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Monday, July 28, 2003
Six more call centers in Cebu: industry leader
CEBU will soon see the mushrooming of call centers in the province in the next two years.
This as six more call center operators, in addition to the first six call centers reported, have committed to locate in Cebu in the near future, Bong Borja, chairman of the Contact Center Federation of the Philippines and the Contact Center Association of the Philippines said.
Board of Investments Gov. Gerry Sta. Ana earlier announced that six call centers were already sure to locate in Cebu. These companies are Sykes, Bigfoot, C3, Western Wats, Convergys and People Support.
Sykes, located in Mandaue City, has already started operating. Western Wats is set to open next month, while People Support has scheduled its opening in October.
During the call center forum at the University of Southern Philippines last week, Borja said many call centers are interested to locate in Cebu because of the availability of excellent labor with excellent English communication skills, the presence of world-class information and telecommunication infrastructures, and the support from the local government units.
Ecozone
The presence of economic zones such as the Mactan Economic Zone and Asiatown is also another reason why call centers have begun to take interest in expanding their operations in Cebu.
Locators of economic zones are eligible for tax incentives such as exemptions from income tax and income tax holidays.
Call centers or contact centers are organizations providing customer interaction services such as customer care, technical support and advisory services; as well as outbound customer campaigns such as telemarketing and sales to other companies for a fee.
Instead of companies having their own people handle customer interaction services, the trend is to hand over these functions to a contact center.
Borja encouraged Cebuano professionals to work in the call center industry, saying there is now much more to the call center industry than just the old idea of doing directory assistance.
“From simple queries about site navigation and product promotion, call centers are now doing much more, such as doing interactions dealing in technical assistance and investment portfolio management. Some of the big clients of call centers in the Philippines include American Express, Citigroup, Dell, Sony, Microsoft and Nokia,” he said.
Aside from voice and phone interaction, contact centers also make use of different customer touch points such as email, chat and fax.
Big income
There are 33 call centers in Manila. They generated a total income of P180 million to P200 million last year. These call centers have a total of 20,000 seats, and employ 27,000 people.
The growth of the industry in the country is estimated to be at 70 percent to 100 percent per year, while that of India is only at 65 percent.
India is the country’s closest competitor in attracting call center outsourcing jobs, Borja said. JBN
(July 28, 2003 issue)
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