DAVAO CITY (PIA) — Public safety and the availability of talent has been one of the factors that made the global business process outsourcing (BPO) company IBEX to expand in Davao City.
“Our clients are choosing to go here because they believe in the management, and they believe in the community and the talent that exist here, that is very important and one of the musts for them is safety,” says Bob Dechant, IBEX chief executive officer.
Company officials say that one of the prime considerations for strengthening their operations in Davao City is safety and talent and not much on political factors.
“Politics not so much, BPOs have been around for almost thirty years, obviously politics change, but what is important is employee’s safety and really the sentiment of our client as well as the talent,” Angel “Potskie” Alvarez president of IBEX Philippines said.
IBEX recently expanded their new location in Felcris Centrale with a capacity of 2,500 production seats. This is their second location in Davao City, the first one opened in 2015 in Lanang district and had 1,200 seats.
Davao City takes pride as one of the safest cities in the country and the region. In June this year it was ranked as the second safest city in Southeast Asia based on Numbeo’s Southeast Asia Safety Index 2023.
And based on data gathered by the Davao City Police Office (DCPO), from January to May 2024, total crime incidents decreased to 1,759, down from the previous year, with a notable 28.47% drop in index crimes.
Christian Cambaya, head of the Investor Assistance Servicing Unit, Davao City Investment and Promotions Center said that the city has 75,000 fulltime employees in the ICT (information communications technology) sector.
The City is targeting to have 150,000 workers in the ICT sector by 2028.
He bared that the BPO industry adds P15-billion to P20-billion annually to the local economy through wages and spending.
“Another contribution to the economy is increased consumer spending with a large workforce of more than 75,000 who continue earning competitive wages,” Cambaya said.
He said these benefits and the opportunities for employment is a magnet for talents coming to Davao City that will also attract BPO companies with availability of talents.
He said currently Davao City has two IT (Information Technology) parks and 11 IT zones.
“But we expect more IT parks and IT zones to be constructed, the demand for office space led to significant real estate development, as of 2022 Davao City has over 150,000 square meters of office space exclusively for business process outsourcing companies,” Cambaya said.(PIA/RG Alama)
