BPO firm putting up three more service delivery centers

Sitel Philippines, one of the country’s largest business process outsourcing companies in terms of workforce, is expanding its commercial footprint this year by adding three more service delivery centers, a top official said.

Craig H. Reines, chief operating officer of Sitel, told reporters in a chance interview last week that the additional locations would bring the total number of their service delivery centers to 16 by the end of the year.

“We have three new facilities last year and we are planning to continue our expansion to the provinces this year so we plan to bring up three new buildings,” he said.

The three new additional facilities for this year, which he said cost “tens of millions of dollars,” are in the cities of Baguio, Tarlac and Puerto Princesa. He said the company had already inaugurated its building in Baguio.

In total, the company’s expansion in the country this year would add at least 3,000 more jobs to its existing workforce of 23,000 people.

Moreover, he said, the additional workforce could even further increase, with each new facility possibly hiring up to 1,200 workers depending on the turnout of the client mix.

Two-thirds of Sitel’s clients are companies based in North America, he said.

“So when you can start to run facilities 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, you can actually get more employees to work in the same number of spaces. So it depends on the client mix, but that’s somewhere between 800 and 1200 people per location,” he said.

The Information Technology and Business Process Management industry remains one of the largest sources of economic development in the country. It is expected to hit $38.9 billion in revenue in 2022, producing up to 1.8 million jobs, according to the industry’s latest roadmap.—ROY C. CANIVEL