Davao City sees growth in ICT-BPO industry this year

By Cheneen R. Capon
National ICT Confederation of the Philippines (NCIP) chair Wit Holganza said there will be robust growth in the homegrown Information and Communication Technology- Business Process Outsourcing (ICT-BPO) companies in Davao City this year.
“What’s on the radar of the national government agencies are those big BPO companies but there’s a robust growth in small BPO companies here,” Holganza said.
Holganza was referring to about 30 voice and non-voice BPO-ICT companies that are mostly 50 to 100 seaters that are based here in Davao City.
She said the growth in this sector will provide the city with added revenue and jobs to Dabawenyos.
“Right now, we have to map out these companies because these will provide additional jobs to the existing 21,000 professionals in the ICT-BPO sector of Davao City,” she told reporters in an interview on the sidelines of the recently held general membership meeting of the members of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce in the Philippines-Davao chapter at the Park Inn by Radissons-Davao.
She said these small companies are now expanding up to 300 seats, tapping the 10,000 skilled talent of Davao City.
Holganza said the growth in the homegrown BPO companies of Davao make’s the city’s business community more mature.
“It provides more options not just to customers but also to local investors who are partners of the city government in making jobs for the locality,” she said.
Holganza said this smaller sector of ICT-BPO, especially among home-based companies, will continue to grow in the coming years if more players from the telecommunication sector come in.
“The problems of these home-based companies are the expensive bandwidth and unreliable internet connection provided by existing telecommunication companies here,” she said.
Davao City does not only provide area for growth to homegrown ICT-BPO companies but also to big and foreign companies.
Earlier, National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) 11 regional director Maria Lourdes Lim reported that four more BPO companies will enter the BPO sector of the city.
Holganza, however, did not confirm the entry of the four because of confidentiality.
Instead, she said Davao City will continue to attract investors in the BPO sector in the coming years.
“These new companies are looking for Davao City as a secondary location of their operation to ensure business continuity,” she said.
She said that the city has been in the top 10 most suitable location for BPO companies in the past years.