Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) Regional Operations and Countryside and ICT Industry Development officer-in-charge Ivin Ronald D.M. Alzona was invited to speak during an Independence Day event yesterday in Bacolod City, where he touted the number of call centers in the city.
“The City of Bacolod has achieved ‘Masaganang Kinabukasan’ by having about 35,000 direct business process outsource (BPO) jobs and over 100,000 jobs created that support more than 30 information technology business process management companies,” he said. “I would like to commend the City Government of Bacolod for providing a healthy, vibrant, and innovative ICT industry that allows its citizens to take full advantage of ICT.”
“We at the DICT hope to continue working with the city government in its endeavors on promoting digital governance, startups, and capacity development activities, ensuring that President Rodrigo Duterte’s marching orders for inclusive growth are complied with until no one is left behind,” he added.
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