One more outsourcing firm sets up shop in Bacolod City

BACOLOD CITY, Philippines — A US-based company is set to open a small-scale call center here this year, joining three more outsourcing companies that have come here to take advantage of the city’s skilled work force. Lone Star Global IT Solutions, owned by John Burdick of Houston, Texas, will provide outbound telemarketing services to clients in the United States, said Councilor Jocelle Batapa-Sigue, who heads the Bacolod Negros Federation for Information and Communications Technology, Inc. The call center will be located at the East IT Center, an information technology economic zone accredited by the Philippine Economic Zone Authority. Lone Star will also undertake data entry and encoding, design and implementation, and operation of office business process such as outsourced customer support services. These include sales and marketing support, customer care, technical support, data management services and customer relations management. Ms. Batapa-Sigue said the firm’s recruitment officer is looking for agents with at least six months of experience in the call center industry. She said the business process outsourcing (BPO) industry in Bacolod continues to grow as Lone Star Global IT Solutions comes to the city along with other IT enterprises. "As foreign players venture into Bacolod, local leaders should seriously undertake more human resource programs to sustain the gains of the IT and BPO industry," she said. She noted that while Bacolod has promoted itself as one of the next wave of cities identified by the Business Process Association of the Philippines, the responsibility does not end there. "The task becomes more difficult because we have to come up with more programs in response to industry demands, especially manpower," she pointed out. At present, the city hosts three major call centers — Teleperformance, TeleTech and Convergys. It has five special economic zones proclaimed as ICT parks and buildings, and these sites are now the workplaces of almost 4,000 employees. These include Luxur Plaza IT Centre, the site of Teleperformance at the old Bacolod Convention Plaza Hotel; East Block IT Centre and Bacolod IT Park, both declared as IT parks. The East Block is being occupied by First International Document Masters, Inc. and Intervoice Technologies, Inc., an insourcing company. Others are the Robinsons Cybergate Center occupied by Teletech, and Monfort IT Centre occupied by Focus Pacific Communications. Convergys is occupying One SanParq, the first and only built-to-suit Philippine Economic Zone Authority-registered information technology center in Western Visayas. — Nanette Guadalquiver, BusinessWorld