Eight new firms to open in Cebu

By Katlene O. Cacho

Thursday, March 22, 2012

ABOUT eight new international firms are set to begin operations in Cebu this year, a top official of the Cebu Investment and Promotions Center (CIPC) said.

In an interview last Wednesday, CIPC managing director Joel Mari Yu said these new firms are mostly knowledge-process outsourcing (KPO) firms that do knowledge-based activities such as medical billing, data mining, and medical encoding.

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“With the opening of these new firms we are looking at around 5,000 new job opportunities with close to 400 to 500 employee requirements for each company,” he said.

High-value work

“What we found surprising is that we are getting a lot of international-based companies not only from the US but also from Singapore, Japan, Canada and Australia,” he added.

Among these new companies that will expand operations in Cebu are United Health Care, EXL, HCCA, PROMET International Inc. and Talleco.

Unlike the usual outsourcing activities that involve dealing with the concerns of customers, a KPO service deals with knowledge-based services or those that involve high-value work carried out by highly-skilled staff.

“These companies will be hiring nurses for healthcare related outsourcing services, professionals with MBA degrees, economists and statisticians among others,” Yu said.

Yu, however, declined to disclose further details as to the timeline of the opening of each foreign company here.

Important player

Yu said these companies chose to operate in Cebu because of the increasing market for outsourcing, and Cebu being one of the successful hubs for outsourcing in the world.

India is currently the major hub for the KPO activity but the Philippines is seen as an emerging KPO service location, according to international research firm Ovum in its report last November.

Ovum said that along with China and Sri Lanka, the Philippines is also becoming an increasingly important player in the KPO market.

Yu noted the expansion of these foreign-firms in Cebu also downplays threats to the outsourcing industry, with US President Barack Obama’s “in-sourcing” campaign.

“Outsourcing is the only way to become competitive in this period of globalization.

Obama cannot stop outsourcing, because for one, it will be the American companies that will first complain,” he said.

Published in the Sun.Star Cebu newspaper on March 23, 2012.