The number of call centers in the Philippines now hovers between 40 to 50, with a few currently in the pipeline. The Contact Federation Philippines (CFP), an umbrella organization of call center groups in the country, expects this number to double or triple in the next couple years.

This window of opportunity is what IT-cum-construction firms are now bent on capitalizing by offering integrated solutions that would allow the building of a call center in a breeze.

One of these firms is DTSI, a Makati-based systems integrator who is now into its sixth year of operations. The company is targeting 100 percent growth for this year.

Mike Cardenas, chief operating officer of DTSI, said the company has participated in the construction of over 30 call centers in the Philippines. “This is approximately 10,000 agent seats out of the 20,000 available in the industry at present.

DTSI was established in 1997 through a partnership between Fujitsu Philippines and NewGen Holdings, which a owned a prominent Chinese family.

DTSI counts Accenture, AIG/Philamlife, Ambergris, APAC, Convergys, Contact World, C-Cubed, ICT, Infonxx, PeopleSupport, PLDT/Teletech, SourceOne, and SVI Connect as some of its customers.

Cardenas stated that despite the sizeable number of call centers in the country, the potential of the Philippines as call center hub has yet to be tapped.

“It is an industry that we can’t afford to lose, particularly the American market. We are competing with other countries such as India and China, but we have the advantage in terms of good work ethic, language, as well as a robust communication infrastructure,” he said.

He expressed alarm though over the inability of the educational system to churn out a steady inflow of graduates that are fluent and proficient in the English language. “We have the graduates but what worries me is the level of their skills. We have to work on that.”

The executive noted however that a few multi-national companies that are scouting for call center locations in the country have identified Cebu City in the Visayas as a suitable place for putting up their business.

“They found out that Cebuanos have a firmer grasp of English as compared with those living in Metro Manila. It comes off naturally because it is their second language,” Cardenas noted.

Among the cities in the South, he observed that Cebu also has the most stable communications infrastructure making it suitable suitable for call center firms to locate there.