NCR expands Cebu operations

(The Freeman) Updated December 09, 2009 12:00 AM

CEBU, Philippines - Global technology company NCR (National Cash Register) Corporation is looking at expanding its operations in Cebu with an additional 400-seat facility ready to accommodate more people on board.

The NCR-Cebu Development Center Inc. (NCR-CDCI) recently decided to move to a new and bigger office, at the eBloc Tower I.T. Park to provide growth space for its operations that would lead to responding faster to customers.

The Cebu operations, is part of the entire company’s brain in supporting and developing assisted and self-service solutions, backed with comprehensive support services, address the needs of retail, financial, travel, healthcare, hospitality, entertainment, gaming and public sector organizations in more than 100 countries.

In an interview with NCR-CDCI Engineering head Victor R. Silvestre he said that while the Cebu facility is more focus on the developing and improving the company’s do-it-yourself (D.I.Y.) machines for retail sector, mostly used in the United States, it soon participate in developing other DIY solutions for other sectors like travel and entertainment.

The company started its Research and Development (R&D) operations in Cebu in 2004 with only 60 people। Now, it has expanded to 500 manpower count.

With a total of 900-seat in the new location, Silvestre said the company still has 400-seat vacant to accommodate more people.

“Cebu provides good working environment, and good resources of manpower,” said Silvestre.

NCR has other R&D facilities all over the world, including Japan, India, and other countries in Europe.

As of this time, the Cebu R&D facility is focus on developing solution equipment for retail sector such as Point-Of-Sales (POS), self-service machines, touch-screen payment machines, fast-lane retail solutions, among others.

According to Silvestre, the Cebu operations is hiring software and hardware developers from all over Cebu, and neighboring provinces.

In fact, the company is also partnering with the academe and the Technical Education and Development Authority (Tesda) on its continuous look-out for manpower to support the company’s expansion plan.

NCR is an assisted-service and point-of-sale solutions maker located in over 150 countries worldwide.

Its core industries are financial and retail. The extensive NCR solutions portfolio also serves the travel, healthcare, food and hospitality, entertainment and gaming, and government and public sector industries

Soon, the Cebu facility will participate in the development of other solution machines in travel and entertainment, such as self-service DVD rental machine, DIY movie ticketing machine, among others.

NCR-CDCI is one of the pioneering R&D multinational companies that locate in Cebu. Now, there are a number of big international names that also established their R&D centers here.— Ehda M. Dagooc