The Philippines IT-Business Process Management (ITBPM) industry aims to generate $59 billion in annual revenues by 2028 and additional 1.1 million jobs over a six-year period bringing total full time employees (FTEs) to 2.5 million as the industry seeks to rebrand as provider of high-value experience services and dominance in the booming global outsourcing space.

The IT & Business Process Association of the Philippines (IBPAP) unveiled the new IT-Business Process Management (IT-BPM) Roadmap 2023-2028 at the opening Tuesday, Sept. 27 of the 14th International Innovation Summit (IIS), reaffirming the sector as an indispensable pillar of recovery, growth, and resilience for the country.

Themed, “The Big PH IT-BPM Leap: Growth. Resurgence. Impact. Transformation,” IIS 2022 set the stage for how the country will continue to be at the forefront of talent, technology, and transformation through the Philippine IT-BPM Industry Roadmap 2028. The IIS is organized annually by the IBPAP to highlight the breakthrough developments, key experts, and outstanding accomplishments of the Philippine IT-BPM industry.

Based on the roadmap, with an estimated growth rate of 8.5 percent, the Philippine IT-BPM industry is expected to create up to 1.1 million direct jobs in the next six years, 54 percent of which will be in the countryside. With the current 1.44 million FTEs, the industry’s headcount will reach 2.5 million by 2028.

Highlighting the industry’s multiplier effect, IBPAP also projects generating up to 3 million indirect jobs for allied sectors such as retail, hospitality, infrastructure, transportation, and real estate. The industry also has the potential to nearly double in size as its annual revenue is likely to reach $59 billion in 2028, reflecting a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 10.4 percent. Last year, the domestic industry revenues jumped 10.6 percent to $29.49 billion compared to 2020.

To realize Roadmap 2028’s vision, IBPAP provided high-level recommendations for its strategic priorities and acceleration levers – policy and regulatory support, talent development, infrastructure, and marketing brand positioning.

On policy and regulatory support, the roadmap calls on the government to enable an enhanced business-friendly environment through unambiguous and relevant policies, which are in line with global and local market macrotrends. These will help bring forth easier adoption of hybrid workplace models, uniformity in workplace incentives, and strengthen the Philippines’ cost competitiveness and overall ease of doing business.

On talent development, the roadmap stressed the need to ensure sustainable supply of skilled talent by revising existing curriculum and introducing new and future-relevant educational courses including early-stage interventions like internships and work immersions. The creation of an IT-BPM talent hub will be beneficial in strengthening training programs and proactively positioning IT-BPM as a preferred career option.

The continued development and strengthening of infrastructure remain crucial to supporting IT-BPM operations in Metro Manila and other provinces. This includes high quality commercial real estate to accommodate hybrid work needs and dedicated ‘creative hubs’ for niche industries, expansion of fiber optic networks with 5G capabilities, and easing of processes to set up towers and other related infrastructure.

Lastly, the roadmap has identified the marketing and brand positioning for the Philippines as a provider of high-value experience services. An enhanced value proposition will also help emphasize the country’s differentiated capabilities and make opportunities in IT-BPM more appealing to prospective investors and employees, as well as future talent. Overall, this will strengthen market awareness and sustain stakeholder engagement internationally and domestically.

IBPAP Chairman Benedict Hernandez emphasized that if these four levers are done right, the phenomenal growth targets can be attained. “It took us 15 years to get to our first million. So we're trying to now generate the next million in half the time that it took us to generate the first million,” he pointed out.

He emphasized the need to ensure that “Whether it's client experience, customer experience, superior employee experience or user experience, anything to do with experience people think Philippine first the Philippines becoming the experience capital of the world. So that's what we want to be famous for, and known for. We do want to transform so that we can keep moving the type of work that we do to higher complex higher value jobs.”

By doing that, revenue per person is going to go up by as much as 13 percent in the roadmap.

Hernandez also warned that falling short on some of the four levers whether it's policy, there is the risk of achieving only the lower two other job scenarios in the roadmap. The second scenario is job generation of 700,000 only and worst scenario of only 300,000 jobs. “There's a huge delta between 700,000 or 350,000, against 1.1 million, and we believe it is really worthwhile that everybody's effort plus government plus our partner sectors to work together so we achieved the maximum scenario to help our country bounced back from the pandemic 1.1 million jobs. $59 billion revenue is what we're all should be gunning for,” said Hernandez.

For his part, IBPAP President Jack Madrid told reporters that the three scenarios, the middle is the most realistic or best case scenario, which is the 700,000 jobs.

But Madrid said that in the midst of this optimistic global scenario being faced by the industry, the industry and his team are focused on the more ambitious aggressive growth targets. “And we believe, that this is still within the realm of achievement, but some work needs to be done as our as our roadmap has outlined. We will aim to go for the highest range of growth targets in both revenue and jobs created,” he added.

Hernandez himself stressed that the roadmap is suggesting the collective efforts of multi sectors adding. “We are very excited that we're starting to see an opportunity for the Philippines IT BPM to return to hyper growth. We are very excited to see that the Philippines has an opportunity to be world class and world known to be the experience capital of the world. We are very excited to see that we do have this opportunity to expand revenue per person by 13 percent by moving up the value chain and higher complex work and the impact that we can make in this country.”

Madrid also added that the “Philippine IT-BPM sector is at the cusp of a new and exciting era, and the future that awaits us is the brightest that it has ever been. By 2028, the industry may be able to contribute up to 8.5 percent to the country’s gross domestic product (GDP).”

“This is a significant feat that will need everyone’s support as we take this big leap forward, propelling this powerhouse sector and cementing the Philippines as the top investment destination for IT-BPM services.”