In 2015, the Philippines business process outsourcing (BPO) revenue was nearly US$22 Billion compared to the US$27 Billion of OFW remittances. The BPO industry is forecast to reach US$48 Billion by 2020. Bohol still lags behind many other provinces and cities in this industry with only a handful of homegrown BPO and KPO (knowledge process outsourcing) companies operating as of last year.
Unfortunately for Bohol province, we experienced a setback in our efforts to attract large BPO companies to locate in the province after the 2013 earthquake. The next two years were spent on rehabilitation.
The Bohol ICT Council, led by its Chairperson Ms. Delilah Biliran, is spearheading initiatives of the province in attracting BPO operators from Cebu, Manila and other cities to open up a facility in Bohol. The council had some level of success last year as we got a few seriously interested companies who did feasibility studies and conducted dialogues with the various stakeholders. However, the final decision to locate in Bohol is still elusive.
Bohol must take a slice of the BPO industry if we are to ensure that the Boholanos have more job opportunities without having to migrate to other cities. We are promoting Bohol as an ecotourism destination and BPO jobs are a perfect complement to ecotourism because the BPO industry do not consume raw materials and do not have hazardous waste by products.
For this reason, the council is working on several fronts:
– encourage local real-estate investors to put up facilities that can be leased to BPO companies
– encourage the local tech and maker communities to conduct and participate in tech events like Startup Weekend Bohol, Geeks on a Beach, Ideaspace competition. This will help our manpower pool become confident and gain experience.
– encourage our technology and design graduates to pursue freelance jobs as alternative to finding jobs in other cities.
In the discussions with the prospective locators, we did realize that much has to be done with regards to talent development. For the talent pool, we have to address labor analysis, inclusive of long-term prospects. We know we have some of the best educational institutions right here in our backyard but we will still be tasking the university system to discover the specific workforce needs for academe-industry matching. We’re also asking our TESDA and TVIs to roll out the more or less P10million peso scholarships intended for IT-enabled and BPO businesses’ requirements. Most importantly, we have to put in place relevant programs, supported by allocated government assets, to close any talent devt gaps.
The provincial and city governments must legislate their incentive packages for the potential locators to help attract them to choose Bohol as their next location. We already have success stories from other cities like Dumaguete, Iloilo, Davao and Bacolod so our legislators have a model to follow in crafting our own legislation.
With the new Bohol Airport in Panglao expected to be operational in 2018, it is the best time to institutionalize the idea that the existing airport be converted into an IT park. We will have about two years to come up with a good marketing package and participate in BPO events to help attract locators. Now would be the best time to sort out the details on setting up our own IT park. We don’t have to reinvent the wheel as we have Cebu as the model for such conversion. Cebu’s IT park in Lahug was formerly an airport also.
(with reports from Ms. Lai Biliran and Jerome Auza)
