, according to Barriga.

He said the city needs more investors for the infrastructures. "If we build them, they will come. If we don't build them, they will not come."

Barriga said the city has the potential to become the biggest BPO hub in the country, considering that Davao is the best city in Mindanao and has a huge number of talents.

Another advantage of Davao is its being a center in Mindanao, said Barriga, adding there are local call centers in the city that have Spanish and Arabic accounts.

"Imagine if we can serve all those accounts," Barriga said, adding that what some call centers do is they enroll their talent to short-term courses in those languages.

The city earlier topped the list of next wave cities for IT-BPO locators for two consecutive years since 2010 which, according to Barriga, is an advantage for more companies to locate here.

For more information please check this here