BPO aims to hire 2,000 with launch of Cebu tower

Global outsourcing company Aegis People Support launched the first phase of its 3,000-seat Aegis Tower in Asiatown IT Park in Cebu City.

Rajiv Ahuja, Aegis People Support president for Asean and ANZ, said they aim to increase manpower by 50 percent as soon as phase 2 is finished.

“We have about 4,000 people in Cebu. We hope to add 2,000 more when the tower is finished,” Ahuja said in a press conference Monday.

The BPO has close to 12,000 employees in the country based in three delivery centers in Metro Manila, Baguio and Cebu. By year end, it expects to  have 15,000 employees.

The tower alone is  an investment of P2 billion – P1.5 billion for the building and P500 million for three lots purchased in the Ayala-managed IT park.

“We are also looking at areas outside the metro cities where we can open an office and also provide employment to the people there,” said  C. M.  Sharma, Aegis People Support chief financial officer.

S. M. Gupta, Aegis People Support global chief people officer, underscored the need to ensure a good supply of the right people to satisfy industry needs.

Based on global projections, the outsourcing industry is expected to grow to a $270-billion industry in the next five years with an annual growth rate of 15 percent.

“In the Philippines, industry growth is more than the global growth. The industry here has been growing at 23 percent annually in the last 10 years. In five years it will grow to a $25-billion industry in the country that will generate additional jobs for 400,000 people,” Gupta said.

With this scenario, Gupta said the country should prepare the workforce to suit the requirements of the industry.

“At present, there are 600,000 people in the country working for outsourcing companies. We need to be able to sustain the supply because we might end up hiring people from other companies, which will put a pressure on the economic index,”  said Aegis People Support managing director and chief executive officer Aparup Sengupta.

Sengupta said they are committed to invest more in the Philippines and are discussing with the local government an academic program that will help ensure supply of qualified personnel to support growth.

“We are talking with Congressman Tommy Osmeña about the project, which we have already done in India. We call it Aegis Global Academy,” Sengupta said.
Osmeña, who was joined the press conference, said Cebu City has a contract with the University of the Philippines  in Cebu to build an MBA facility in the South Road Property (SRP) and offer these  courses.

A three-year deadline to put up the building expires in a year.

The new UP president Alfredo Pascual last Sept. 23 broke ground in the five-hectare SRP lot for a UP Professional Schools campus.

“If they (UP) still doesn’t  come up with something, we’ll get the land back. We’ll do it ourselves (with Aegis),” Osmeña said.

Osmeña said the project is envisioned to create a total landscape that will encourage people, even those that don’t want to work in an outsourcing company now, to take MBA courses offered in the facility.

This will upgrade the available work pool and make Cebu more competitive.