Rent increases projected
According to real estate and investment management company Collier’s, Bacolod City is expected to see more business process outsourcing (BPO) firms, or call centers, established in the city, which will require the construction of new towers between now and 2021.
Aside from existing firms already operating in the city, the Megaworld Corporation is expected to build two call centers within their Upper East township project; while SM is also planning to set up call centers within their Bacolod City complex.
In addition, the second phase of the Negros First CyberCentre is expected to provide more office space for call centers to occupy.
Meanwhile, with more call centers speculated for Bacolod City, there is also an expected rise in rental rates.
The Collier’s release notes, at the end of 2018, there was a 2.3 percent rise in rent from the previous year. The trend is projected to continue with a three percent rise speculated between now and 2021.
Last year, the Bacolod Blockchain Initiative, which seeks to introduce the city to new internet technology, including cryptocurrency, was held at the Carlos Hilado Memorial State College Talisay City campus, where the concept of automated call centers was brought up as a possibility for BPO firms.
According to DynaQuest Technology Services CEO Randy Knutson, “Blockchain technology will help the Philippine BPO industry migrate to [the] next digital wave and create new jobs, and preserve existing jobs that will be replaced by artificial intelligence-based call centers.”
Around the same time, a report by the Association for Computing Machinery said, “Advances in artificial intelligence are yielding significant benefits for organizations that deploy the technology in their call centers.”
“Rather than simply being used to replace contact center workers, artificial intelligence-based technologies, including machine learning, natural language processing, and even sentiment analysis, are being strategically deployed to improve the overall customer experience,” the report added./WDJ