Call Center News : iQor Expands in Philippines

Clark Expansion Announced at Meeting with President Arroyo; New Center of Excellence Will Create 700 New Jobs

At a meeting in New York City with Philippine President Gloria Arroyo, iQor President and CEO Vikas Kapoor announced the opening of iQor’s third call center in the Philippines that will create 700 new jobs. iQor plans to hire 300 new employees at its new Center of Excellence at the Clark Special Economic Zone before the end of the year and will add the remaining new hires by the end of the first quarter in 2009. This growth will bring total jobs created by iQor in the Philippines to 2,500 since opening its first call center in Manila in 2005.

iQor is one of the premier call center services companies in the world and the Philippines plays a major role in its strategic expansion. This is iQor’s second call center within the Clark Special Economic Zone. The first Clark Center opened in August of 2006 with 50 employees. After only two years, iQor reached full capacity at the facility and has now opened a new state-of-the-art 32,000 square foot Center to meet growing client demands. Read the rest of this entry »

Call Center Lifestyle in the Philippines

Yuppie Filipinos get the chance to be employed easily once they obtained their bachelor or diploma degrees because of the emergence of contact centers everywhere in the Philippines. These workers started to fill the 24-hour skyscrapers that gives a colorful background to metro Manila’s financial districts at nighttime.

This only shows that people employed in this job for a couple of years were used to on their ticking biological sleeping habit. They slept all day long just to regain their strength and wake up again at the wee hours to prepare themselves for a nightlong work. Clad in casual attire with matching fashionable coats are the most common props if you are a customer service representative. During break time some even used to occupy the al fresco various dining areas in Manila. In Ortigas for instance, call center agents enjoy their 30-minute to 1 hour break at McDonald’s, Starbucks, among others. For those who have extra pennies, they enjoy the hot aroma of Brazilian coffee in various blend. Others may sit on the corner and lit up their cigarette in a way of releasing their stress from work. It is enjoying isn’t it?

At 8 pm. about 100 people, most 25 younger, sit in a room of enclosed cubicles outfitted with phones and computers. They’ll be working until 4 am. or depends on the schedule of their shifts. Read the rest of this entry »

Jollibee acquires Taiwanese restaurant chain

Philippine fast-food giant Jollibee Foods Corp. announced Friday it had acquired 70 percent of Taiwanese restaurant chain Lao Dong for 61.1 million pesos (1.37 million dollars).

In a disclosure to the stock exchange, the publicly-listed Jollibee said that as part of the sale, it would invest an additional 30.6 million pesos while Lao Dong’s owners would put 13.1 million pesos into the new joint venture.

The new venture will work to expand Lao Dong’s restaurant chain in Taiwan and China.

The owners of Lao Dong will help Jollibee develop food products and other services for its business units in China, the Philippines and other countries.

Jollibee is the biggest restaurant chain in the Philippines, operating almost 1,500 outlets for its signature Jollibee hamburgers along with pizzas, baked goods, French pastries and other dishes.

It has 194 outlets abroad including China, the United States, Dubai and Indonesia.

Lao Dong, a full-service restaurant specialising in noodles, has eight outlets in Taipei, the disclosure said.

Last year, Jollibee Foods Corp. acquired the Chinese restaurant chain Hongzhuangyuan for about 50.5 million dollars.

Samsung to build billion-dollar chip plant in Philippines

South Korea’s Samsung Electronics is to invest one billion dollars in a “state-of-the-art” microchip manufacturing facility in the Philippines, it was reported Friday.

The Manila Bulletin newspaper said the facility will be built on a 30-hectare (74-acre) site in the Clark Special Economic Zone near the former US airforce base north of Manila.

Quoting unnamed sources, the paper said “it will be a state-of-the-art” facility with construction starting “within the year.”

At present, Samsung has two operations in the country, Samsung Electronics Philippines Manufacturing Corp. and Samsung Electronics Philippines Corp.

The entry of Samsung in Clark will boost the zone as a hub for electronics chipmaking, an unnamed official said.

“This means the country can move upstream to design and manufacturing, as opposed to the low value-added testing and packaging operations,” the official said. Read the rest of this entry »

First Filipino-made, double-hulled oil tanker sets sail

The first Philippines-made, double-hulled oil tanker, designed to prevent oil spills, has set sail, local reports said on Tuesday.

“The ship is currently transporting bunker fuel in different parts of the country, from the Pacific Ocean to the Petron refinery in Bataan. It started last April 8. So far, the performance of M/T Matikas is far more than we expected,” Philippine TV network ABS-CBN reported, citing George Cottrell, president of the Herma Shipyard Inc., the biggest Filipino-owned shipyard in the Philippines.

Herminio Esguerra, chairman of the Herma Group of Companies, told reporters double-hulled ships such as M/T Matikas would help lower the incidence of oil spills.

With a double-hull, petroleum products are protected on all sides, he added.

“Any leaks caused by punctures will be absorbed by another hull.There is a hollow which will hold the products in case of an accident”, Esguerra said.

The Philippine government imposed double-layered ships as carriers of petroleum products after M/T Solar, a single-hulled oil tanker carrying more than two million liters of bunker fuel, sank at Guimaras Strait in the central Philippines on August 11, 2006. Read the rest of this entry »

Cebu Pacific Air permanently cuts domestic airfares

Cebu Pacific (CEB) announced it is reducing its domestic fares permanently by as much as 32% to encourage more people to fly amid rising fuel prices.

Candice Iyog, CEB Vice President for Marketing and Product, said the new lower all-inclusive fares will take effect on 12-Jun-08. This includes the fuel and insurance surcharge, aviation security fee and 12% VAT.

The ‘all-in’ pricing format is introduced with a seat sale across CEB’s domestic network. The promotional offer will run from 12-Jun-08 to 17-Jun-08 and is valid for travel on 01-Jul-08 to 15-Oct-08. There are more than half a million seats allocated for this promotion.

‘All-in’ fares for short sectors such as Manila-Legaspi are at P699 one-way while a one-way Manila-Cebu flight would cost P999 and a Manila-Davao sector would cost only P1,499 during the seat sale. At seat sale levels, these reduction represent savings of up to 56% over today’s rate. Read the rest of this entry »

ExxonMobil plans Philippines oil exploration project

United States oil giant ExxonMobil plans to conduct exploratory operations in the Sulu Sea in the Philippines, company and government officials said Friday.

The company is evaluating seismic data taken from the project area, ExxonMobil Exploration Co. vice president Stephen Greenlee told reporters after calling on President Gloria Arroyo and Energy Secretary Angelo Reyes here.

If the data is encouraging, the company would drill exploration wells from mid-2009, he added.

The Philippines now imports practically all of its oil requirements after some modest offshore deposits that were tapped during the 1970s energy crisis were exhausted.

“A drilling programme could cost over 100 million dollars for us to explore the potential,” Greenlee said. Read the rest of this entry »

Foxgate Solutions Expands Operations in Cebu City, Philippines

Foxgate Solutions, Inc., a world-wide provider of integrated business process outsourcing (BPO) and contact center solutions, announced its expansion of its call center in Cebu City, Philippines. The center is already catering to many clients in the United States, United Kingdom, and the Philippines with operations in Inbound, Outbound, Interactive, Appointment Setting, Billing Solutions, Event Registration, Consumer Lead Generation, Consumer Sales, Customer Service, Dealer Locate and Referral Service, Help Desk, Market Research and Reviews, Order Taking, Surveys, Technical Support, and Website Receptionist Service. With the expansion, it is expected that Foxgate is going to spur more growth. Read the rest of this entry »

Eight New Philippine Airports to open by 2010

The government will be opening eight more international airports by 2010 in anticipation of the growing passenger traffic to the country, the Transportation Department said Thursday.

By 2010 the Philippines will have more airports of international standards to ease traffic and reduce business cost,” Transportation and Communications Secretary Leandro Mendoza said during the opening of the two-day Expo on International Transportation and Logistics held at the World Trade Center.

Mendoza said that this year alone three airports will be open soon and these are the controversial Ninoy Aquino International Airport Terminal 3, the Clark or Diosdado Macapagal International Airport, and the Busuanga airport scheduled to be operational in November.

For 2009, Mendoza said they are looking at opening the Davao-Iloilo terminal, Silay-Bacolod airport, the Laguindingan airport and the the Panglaw airports in Bohol. Read the rest of this entry »

San Miguel Pale Pilsen is Asia’s Best Beer

San Miguel Pale Pilsen is the best tasting beer in Asia, according to a popular US Magazine which recently gathered major beer brands from China, Japan, Indonesia, Thailand, Singapore and Philippines for a taste test. The iconic brand of San Miguel Brewery, Inc. (SMB), San Miguel Pale Pilsen bested six other international brands in all categories – appearance, aroma, taste and finish — used by the magazine to determine the best tasting beer.

In the article entitled “Far East Beer Showdown” by Derek Buono published in Beer Magazine’s March to April issue, the lone Filipino beer brand has been described as having “the most flavor and tasted better than all the other beers of the region.”

“The SMB family is truly inspired by the recognition given to San Miguel Pale Pilsen. We are glad that our very own product stands above the rest and for us Filipinos, that’s something worth celebrating for,” said SMB management. Read the rest of this entry »