Bacolod in Top 100 cities for global outsourcing

BACOLOD CITY—From 97th place last year, Bacolod City leapt to 89th in the 2018 Tholons Services Globalization Index (TSGI) of the world’s top 100 cities for global outsourcing services.

An official of the Bacolod-Negros Occidental Federation for Information and Communications Technology (BNEFIT) considered the ranking a big feat for a mid-size city like Bacolod.

“This is a result of our strong government-academe and industry collaboration, constant engagement with schools and talent-development stakeholders, and grit and determination to continuously challenge and redesign our own strategies to adapt to the requirements of global digital services,” BNEFIT Executive Director Jocelle Batapa-Sigue said on Tuesday.

Tholons International, the leader in global outsourcing locations rankings,
released the research report and ranking of the Top 50 Digital Nations and Top 100 Super Cities for 2018 on Monday.

“This feat is also because of the support of the community and key public and private organizations and institutions, especially our growing start-up and digital workers community,” Batapa-Sigue added. The report showed that Bacolod was among the six localities in the Philippines, that entered and inched up on the list of top 100 outsourcing destinations in the world.

Last year, Bacolod dropped to 97th from 85th place in 2016. In 2015 Tholons ranked the city at No. 86, seven notches higher than its 2014 ranking of 93rd, particularly for outsourcing and offshoring.
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Bacolod first made the rankings in 2010 at 100th spot and jumped to No. 94 in 2013.
Batapa-Sigue pointed out that last year, out of nine cities already on the list for 2016, Bacolod barely survived because of the new criteria such as digital and innovation.
In 2017 TSGI’s ranking was published with traditional factors, such as talent, skill and quality, business catalyst, cost, infrastructure, and risk and quality of life at 80-percent weightage, with 20-percent weightage for digital transformation.

This year’s ranking puts traditional factors with 75-percent weightage and digital with 25-percent weightage.

Batapa-Sigue said Bacolod previously measured low for digital innovation, barely enough to be still in the Top 100 Super Cities.

However, this year, it measured more than double in this criterion, from a score of 4 to 8.5.

Bacolod’s rank this year was fueled by digital innovation, she added.

by: Philippines News Agency, October 11, 2018