The Information Technology Business Processing Association of the Philippines (IBPAP) is seeking a more permanent scheme allowing work-from-anywhere to the industry, the top service export contributor to the economy.
IBPAP president Jack Madrid told the Canadian Chamber of Commerce and Industry forum yesterday the Philippine IT-business process management (IT-PM) industry is estimated to have grown following global growth trajectory of anywhere from 7 to 8 percent and 8 to 12 percent in terms of revenues.
Madrid said the group will present to the next administration the new roadmap 2022-2028 which will focus on the future of work in terms of work types, workplace and workforce.
“IBPAP will continue to push for another extension of work -from- home to allow our members a longer runway to transition their operations because these things take time. We wrote to PEZA (Philippine Economic Zone Authority) on January 18, requesting for another extension and we are still waiting for official word from this.
But I must say that we need to be prepared specially with the intent of our government to fully open up the economy by the end of February. We need to be ready to make plans in the scenario that our request will be denied,” Madrid said.
The group is also in discussions with PEZA on their endorsement for value-added tax zero rating of local purchases of registered export enterprises.
“All the experts that we have spoken to are bullish about our prospects for this year, and where growth is expected to be even higher than what they were before the pandemic.
Global clients are looking to further increase their leverage of nearshore and offshore locations to drive growth this year,” he said.
But Madrid said the Philippines IT-BPM sector is challenged by price cost pressure and increasing competition from non- traditional IT-BPM locations.
“Countries like Malaysia, Poland, as well as India (have) enacted work- from- home, work- from anywhere legislation. We must catch up. This is one of the reasons why we are working aggressively with our partners in government to allow this work flexibility that our industry needs,” Madrid added.
In the past 20 years, the IT-BPM industry had contributed P329 billion in investments or about 12 percent of total PEZA investments, resulting in almost 1 million direct jobs.
As of end 2020, the industry had 1.32 million workers and generated revenues of $26.7 billion. Irma Isip
