Amid the rise of artificial intelligence or AI, the Information Technology and Business Process Association of the Philippines (IBPAP) ensures its related industry will continue to thrive in the country.

“AI will make us more efficient and productive. But the caveat is we must upskill our workers to do the jobs that will emerge in the years to come,” IBPAP president and chief executive officer Jack Madrid said during the Rotary Club of Makati’s weekly meeting on 7 May at The Peninsula Manila in Makati City.

Contrary to public perception that it operates only as call centers, Madrid said the information technology and business process management or IT-BPM industry covers a range of services Filipinos can deliver well.

These include healthcare information management, animation, and game development.

Madrid shared that there will be another 4 million jobs coming from the IT-BPM industry as the Philippines create more highly-skilled Filipinos and boost its economy.

“I believe this is one of the golden geese of the Philippine economy,” he said.

Filipinos’ agility and resilience

“The bedrock of all the Philippines’ advantages is the agility and resilience of Filipino workers,” Madrid also noted.

IBPAP’s data show that the IT-BPM industry employed 1.7 million Filipinos and generated $35.5 billion in revenues last year.

Madrid expects the number of workers to increase to 2 million and the revenues to surpass over $40 billion in the next few years.

Filipinos already account for 18 percent of the world’s IT-BPM workers, he added.

Meanwhile, 60 percent of the Philippine IT-BPM workforce deals with middle to highly complex services. Many of them are employed by American firms.

“We recently launched a cybersecurity solutions company. Yet people still perceived us as a call center with a short-term career path,” Madrid said.

Job-readiness training

To seize opportunities linked to IT-BPM, he explained workers must develop skills in critical thinking, comprehension, and collaboration.

“It’s your present repertoire of skills that matters,” Madrid said.

He also advised Filipinos to “play with AI” so they can learn how to use it for their own benefits and the community, as well.

To help raise competent workers who can take advantage of the broad IT-BPM industry, Madrid said the IBPAP has been providing insights to the Department of Information and Communications Technology, and the Private Sector Advisory Council of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.

“We have convened AI councils, experts and firms on how we can draft the Philippine AI narrative,” Madrid said.

With the growing overseas business transactions, he said the government agencies and businesses must speed up the internet and transport infrastructure especially in the provinces where a big pool of untapped talent remains.

“Access to employable talent has become the number factor for where investors will go,” Madrid said.

He added that the IBPAP has reached out to schools to encourage them to allocate some period in the school year or one semester for students to learn about the job opportunities in the IT-BPM industry.

Madrid said Mapua University has expressed some interest in the proposal.

Global war for talent

He said a comprehensive approach to educational institutions, including teachers’ upskilling is needed for the Philippines to dominate the “global war for talent.”

“Our curriculum is really outdated and one reason for this is the quality of the faculty,” Madrid said.

“India is the biggest IT market, and we are still a fraction of what an Indian IT employee generates for the Indian economy,” he added.

Despite this, the Philippine IT-BPM will remain among the country’s major economic growth drivers, reflecting the incomparable Filipino brand of empathy.

“Most of the world really want Filipinos to solve their problems not only because of our accent-neutral communication skills but also because of our renowned empathy which is the envy of any IT-BPM destination,” Madrid said.

He added that India is the biggest IT market but its industry contributes only three percent to the GDP compared to over eight percent contributed by the country’s IT-BPM industry.

“On a relative scale, our industry is much more important for the Philippines because India has a lot of things going on. We’re simply too big to allow this to fail,” Madrid said.