Officials of the Philippines’s information technology-business-process management (IT-BPM) industry are optimistic on the sustained rise of the industry’s contribution on domestic growth.
Danilo Sebastian Reyes, Information Technology-Business Process Association of the Philippines (IBPAP) board of trustees chairman, said they are committed to increase their share in the expansion of the domestic economy.
In a briefing for the two-day International IT-BPM Summit 2015 that started on Monday, Reyes said they are on track with their 2016 road map goal to achieve $25-billion revenues and employ 1.3 million in workers by end-2016.
In 2014 the industry ended the year with $18.4 billion worth of revenues and about 1.03 million employees.
Reyes said they now have about 1.2 million employees but is mum on the revenues, but said that it is nearing their goal.
The business-process outsourcing (BPO) sector, in general, is now one of the major drivers of gross domestic product (GDP) with the 2014 contribution at about 6.5 percent.
“For 2015 it can increase to about 7 [percent] to 8 percent,” he said, but clarified that this still depends on how the overall economy performs.
Reyes said they target to strengthen the operations of high-value services, such as finance and accounting, analytics, business-process transformation, software development on gaming and creative outsourcing, among others, to further boost the industry’s revenues.
Relatively, IBPAP President and CEO Jose Mari Mercado, during the briefing, said innovations, like omni-channels made through social media like chat, e-mail and other applications and not just voice, are opportunities that would improve the industry’s capacity to further increase earnings and opportunities for its people.
“I see it as an advantage and a great opportunity for the Philippines in that particular sense,” he said, noting that this is an easy way to further skill up their personnel, most of whom are already tech-savvy.
The industry is currently growing at an annual rate of 15 percent to 18 percent and Mercado is positive of higher growth beyond 2016, given the fact that they continue to set a road map.
“The opportunity to do that is very, very strong. I think we’ve laid the foundation so that we can take advantage of that opportunity,” he said.
To date, the sector that posts the highest growth is health care at about 30 percent, but growth of the voice sector, IT and other sectors remain robust.
Mercado said they are now identifying consultants for the industry’s planned 2020 road map, which they target to release before end-2016.
The road map will help us identify opportunities and challenges, which we will address with the help of the government and academe, he added.