Hello Bacolod!
By Jesus F. Llanto
Researcher, Newsbreak
December 2, 2008
Bacolod City did not top the list of the next-wave cities of the Department of Trade and Industry, Commission on Information Technology and the Business Process Association of the Philippines. But it surpassed all other business process outsourcing (BPO) locations in one category—business environment.
In the 2008 scorecard for next-wave cities, Bacolod City landed on the 5th spot—behind the clusters of local government units of Laguna and Cavite, and the cities of Iloilo and Davao. Bacolod City, however, got the highest score of 96% in the business environment category of the study.
The business environment category, which accounts for 15 percent of the final score, takes into account the incentives given by local government units to BPO firms: peace and order situation, crime rate, travel advisories and vulnerability to natural disasters. Other criteria used in the survey are availability of talent (50%), infrastructure (30%) and cost (5%).
Bacolod City is one of the growing BPO locations outside Metro Manila. The city hosts three big BPO firms—Teletech, Teleperformance and Convergys—and a number of smaller companies. Around 5,000 employees are working in the BPO industry.
