PHILIPPINE EXPANSION. Teletech Holdings is investing in two more sites in Metro Manila and a Career Hub that will serve as recruitment and training center.
Business process outsourcing firm TeleTech Holdings Inc. has invested around $15 million to put up two new sites in Mandaluyong City and Quezon City, as well as a Career Hub that will serve as a stand-alone recruitment and training center.
In a briefing on Thursday, TeleTech executive director for corporate real estate Dexter Cuizon said that the investment for each site amounted to around $4 million, excluding the cost of IT equipment.
The Career Hub will entail an investment of another $1 million, also just for the site infrastructure.
All in all, with the cost of IT equipment thrown in, the company’s overall investment for its expansion this year will reach around $15 million.
TeleTech recently opened a site in Mandaluyong City, its 13th in the country. By the end of the year, TeleTech vice president for human capital Tim Hinds said this 900-seat facility should employ more than 1,200 individuals.
The decision to locate to Mandaluyong City was part of the company’s overall strategy of bringing jobs to where the people are, he said.
While not at the heart of either the Makati or Ortigas Central Business Districts, this site was right in the middle of these two bustling areas and was less saturated.
TeleTech would also be opening its 14th facility in the country by September, he related. With more than 800 seats, the new site located within the University of the Philippines-Ayala Land TechnoHub should provide around the same number of jobs as the new Mandaluyong site.
“We’re extremely bullish on the market. We’re growing our employee base and expanding our footprint,” he said. “We’ll continue to invest heavily in our operations here.”
All of TeleTech’s existing sites are operating at 85-90 percent capacity, prompting the need to open more facilities, he said.
Apart from the two new sites, he said TeleTech was actively studying other locations to house the additional facilities that it planned to put up in the coming months.
The new sites could still be in Metro Manila, he said, but areas in other parts of Luzon, as well as Cebu and other provinces were also being explored.
Mall-based locations were also still being considered, but only if there were available spaces that were at least 2,000 square meters in size.
The company’s decision to put up a Career Hub to serve as a recruitment office and a training center away from the operating floor was also part of its expansion strategies.
Hinds cited the first Career Hub in Makati as a “good investment, with tremendous (return on investment)” for the company, as this gave TeleTech a presence within the Makati CBD even without having an actual operating site there.