LAPU-LAPU CITY — The Contact Center Association of the Philippines (CCAP) opened its two-day 2018 Contact Islands conference at Shangri-La’s Mactan Resort and Spa here on Wednesday.
Jojo Uligan, CCAP president, said Contact Islands is the business process outsourcing (BPO) industry’s flagship event, which allows CCAP member company executives and industry partners to discuss issues affecting the industry in the country.
“Contact Islands 2018 is a follow-up of our conversation from last year’s conference on emerging technologies, artificial intelligence, and innovations,” Uligan said in a press conference. “This year, we’ll be focusing on how to apply these technologies to enhance customer experiences (CX) and their increasing impact on our industry in this digital age.”
With the theme “Leading with CX in the Digital World,” the two-day conference delves on the dynamics of empowered customers, hybrid workforce, jobs of the future, new service delivery models, and other insightful topics.
It also highlights the continued success of the contact center sector, which is part of the broader BPO industry, from the past recent years up to the present.
“At Contact Islands 2018, empowered customers will share their vision for an outstanding Customer Experience. We will also explore new ways of strengthening Customer Experience that will make companies more responsive to customer needs in the new digital economy,” Uligan said.
Benedict Hernandez, CCAP chairman of the board, said the BPO is the only industry in the country with continuous growth.
“The Philippines continues to be the biggest source of voice services worldwide. The country accounts for 16 to 18 percent of the aggregated outsourced services globally, based on the data from the Everest Group,” Hernandez said.
The research data also showed that the revenue generated by local call centers reached USD13 billion last year, which is projected to grow by seven to nine percent in 2018.
Hernandez said they are aiming to add another US$1 billion in revenues this year, and this translates to 70,000 more job openings.
Uligan and Hernandez are also among the speakers in the conference. Also tapped as resource persons were Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) Undersecretary Monchito Ibrahim, National ICT Confederation of the Philippines president Dr. Antonio del Carmen, PLDT Enterprise senior vice president Jovy Hernandez, and Sitel APAC chief operating officer Craig Harold Reines, among many others.
More than 420 delegates are participating in this year’s conference including contact center professionals, information technology-business process management (IT-BPM) employees, local and foreign investors, potential customers, service providers, retailers, entrepreneurs, IT companies, government agencies, and stakeholders from the academe and the media.
CCAP is the umbrella organization of the country’s contact center industry. It serves as the focal point of sectors that enable the Philippines to sustain its leadership in the global contact center market.
As a non-profit organization, CCAP promotes awareness as well as the active exchange of ideas, new technologies, best practices and innovations in the contact center industry. (Luel Galarpe/PNA)
