The Department of Trade and Industry’s Philippine Trade & Investment Center (DTI-PTIC) and the Philippine Embassy, both based in Singapore, recently hosted a meeting for Singapore entrepreneurs from the APF Group headed by Chairman Dato Brans Ong, to share information technology-business process management (IT-BPM) opportunities in the Philippines.
During the meeting, IT and Business Process Association of the Philippines consultant Raymond Lacdao presented the industry’s outlook, latest developments and new business prospects for foreign investors. Lacdao also consults for the Contact Center Association of the Philippines and Philippine Software Industry Association.
The gathering offered great opportunities for business discussions and networking among 12 Singapore companies interested in the Philippines’ business process outsourcing space. Some of them expressed keen interest in exploring future partnerships with the Philippines for competitive IT-enabled services to support operations in Singapore and the region.
“The goal is to consistently engage the Singapore business community by updating them of our latest offerings in high-growth industry sectors such as IT-BPM and helping them network with the right contacts from the Philippines. We hope that through the seminar, we were able to promote mutual business growth and further enhance collaboration between Philippines and Singapore,” said DTI-PTIC Commercial Counsellor Glenn Peñaranda.
The Philippine IT-BPM sector has grown at an annual rate of 30 percent over a decade, faster than the growth of the global offshore services market. The industry has diversified significantly in breadth, scale, and maturity of services from contact center to back office, IT, healthcare, engineering, finance and accounting, animation and game development. Over 40 of the 2014 Fortune 1000 and other large global organizations, including those from India have a Global In-House Center in the country. These have built sizeable scale in the Philippines and have been driving the growth of non-voice and complex services.
The country remains to be a competitive provider and destination for IT-BPM services because of its English-speaking and skilled talent pool, competitive cost, government support and record of accomplishments. For Singaporean firms, sharing the same time zone with the Philippines is an advantage.
APF Group was founded by a group of Singapore entrepreneurs envisioned to help the growing businesses in Singapore. It organizes networking events for business owners, such as APF CEO Connects, which is done regularly via roundtable discussions and workshops.