The Philippine Embassy in New Zealand reported that as part of the Embassy’s continuing economic diplomacy thrusts, Philippine Ambassador Virginia H. Benavidez and Consul General Marcos Punsalang met with the representatives of the Cortexo Ltd, a software development company and the New Zealand Software Association on 12 -13 January 2012, respectively. These business meetings were held parallel with the Embassy’s first ever mobile consular mission to Christchurch on 12-14 January 2012.
They met with Mr. Terry Paddy, Director of Cortexo Ltd. and past President of the New Zealand Software Association who gave a briefing on his company which develops software for electric companies and which has applications for regulating electrical use in the energy industries, commercial establishments and domestic households. These would enable the owners and users to make the necessary adjustments to save energy. Ambassador Benavidez thanked Mr. Paddy for his presentation and said that the software has the potential to be applicable in the Philippines and the key is to find a power company in the Philippines that is willing to partner with him. It is possible that Mr. Paddy’s software could be utilized by the Philippine IT/BPO industry which operates 24 hours for seven days a week and thus is a heavy user of energy. The industry is always looking for ways to save energy in order to be competitive. Ambassador Benavidez updated Mr. Paddy on the Philippine IT/BPO industry, a US$ 9 billion industry which has surpassed India in voice services and is expected to have attained its goal of US $11 billion in 2011. The industry is anticipated to earn US $ 25 billion in revenues by 2016. She further explained that the Philippine IT/BPO industry is diversifying with higher value services like knowledge processing outsourcing (KPO) and IT software programming growing faster than voice services. There are plenty of opportunities to avail of less costly customer service through the voice services (i.e. call centers) and IT software programming. The Embassy will assist him in making the necessary contacts with the Business Processing Association of the Philippines (BPAP) which can help him link up with the appropriate IT/software companies for possible partnerships and marketing of his software. To provide more extensive information on investment and trade in the Philippines, Ambassador Benavidez gave Mr. Paddy a DVD entitled “Invest in the Philippines” by the Board of Investment (BOI) and a CD entitled “Trade Associations Directory: 2010-2011” which includes BPAP.
A separate meeting was held with Mr. Ben Reid, the Chairman of the New Zealand Software Association (NZSA) who is also the Chairman of the Canterbury Software Chapter and Director of Memia Consulting, an IT consulting firm and other officers of the NZSA. The Meeting was held in the New Zealand Institute of Information Communication Technology (NZICT) which is a state of the art “green” building featuring the latest in energy-saving technology. Mr. Reid informed Ambassador Benavidez that the focus of the NZSA and the Canterbury Software Chapter is on linking with overseas clients in order to market their software. This was welcomed by Ambassador Benavidez who said that the Philippines is keen to build more business partnerships with New Zealand given the fact that in Christchurch, there is a Center for Information Technology. This squares perfectly with the complementarities of both countries’ ICT industries especially since New Zealand is well known in research and development while the Philippine IT/BPO offers cost effectiveness in voice and non-voice customer services and software development while at the same time could serve as a huge market for New Zealand software applications.
In reply to Mr. Reid’s query about the Philippine IT/BPO industry and its geographical distribution of the industry in the Philippines, Ambassador Benavidez stated that the industry first established itself in Metro-Manila and with its phenomenal growth every year, more voice and non-voice services companies are moving to the provinces such as Baguio, Clark, Cebu City, Iloilo, Bacolod, Dumaguete, Davao City and Cagayan de Oro. Furthermore, the Philippine IT/BPO industry has ties with universities and academic institutions and is helping update the curriculum of the schools in order to address the manpower requirements and resources of the industry. NZSA can contact the Business Processing Association of the Philippines (BPAP) and with companies listed in the CD featuring the trade and business associations in the Philippines for prospects on cooperation in this vital sector. Ambassador Benavidez gave a presentation on the Philippine IT/BPO industry which focused on the industry’s strengths, achievements and opportunities such as its rapid growth, the Philippines as a three time winner of the United Kingdom’s National Outsourcing Association’s Award for Best Outsourcing Destination, emerging trends such as the diversification of services away from voice services to higher value non-voice services such as KPO, IT Programming and game development which are experiencing growth rates greater than that of voice services and the incentives being offered by the Philippine Economic Zone Authority (PEZA) for investors. The New Zealand businessmen acknowledged the good business potentials and complementarity which exist between the New Zealand ICT industry and the Philippine IT/BPO industry. It is noteworthy that the Canterbury region which includes Christchurch is known as the “Silicone Valley” of New Zealand.