By Caesar Vallejos
Eagle News Service
The first truly integrated, fact-filled summit conducted for the Philippine Information Technology-Business Process Management (IT-BPM) industry and its six sub sectors showcased the capabilities of human and technology integrations in the digital age.
Key enablers from various industries gathered at the Shangri-La at the Fort last November 12-13, 2018 to discuss global industry trends and developments, and share insights and best practices.
“The conversations in the conference are very rich in terms of the transformation that we are dealing with, what are the things that we need to be accounted for to get ahead of the curve and not play a catch up in terms of the digital disruption that is upon us,” Rey Untal, President and CEO of the IT and Business Process Association of the Philippines (IBPAP) said.
According to Untal, “key technology disruptors must be embraced as part of the over-all solution.” The entire premise of the new value proposition, human + tech, is capitalizing on the unique Filipino trait. “It makes the Philippines a premier destination by virtue of the service orientation that Filipinos typically have,” he said. He also added the Filipinos’ “strong collaborative communication style and our empathy when we deal with customers.”
The two-day summit started with an industry awareness “as part of a comprehensive campaign to reposition the IT-BPM industry in the Philippines attended by close to 3,000 delegates.” Untal said that a career is this industry is not transitionary. “This is a career where you can spend time building on and be successful.”
According to Untal, the IT-BPM is a “major contributor to the economy. We really need to up the ante in terms of generating the awareness and educating the broader population about what this industry is all about.”
“This industry has really expanded. This industry is not just about the contact center industry. It covers a wider range of services that,” he said. Untal that the “abilities that we now have and capabilities that we deliver” are surprising.
“We have a platform to showcase the change in the types of services and the evolution has been profound. In the contact center industry, a lot if people still have many misconceptions about what that industry really means. There tends to be a pretext that we need to differentiate voice vs non-voice,” Untal said.
“In reality, the evolution in the contact center’s case has transformed this particular sub-industry into something that is really different now compared to how it used to be 20 to 25 years ago,” Untal said.
“Now we are talking about omni-channel delivery. It is not so much about transactional conversations but this is really an evolution towards a wholesale customer experience,” he added.
North America and Europe remain as top IT-BPM clients of the Philippines with a growing demand from Asia-Pacific particularly Australia.
To remain on top of the game, Untal emphasized that we must maintain the Philippine competitiveness and must give priority to talent development.
Relevant issues relating to talent, technologies and evolving industry trends included “Global Services Delivery in the Age of Continuous Disruption”, “Workforce of the Future”, and “Creating a Culture of Innovation”. The session which focused on the transformation to match the evolving nature of human + tech integration was “Philippines Playing a Pivotal Role in ‘Human + Tech’ Paradigm Shift”.
