BPAP and the Philippines' New Wave Cities: Full Steam Ahead

“Experience excellence, experience Philippines.” Yes indeed.

The Philippine government along with the private sector exert a commendable amount of effort promoting the Philippines abroad as the 21st century’s logical business process outsourcing destination. With six overseas marketing missions set for this year alone, BPAP is bent on advancing the country’s New Wave Cities. This is in part to gradually shift the focus from the current center of Philippine BPO, Metro Manila, which meets 80% of the Philippines’ BPO service requirement. BPAP’s goal is to minimize wage inflation and commercial lease rates for BPO companies operating in Metro Manila. The more desired outcome however is the creation and distribution of jobs among the 31 New Wave Cities spread throughout the country including Bacolod, Cebu, Iloilo, Davao, Cagayan de Oro, Cavite, Laguna and Lipa, to name just a few.

At least ten international missions to attract foreign companies to offshore to the Philippines have been planned by BPAP in cooperation with the Export Development Council and the Commission on Information and Communications Technology to hopefully provide the funding. This would be significant investment by the government in its push to take a 10% share of the global BPO market by the end of 2010. At the moment, the Philippines has approximately 500,000 BPO employees, still quite a long way from the targeted 1 million employees by 2010. It is worth mentioning that BPAP aims not only to provide call center or transcription jobs to fresh graduates, but also to give employment to technically skilled professionals and graduated such as mechanical engineers, financial analysts, and clinical researchers.

On the surface, it may seem too ambitious a project to server 10% of the global market, but the goal is much more achievable with the emergence of Knowledge Process Outsourcing (KPO) services in the country. KPO, which is slowly gaining momentum in the Philippines, can take on a company’s core competencies and therefore requires in-depth analysis, superb communication skills and technical expertise. So what does this all mean for the Philippines? Besides benefiting the BPO industry, the initiatives of BPAP will help bind people the Philippines, otherwise known as “a country of migrants.” This highly skilled and hard working labor pool now has a viable option to stay home and in their country.

Filipinos from around the country should take heart. With a thriving outsourcing industry, there is room for professionals from Mindanao to Cavite to ride the wave.