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By Rhick Lars Vladimer Albay
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ILOILO City – “A lack of innovation” is the reason why Iloilo City has been snubbed from a firm’s international competitiveness rankings, according to local government officials and stakeholders in the business process outsourcing (BPO) industry.
After claiming the 90th spot in 2016, Iloilo City has lost its position in the Tholons Top 100 “super cities” for outsourcing this year.
According to the Tholons Services Globalization Index (TSGI) 2017 released at the end of June, Iloilo exited the international rankings for BPO destinations, as other Philippine hubs also slid down the ranks.
“With regards to Tholons, I had a meeting with sir Rik Amores [Visayas Cluster 1 director] of DICT (Department of Information and Communications Technology) and I asked him what happened,” explained Ritchel Gavan, city Local Economic and Investment Promotion Officer (LEIPO).
“I asked him sir what could have been the reason why Iloilo City is no longer in the list. [Amores said it could be] because of the introduction of new parameters for the latest Tholons [study], which now includes the growth of a startup community, which is actually just in time because we are launching ‘Ilovation’,” she added.
The portmanteau of Iloilo and innovation, Ilovation 2017 is an upcoming two-day activity that seeks to bring together Ilonggo tech experts, web developers, animators, robotics experts, and those involved in startup ventures in bolstering the city as the “next Silicon Valley” and an emerging Information Technology Financial hub – as well as hopefully reintroducing Iloilo City into the Tholens Top 100.
Miguel Alerta, director of the Iloilo Federation of Information Technology – a body that offers free trainings for the underprivileged to deploy them to local partner call centers, airs the same sentiment.
“Firstly it’s [a lack of] innovation. According to DICT, unlike Bacolod and Cebu where there are a lot of startup innovations, Iloilo is still on the process of growing a community,” Alerta told Panay News.
He adds that “unfair branding” may also be in play.
“Maybe the painting of our city as the ‘most shabulized’ [could have influenced the rankings],” Alerta added. “It’s unfair for us who work so hard to give Iloilo a new renaissance and just one presidential proclamation could potentially drop all that work down the drain. It’s seen impacting the economic fibers of the local community, even in the contact center industry.”
National BPO slide
In 2016, nine major Philippine cities were included in the list – with Manila ranking the highest at 2nd place worldwide, along with Cebu City (7th), Davao City (66th), Sta. Rosa, Laguna (81st), Bacolod (85th), Dumaguete City (93rd), Baguio City (94th), and Metro Clark (97th).
Dumaguete City, Baguio City, and Metro Clark join Iloilo in falling out of the Top 100. Manila also fell a few rungs in the ladder – from 2nd to 4th place. The remaining Phillipine hubs also dropped in the 2017 standings: Cebu City (12th), Davao City (85th), Bacolod City (97th) and Sta. Rosa, Laguna (100th).
Despite the slumps, Tholons still cites the Philippines as among the “digital nation” leaders.
“The Philippines has been the undisputed leader in customer service [and] BPOs, [being] home to several major multinational corporations,” the report reads. “The city of Manila has become the focus of operations for various industries and has long challenged Bangalore, Mumbai and taken the lead in business process management.”
According to a report by the Philippine Information Agency Region 6, 47 BPO companies are currently operating in Iloilo City, employing some 21,500 fulltime employees.
Tholons is a leading full-service strategic advisory firm for global outsourcing and investments. In this year’s report, they considered innovation, workforce and skills, infrastructure and cost, risk and quality of life, and business catalysts as metrics for the research./PN
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