Accenture to expand, beef up work force

BY JEFFREY O. VALISNO, BusinessWorld Reporter New York-listed global management consulting, technical and outsourcing company Accenture is set to hire more Filipinos this year as it expands its operations and services in the country. Accenture Country Managing Director for the Philippines Beth G. Lui told reporters on Wednesday that the company’s work force in the country is expected to increase to 15,000 by August this year, from the current 11,000. This as Accenture plans to launch its operations in Cebu this year, its first location outside Metro Manila. The Cebu office will be Accenture’s ninth location in the country. The firm currently has five offices in Makati City, and one each in the cities of Pasig, Mandaluyong and Quezon. Ms. Lui said Accenture will likely lease an existing facility in Cebu to jump-start the company’s operations that will initially have 500 seats. She said Accenture currently has 10,000 seats occupied by employees in two to three shifts. "The company has been looking at different locations, and we found Cebu very favorable for us. For one, there is a big pool of talent there. We have many employees from Cebu, and Visayas, and I am sure they will be willing to return to the province once we start our operations there," she said. Ms. Lui said the company has yet to decide on the exact location of the Cebu office. Accenture also declined to say how much it has allotted for the inauguration of its Cebu operations. "Let’s just say we have invested a lot, which only shows the confidence that we have in the Philippines," Accenture Chief Operating Officer Stephen J. Rohleder told reporters. Based on the industry benchmark, a call center seat costs $7,000 to $8,000 to operate . Mr. Rohleder was in the country together with Accenture’s Madrid-based Senior Managing Director for Global Delivery Network Basilio Rueda for the inauguration of the company’s expanded offices in Robinsons Cybergate in Pioneer St., Mandaluyong City. Accenture currently occupies 16,000 square meters in eight floors of Robinsons Cybergate Tower 1. The company on Wednesday formally opened another 30,000 square meters in Robinsons Cybergate Tower 2. Ms. Lui said the offices at Robinsons Cybergate Tower 2 will be Accenture’s biggest in the country to date, as it occupies 20 out of the building’s 21 floors. The deal between Accenture and Robinsons Land Corp., the developer of Robinsons Cybergate, for the said office expansion has been regarded as the biggest office lease deal in the country to date in terms of floor area. Based on industry figures, the annual take-up of office space for call centers and other business process outsourcing (BPO) companies is currently estimated at 150,000 square meters. The current lease rate in the Philippines continues to be one of the cheapest rates in Asia and this further attracts global outsourcing firms to consider moving their back-room facilities in the Philippines. "The Philippines and our employees here are critical to the success of Accenture’s Global Delivery Network of 58,000 people in more than 30 cities around the world," Mr. Rohleder said. "Our growing work force in this country, and the ever-expanding array of world-class services we provide global clients from our delivery centers here, are vivid illustrations of our desire to continue building Accenture’s business in the Philippines." In the more than 20 years of operating in the country, Accenture has expanded its capabilities in the Philippines to application outsourcing, infrastructure outsourcing, BPO, and most recently, contact center operations. "Accenture has pioneered the building of business centers in Asia when we opened Accenture’s first delivery center in Manila in the mid-1980s. Back then, we serviced clients from the United States that were searching for ways to reduce costs of systems development," Ms. Lui said. Aside from the US, Ms. Lui said Accenture’s operations in the Philippines service clients from the United Kingdom, Australia, Germany and Singapore, among others.