IBM expands in PH, puts up BPO facility for North American clients

Tech giant IBM is expanding its Philippine foot print with the establishment of a new business process outsourcing (BPO) facility to handle support for the company’s “social business” software offers to North American clients.

In a statement, IBM Philippines said the new social business support center would strengthen the company’s position as one of the premiere players in the local BPO industry.

The company said its “significant investment” in establishing a software customer support center in the Philippines before the end of 2012 would “support the rapidly increasing demand for social business solutions globally.”

IBM will open a social business customer support center at the UP-Ayala Techno Hub in Quezon City to serve IBM’s North America market.

“This shift of consumer to business networking, also known as ‘Social Business,’ has become the next big challenge for organizations that are looking to quickly adopt these skills into their businesses to better reach clients and suppliers, while swiftly gaining insight on the data being created in these networks,” the company said.

Companies that are able to deal with the social media landscape will be able to react more swiftly to customer trends, and out innovate competitors, IBM said.

This major investment in the Philippines by IBM Software, a division of IBM, will be operational in January 2013 and will support the rapid global adoption of social business tools.

The Philippine center will be supporting IBM social business software such as Connections enterprise social networking software, Sametime instant messaging software, Customer Experience Suite, Traveler for mobile access, among others.

The Philippines joins a roster of IBM social business customer support centers in North America, Dublin, Japan, China, India and Brazil.

IBM has a global network of more than 70 Service “Delivery Centers” in several countries around the world including the Philippines.

Last year, BPOs brought in $11 billion in revenue, making the industry the second largest source of foreign exchange for the Philippines, next to remittances from overseas Filipino workers (OFW).