Cebu Climbs One Notch Higher In Tholons Ranking For Outsourcing Sites

Cebu City climbed to the seventh spot in the Tholons top 100 sites in the world for outsourcing this year, a notch higher than eight spot last year.

All cities in the Philippines improved their rankings, except for Manila, which remained in the second spot, after Bangalore in India.

Cebu Educational Development Foundation for Information Technology (Cedfit) managing director Jun Sa-a said Dumaguete City in Negros Oriental has joined the top 100 list. It took the 93rd rank, bringing to nine the number of Philippine cities on the list.

“One of the important shifts in the APAC (Asia Pacific) region in this year’s Top 100 List was the rise of Cebu City in the Philippines — moving upwards, from 8th to 7th spot,” said Tholons in a report.

Improvements in infrastructure and an enlarging talent pool had allowed the city’s IT-BPM sector to sustain recent developmental gains, said the global outsourcing and investments advisory firm.

In addition, Cebu City has also seen an excellent mix ofIT-Business Process Management (IT-BPM) companies over the years and a healthy mix of services cutting across all three major service lines, namely, information technology outsourcing (ITO), knowledge process outsourcing (KPO) and business process outsourcing (BPO).

By the end of 2015, Cebu had 117,000 IT-BPM workers in 200 companies.

This is a huge leap from 2001.

Sa-a said there were only five IT-BPM companies at that time, which employed some 1,200 workers.

“Tholons remains bullish on the trajectory and long-term potential of Cebu City as a global services outsourcing destination and there is an opportunity for Cebu City to capitalize on the prevailing weakness of global competition,” the report reads.

The economic turmoil in several of Latin America’s key economic markets, for instance, had pushed companies to refocus activities on proven locations like Cebu and Metro Manila, Tholons said. (PNA) RMA/EB/SGP