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TAMPA,
Florida-based ProV International said Tuesday it has
chosen the Philippines as the hub for its global and
fully-integrated information technology consulting and
networking services,
In a
media briefing, ProV International Philippines president
and chief operating officer Jim Lynch said the decision
was made after taking into consideration that Philippine
schools are promoting advanced technologies, high degree
of proficiency in English, as well as the strategic
location of the Philippines in proximity to the Asia
Pacific region and the country’s stable supply of
software engineers.
Although
India has a bigger English-speaking population compared
to the Philippines, Lynch pointed out the country has an
advantage because its accent is more universal in
nature.
“English
is taught in the schools from a very young age and used
in day-to-day life,” Lynch said. “A great majority of
the people in the Philippines, young and old, speak
English. The English accent of the Philippines is not
the typical Asian accent, and much better understood in
the world market.”
He added
that ProV International is expanding its sales in the
Asia-Pacific region in 2007. The
Philippines
is hours of target countries such as
Singapore,
Thailand, China and Australia.
Unlike
India, Lynch said the Philippine software industry’s
fixed costs are still reasonable and have much room for
growth even after achieving a 40 percent year-on-year
growth rate in software development.
According to the Commission on Information
Communications Technology, the number of jobs in 2006
grew from 12,000 to over 15,600 in a year, while an
excess of 300 companies has been recorded in the same
period.
“There
are very significant opportunities for us in the
Philippines and that’s the reason why we have put up an
offshore facility here,” said Lynch.
Lynch
said Filipino software engineers will be the heart and
soul of ProV because they will be in the frontline of
the offshore engineering jobs. “We will bring Filipino
engineers to the United States for our projects,” he
said.
Robert
P. Berry Jr., country manager of ProV International
Philippines, said that there is a huge potential for the
country’s software industry.
Berry
said ProV International will raise the bar higher for
Filipino software engineers by providing them with
internationally-recognized certifications to become more
competitive in the global arena.
He said
ProV is also aware of the looming shortage of skilled
software engineers in the country. To avoid a future
problem for the company, ProV has partnered with the
Technological University of the Philippines (TUP) to
train computer engineering students on the latest
technologies in IT outsourcing. Under the program, TUP
students will have apprenticeship programs with ProV
before they graduate.
With the
training program,
Berry
said the students are now qualified to work in high-end
engineering jobs.
“Through
our business, we want to reverse the trend of talent
exporting in the country in the long run by enabling
Filipinos to do offshore engineering jobs here,” he
said.
ProV
specializes in customer relationship management, data
warehousing, enterprise resource management, on-shore
and off-shore outsourcing services and infrastructure
control and management. |
