THE Philippines, already No.1 in the voice contact center business, is moving up its competency to the next level to become the global leader in multilingual business process outsourcing (BPO).

Cristino Panlilio, managing head of the Board of Investments, said the agency has partnered with IBM in a bid to cash in on the Philippines’ multilingual talents as more and more companies, particularly from Europe and Asia-Pacific, expand outsourcing activities.

Panlilio said IBM itself will be the biggest catcher of those multilingual talents as it plans to fill in 3,000 more jobs over a one-year period.

Panlilio said IBM currently has 10,000 workers in the Philippines.

According to a DTI briefer, “The Philippines as the Global Leader in Multilingual BPO,” the number of local multilingual talents in the Philippines is three times the number of foreign multilingual talents and that number is growing by 8.7 percent annually.

Aside from an already rich pool of multilingual talents from the BPO sector itself, the DTI said other sources of multilingual talents include the academe, government and the hospitality industry.

The briefer also said IBM has the largest contingent of multilinguals with more than 200 local and cross-border talents supporting 15 languages.

This number is expected to double in three years.

According to Panlilio, a training facility will be set up at the Ortigas Center.

On the academic side, the partnership hopes to increase the quantity and improve the quality of graduates proficient in Nihongo, French, German and Spanish.

OFWs will be encouraged to return and practice at work the language they have learned abroad.

There is also an initiative to simplify and integrate processes and policies on work permits for foreign nationals and visa applications for local talents going on knowledge-transfer abroad.

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