CEBU, Philippines - Call center giant Convergys Philippines Services will be hiring at least six thousand employees this year, large part of which will be coming from Cebu, as the company declared the province as “its main growth driver” for 2010.
In a press conference held Monday, Convergys Philippines country manager Marife Zamora said that the abundant supply of skilled manpower and the pro-active support from the academe, industry sector and the government in Cebu has boosted the company’s confident in pursuing operation expansion here.
Convergys has three location sites in Cebu, the Banawa site, its location site in i2 Building in Asiatown IT Park, and the recently opened 377-production seat that covers three floors in i3 Building also in Asiatown IT Park.
Currently, Convergys is operating in 12 sites in the Philippines with over 20,000 employees. Zamora said the worldwide clients’ demand to locate in the Philippines has made the company grew amid the global recession especially last year.
“The Philippines is the most sought after location by our clients,” Zamora said, thus the employment growth for Convergys in the next few years is expected to double.
For the new site built in i3 building, the company will immediately need at least 600 employees to fill in the 377 production-seat.
The recent flood in Manila has also directed clients to prefer on locating in Cebu, as the province was noted as less affected by any major calamity disasters.
In fact, according to Convergys vice president for operations Stephen Daoust, there were three clients who visited the Cebu location recently to see the site, these are in varied industries, like telecommunication, financial, and technology industries.
Although the company has admitted that the global recession has affected the volume of jobs outsourced by their clients, mostly from the United States, but the company was able to manage grow in other areas and increase also in number of clients’ served.
In fact, last year, Convergys opened five new sites and amid the global financial distress the company opened about 2000 seats nationwide.
Zamora bared that with the kind of talent Cebu has, and the support the BPO industry gets from the academe, government and the private sector, it is possible that the company will be adding more sites in the next few years.
Aside from the US, Convergys has also started to attract clients from the United Kingdom, and Australia, Zamora said.
Although Convergy’s had already installed sites in other parts of the Visayas like in Bacolod, Zamora said Cebu will remain its growth driver because the province is the center of Southern Philippines, as it continually attract job seekers from other parts of the Visayas and Mindanao.
Convergy’s entered the Philippines’ BPO industry in 2003. It opened its Cebu operation in Banawa a year after. Its state-of-the-art facilities in the Philippines provide support to its worldwide client via telephone, web-chat, and email for a diverse portfolio of blue chip clients and their customers worldwide.
Source:The Freeman Cebu
