DEVELOP PPPs TO KEEP BPO INDUSTRY COMPETITIVE- ANGARA

Senator Edgardo J. Angara called on the government to fast track efforts to improve ties between government, industry and academe to support the booming Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) sector of the country.

Angara noted that a recent report from the World Bank (WB) indicated that the BPO sector of the country would continue to surge, and has the potential to maintain the strong growth, especially by improving on the skill level of human resources.

Mr. Oscar Sanez, Business Processing Association of the Philippines (BPAP) CEO, recently released an industry roadmap entitled, "IT-BPO Road Map 2011-2016: Driving Global Leadership" indicating that the BPO sectors revenues will rise and workforce grow at an increased rate with the proper government support.

"The study found that the industry can grow from $9 billion in annual revenues and approximately 500,000 direct employees today to $20 billion and 900,000 employees by 2016 if current conditions are sustained and with a lot of hard work," said Mr. Sañez.

"But the study indicates that we can grow at an even faster rate and achieve $25 billion and 1.3 million employees by 2016 if we can significantly strengthen our Private-Public-Partnership with the government, and improve both the quantity and quality of our talent supply," he noted.

Mr. Sanez, who is also a member of COMSTE, indicated that that the BPO sector is moving away from voice services into fields such as such as IT, medical, legal, which demand quality personnel.

Angara expressed concern that if these types of jobs in the country are not filled by well trained and educated personnel, the country would lose its momentum in achieving a knowledge-based sector of the economy, creating a void in domestic growth.

Angara noted that creating productive Public Private Partnership (PPPs) would enable industry leaders to interact with academe, which in turn would develop better training and curriculum for students that can seamlessly enter the workforce.

The move from simply expanding voice services to providing more technical backroom services presents many opportunities to expand the workforce and provide highly capable, and technical employees that can compete on an international level.

Mr. Sanez also presented some of the other priority issues that the BPO sector wants addressed in order to maintain the rapid growth of the industry and remain a the Top Offshoring Destination of the Year, as awarded by the National Outsourcing Association of the U.K, namely the strengthening of data privacy laws, the creation of a Department of Information and Communication Technology (DICT), and the creation of a campaign to create global awareness of the Philippines as a center for BPO excellence.