Davao sees improvement of worldwide BPO rating

By Cheneen R. Capon
DAVAO City improved its rating as one of the top 100 business process and IT outsourcing destinations worldwide jumping from its 69th spot to the 66th, the Tholons 2016 survey revealed. Tholons “is a services globalization and investment advisory firm which publishes an annual survey of the top 100 business process and IT outsourcing destinations worldwide.” Davao City’s recent rise in the survey has “edged out bigger, more metropolitan cities like San Antonio in Texas, Halifax in Canada, and Perth in Australia as a leading outsourcing destination for 2016,” Councilor Joanne M. Bonguyan-Quilos, committee on information and communication technology chair, said during this week’s session at the Sangguniang Panglunsod. “This is quite a feat when you consider that this peaceful, progressive city is in the middle of the conflict-torn island of Mindanao,” Bonguyan-Quilos added. The lady councilor attributed the leap to the “open atmosphere” which made the city “a viable destination for outsourcing projects.” “Unlike other IT hubs in the country such as Manila and Cebu, Davao does not have a saturation issue. The city is still in the expansion and development stage when it comes to outsourcing,” she said. There is also a rise of highly skilled, industry ready college graduates coming out of the city. “IT companies all over the world are now looking at Davao to fill their talent gap, some of them eventually choosing to set up facilities in the city to be closer to the talent pool,” she said. Being out of the typhoon path has also made the city as an “ideal delivery location” for expansion of IT companies. “Most of the year, the weather is always conducive for business,” Bonguyan-Quilos said. “Unlike Manila, Davao is hardly affected by year round typhoons. Earthquakes and other natural calamities that plague Manila and NCR are almost non-existent in the city,” she said. “The traffic in Davao is more manageable unlike Cebu and Manila,” she added. Davao City’s 2015 high literacy rate of 98.7 percent, which is higher than the country’s 92.3 percent rate, has made it a “strong educational hub.” “Computer literacy is prioritized and encouraged with the help of projects from numerous organizations and the local government units and the number of IT graduates from Mindanao is rising steadily, driven partly by the growing start-up community in the city,” Bonguyan-Quilos said. The presence and support of established IT-BPO companies in the city is one of the major reasons why the city took a leap in the Tholons list. “IT-BPO giants such as Convergence and Teleperformance are already settled in. And more companies are expected to set-up offices in the city. With the influx of people coming to work or study in the city filling in the demand for more IT workers is not a problem,” she said. Bonguyan-Quilos said there is strong collaboration between the public and private sector to maintain the conducive environment for business in the city. At present, approximately 35,000 workers are employed by the ICT-BPO sector.