This interest was expressed in the recently held DTI-organized forum on the prospects and requirements of the call center industry to the Business Process Association of the Philippines (BPOP), the country’s biggest organization of contact service providers, whose members are on the process of expanding their operations.
This expansion program will benefit areas outside Metro Manila where the majority of the contact service centers/companies are located and operating. Such expansion binge is expected to benefit the region as it fortify its position as an alternative host for BPO companies like call centers.
Representatives of the Metro Angeles Realtors Board (MAREB) and Philippine Association of Realtors Board, Inc. (PAREB) Pampanga Chapter said they are willing to work together with the call center industry on how to fill such needs including requirements for standard offices and support facilities like residential and recreational areas for industry’s workforce.
PAREB is the national association of realtors, developers, and brokers, while MAREB is a local grouping of realtors, developers and brokers based in the Metro Angeles area in Pampanga.
A PAREB official, Mario Lazatin, said local realtors welcome the move of the call center companies to consider Clark, Subic or any other part of the region as base for their operations.
Realtors, he said, could devote their energies on establishing or building the necessary physical infrastructure, buildings or facilities when they know such investment would result to more business and business opportunities.
He said MAREB / PAREB could sit down with BPOP to identify their specific requirements such as building specs, designs, layout, costing, timetable and other appropriate business arrangements that could be worked out.
Given such concrete information, Lazatin said it would be easier for real estate developers to strategically move in addressing these business opportunities immediately.
While Clark and Subic remains as the premiere ecozones with the facilities for call centers, both realtors and BPOP agreed that other sites outside these two zones could be developed or built approximating the likes of Eastwood Libis IT Park in Quezon City or existing IT sites in Metro Manila.
Bong Borja, BPOP president and head of People Support, Inc., one of the biggest contact service center company in the country, assured the realtors that BPOP will provide the necessary information on their requirements to MAREB/PAREB as inputs to their plans.
Borja informed the group that BPOP sees substantial growth on a long-term period in the business process outsourcing industry which means that their requirements for facilities, infrastructure and manpower will definitely continue in the coming years.
This growth, Borja said, is not a ‘flash-in-the-pan’ phenomenon or just a trend as more Western companies move to outsource some of their services to BPO providers. The industry is estimated to be worth around US$180 to US$ 200 million currently.
For its part, the DTI has been trying to match the various players that make up the industry by providing venue for consultations such as the said forum last Wednesday at its Regional Conference Room in Angeles City.
Aside from the realtors, DTI also invited leaders from the academe including presidents and top officials of private as well as state universities and colleges, IT and computer-based, technical schools and leading business companies in the region to the said forum for them to hear the prospects of the ICT industry and gear up their respective curriculum so they can turn-out better prepared graduates.
