Five IT firms to join CeBIT

The Philippines is sending five technology companies to CeBIT, the world's largest technology fair, slated to open Thursday in Hannover, Germany.

Its participation at CeBIT this year is considered a comeback for the country which has stopped sending a delegation since its first participation in 1993.

The opening of the Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) Hall in Cebit, a new display category, has lured the Philippines to join since it is now counting on the BPO boom in the country to drive most of the export business, particularly call center.

The five Filipino exhibitors are among the 6,200 exhibitors which have registered for this year's weeklong fair.

Leading the Philippine delegation is the European IT Service Center Foundation, Inc. (EITSC), according to the Center for International Trade Expositions and Missions (CITEM), the trade promotion arm of the government.

Based in Makati City, with operational arms in Wuppertal, Germany and London, United Kingdom, EITSC promotes local IT capabilities and acts as a bridge between European outsourcing companies and Philippine companies engaged in IT and IT-enabled services.

EITSC is an initiative of the German Technical Cooperation, European Chamber of Commerce of the Philippines and Asia Europe Foundation of the Philippines.

The four other local participants are Geebo Digital Studios, Inc., which is into animation production; Offshore Call Center Experts (OCE) Corp, a call center; Offshore Data Corporation, which is into data entry and document management; and SEComp International, which is into computer backroom operations and web publishing.

BPO is the practice of getting the services of other companies, usually offshore, to do some backroom non-core operations. Some of these operations include call center, documentation, digital animation.

In an earlier statement, CITEM assistant secretary Felicitas Agoncillo Reyes said the government views CeBIT as a key venue in convincing European investors to put up backroom operations in the Philippines.

EITSC manager for business development Thomas Rolf said in another earlier interview that European firms are still unfamiliar with the Philippines' BPO capability.

European firms outsource about 45 percent of their backroom operations to India and the rest to nearby destinations such as Hungary, Sweden, Ireland and the Netherlands, said Mr. Rolf. He noted that the country lagged behind in marketing and promotion of the country's BPO portfolio to Europe.

There are now 53 registered BPO operators in the country, majority of which are third-party contractors serving global accounts. Their services range from database management, insurance claims processing to logistics management and sales and marketing.

Global brands such as Caltex, Procter & Gamble and AIG are among the firms that have located their backroom operations for shared financial services into the country.

Other large companies like Alitalia, Maersk, Navitaire and UPS rely on the Philippines for financial and transactional services like revenue management, transaction processing, auditing, shipping documentation and Internet booking.

Ms. Reyes said the government is expecting the BPO business to follow the call center boom. Last year, BPO has contributed a mere 0.47% of the total or P37.62 million out of the P8.07 billion IT investments for the entire year. --