INTEGRATION of agentic and artificial intelligence (AI) into global business and customer services, along with a strong rise of the global capability centers (GCCs) is seen to bolster growth of the Philippines’ Information Technology-Business Process Management (IT-BPM) industry.
The sector’s revenues are projected to grow by 5 percent this year to USD40 billion, and next year’s forecast remains at 5 percent to USD42 billion.
Employment forecast for next year is around 1.97 million, with workers expected to move up the value chain as more innovative services are introduced.
“Every digital Filipino worker must be rewired for the AI era… Let us remember, technology alone will not miss what sets the Philippines apart (but) our human element, our ingenuity, our empathy, (and) our trust. AI must serve people, not replace them. The formula is simple – technology plus human,” IT & Business Process Association of the Philippines (IBPAP) president and chief executive officer Jack Madrid said during the opening of the two-day International IT-BPM Summit (IIS) 2025 in Parañaque City on Tuesday, Sept. 23.
Madrid said the global GCC market is expanding, with around USD100 billion worth of revenues in 2024 seen to rise to USD155 billion by 2027, and the workforce seen to grow to around four million.
GCCs provide several services, such as those in finance, human resources, customer support, IT, data analytics, marketing, and digital services.
While India is the leader for GCCs to date, Madrid said the Philippines should aspire to do the same since there have been GCCs in the Philippines for years and because “we have the talent, we have the scale, the cost efficiency, and the ecosystem maturity to become the next global GCC power.”
Madrid, during a briefing on the sidelines of the event, pointed out that what matters now is not who leads this segment but instead how India and the Philippines can work to benefit from this growth.
Asked for what the government can do to help ensure the sector’s growth, Celeste Ilagan, IBPAP Chief Operating Officer, identified the cost of doing business and the implementation of all the provisions of the Corporate Recovery and Tax Incentives for Enterprises to Maximize Opportunities for Reinvigorating the Economy (CREATE MORE) Act, or the Republic Act (RA) No. 12066.
“Those are the two things that we believe investors find very important to be able to grow. And therefore, these are the two things that we are looking at,” she said.
CREATE MORE was signed into law in November 2024 to encourage investment-led growth for the domestic economy since it enhances ease of doing business, clarifies value-added tax (VAT) policies, provides more attractive incentives for businesses, and strengthens governance and accountability, among others. (PNA)
