By Ehda M. Dagooc
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Here’s good news for Cebu.
Cebu City is now the world’s number one emerging global outsourcing destination based on the latest survey made by Global Services-Tholons Study, a reputable magazine in the Information Technology or “IT” world.
Cebu bested other 50 emerging outsourcing cities in the world, that include Shanghai and Beijing in China; Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam; Krakow in Poland; Kolkata, India; and Cairo, Egypt.
“The world’s biggest outsourcing companies are now looking at Cebu. Now, we are a legitimate outsourcing destination. The world is now looking at Cebu,” said Cebu Investments and Promotions Center (CIPC) managing director Joel Mari S. Yu, in a press conference late yesterday afternoon.
In the study, Tholons considered six general categories, which include scale and quality of workforce (including education), business catalyst, cost, infrastructure, risk profile, and quality of life.
With the fast growing outsourcing and off-shoring industry in Cebu, Yu said there is no doubt the city could graduate from an emerging outsourcing destination to a fully-developed outsourcing hub as early as next year.
According to Tholons, top notch global service providers such as Accenture, ACS, Cognizant, HP, IBM, Infosys, Wipro, among others are continually increasing their global presence. In a way, the choice of the right city has become more important than the choice of the country.
It is rather the city [than the country], which represents a more accurate package of attributes that service providers seek.
“Thus Cebu City and Monterrey matter more than the Philippines and Mexico from a decision stand point,” said the Tholon survey result.
After seven years of working hard to put Cebu in the global spotlight as the most preferred outsourcing site, Yu said the work has “paid off.”
“Now, we want to aim for the best and be a fully developed outsourcing destination in the world,” he added.
While the outsourcing giants in the world are now focusing their eyes on Cebu, this will bring good news not only in terms of the economic performance of the City, but significantly to Cebuanos as this will mean more employment opportunities.
Cebu produces at least 23,000 fresh (college) graduates a year. Majority of these graduates are employable in any outsourcing company may it be voice (call center) or non-voice operation such as software development, medical transcription, accounting and legal outsourcing among others.
When Cebu City decided to shift into an IT destination back in 2001 instead of focusing on being a manufacturing investment destination, the IT industry here has continuously provided jobs. It now hires over 20,000 people.
Cebu is now the home of big IT firms and outsourcing giants in the world like Wipro, IBM, Accenture. Soon other industry giants like Tata Group of India, Hewlett Packard (HP), and Flour Daniels will make their presence here.
Last year, Cebu was ranked number three as in the world’s top emerging outsourcing destinations.
With this, Yu said Cebu easily attracted new outsourcing investors, not just call center companies, but outsourcing firms that require highly skilled professionals like in animation, software programmers, accountants, lawyers, medical transcribers, human resource experts, content providers, and others.
To date, there are a total of 36 foreign direct investors (FDIs) in IT and Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) operations, excluding the 23 call center firms. Combined, these companies employ over 20 thousand workers already.
According to Yu, with the continuous building of Cebuano developers to invest on Cyber Park and IT Building facilities, Cebu is on the best position to accommodate the world’s outsourcing companies that will locate here.
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