State of BPO industry up in Cebu conference

About 1,500 delegates are expected to attend the three-day International Contact Center Conference and Expo that opens today at the Shangri-la’s Mactan Island Resort and Spa.

In a briefing last Monday, Jojo Uligan, executive director of the Contact Center Association of the Philippines (CCAP), said the participants come from Manila and countries like India, Malaysia, Singapore, Japan and Great Britain.

“While Cebu continues to experience growth in the outsourcing industry, we need to address issues like our niche in the market. When we say tech support, what area do we excel in? That and other questions will be answered,” he said.

Uligan said the conference also provides the perfect opportunity for Cebu stakeholders to discuss and network with other players from other countries and other regions in the country. This is the first time Cebu is hosting what is dubbed the biggest contact center conference in the world.

In today’s opening, Science and Technology Secretary Mario Montejo will deliver the keynote speech while CCAP president Benedict Hernandez will give a State of the Industry Report.

“We will also be launching our program in partnership with Tesda (Technical Education Skills Development Authority) called ITWSP or ICT Training for Work Scholarship Program which produced 44,209 scholars last year,” Uligan said.

CCAP will also launch the first 75 scholars this year who will be trained to meet the requirements of contact center companies.

“These are ‘near-hires’ that we train to increase their chances of getting hired once they reapply. Last year, we had 44,209 that underwent the training and 73 percent of them were hired. That’s a huge number for us, that will really help the industry,” the CCAP director said.