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METRO Laguna and Metro Cavite are the next top destinations for call
center sites.
The Business Processing Association/Philippines
(BPA/P), Commission on Information and Communications Technology (CICT)
and the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) keep tab of
attractive sites to spread the technology and revenue away from
Metro Manila and Cebu, now the top locations.
About 50 locations are on the “Next Wave
Cities” list, including those with no call centers yet.
“The list tells investors where to locate and
gives the cities advice on how they can attract call centers,”
explains Gigi Virata, BPA/P’s executive director for Information
and Research. “What is important is the level of business process
outsourcing employment they can sustain.”
“Competition tends to heat up in major
locations like Metro Manila and Metro Cebu and salaries inflate,”
she points out. “As a result, employees jump from one company to
another.”
“To keep salary rates manageable, the industry
needs to spread out,” she adds.
“Attrition rates could also climb as it has in
India; thus, we need to handle the growth of the industry
properly.”
Up to 80 percent of the outsourcing industry is
now in Metro Manila. But only 25 percent of the graduates come from
there.
Provincial call center salaries are lower at
P12,000 to P15,000 a month to P15,000 and up in Metro Manila.
The latest Next Wave Cities list puts Metro
Laguna (Santa Rosa City, Calamba City, Los Baños, Cabuyao and San
Pablo City) as the best outsourcing location in the country.
It validates the view “that areas close to
Metro Manila would benefit from the spillovers,” says Oscar Sañez,
head of BPA/P, the industry group.
Spreading out sites is essential because over
concentration in Metro Manila and Metro Cebu puts “pressures to
raise rental rates and salaries,” says BOI Executive Director
Celeste Ilagan.
“Having Next Wave Cities and more will help
ease the pressure and spread the benefit of employment, higher
incomes, and increased business activity across the country,” she
says.
The Next Wave Cities project gathers information
from sources as diverse as local chambers of commerce, the
Commission on Higher Education, the National Statistics Office, the
National Statistical Coordination Board, the weather bureau and the
police.
Data include vulnerability to natural
disturbances; crime rates; the presence of export zone sites and
Information and Technology councils; cost of business; quality of
roads; access to international and domestic flights; hotels;
presence of fiber optic networks (with at least two telephone
companies in the location to prevent downtime); rates and
reliability of power supply; and cost of labor and office space.
Second highest on the scoreboard is Metro Cavite
composed of Dasmariñas, Bacoor, Imus and Cavite City.
Ranked from 3 to 10 are Iloilo City, Davao City,
Bacolod City, Angeles-Clark-Mabalacat, Baliuag-Marilao-Meycauayan,
Cagayan de Oro, Malolos-Ca-lumpit and Lipa City.
“Metro Laguna taken together ranked the
highest for availability of graduates and workers out of more than
30 locations assessed,” says CICT Secretary Ray Anthony Roxas-Chua
3rd. “The talent criteria carries the largest weight, a full 50
percent in the overall ranking, which explains Metro Laguna’s
position at the top.”
Laguna is host to several industrial parks and
automotive assembly plants. It is also home to quality schools like
the University of the Philippines in Los Baños, Ateneo de San
Pablo, Colegio de San Juan de Letran, Laguna State Polytechnic,
Mapua Institute of Technology in Cabuyao and the Polytechnic
University in Santa Rosa, as well as research and development
organizations like the International Rice Research Institute.
Cavite has 13 economic zones as well as other
industrial estates hosting international and local companies that
include some IT and business process outsourcing companies.
After Metro Laguna and Metro Cavite, cities in
Mindanao will be the choice destinations for BPOs.
Davao (population: 1.6 million) and nearby
Cagayan de Oro, according to the BPA/P and the USAID’s Growth of
Equity in Mindanao are “well on the way to becoming BPO hubs.”
Source: BPA/P
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