Maniolas

CREATING a call center company in just two to three hours might seem impossible but a Cebuano startup is making that possible. Mark Anthony Lapuz and Vince Loremia, who have had years of experience in the business process outsourcing industry in Cebu, opened their own startup KallFly, an “on-demand contact center market place. “ KallFly, which gained the support of Singapore-based Joyful Frog Digital Incubator (JFDI), bridges the traditional call center system and the virtual workforce. Lapuz, the founder, said, “it connects businesses with experienced home-based call center agents.” KallFly now has 520 virtual call center agents, 95 percent of them Filipinos, whom interested companies can tap anytime after signing up. Nine companies, from Australia, United States, Singapore, and Philippines, have already availed themselves of KallFly’s services. Companies who are looking for more call center agents or even those who have not ventured into the business yet can sign up in KallFly’s website where they can upload their script and grant access, launch agents and immediately start the operation. Lapuz said companies will just have to pay $1.5 per hour to KallFly and $2.5 per hour to the call center agent. This is half the cost required in setting up a traditional call center company, he said. According to a document forwarded by Loremia published by JFDI, it usually takes two weeks for a new client to set up a new job campaign under the traditional contact center process. The clients have to pay for over provisioned capacity, with a Read More …

MEGAWORLD, the country’s leading real estate developer, is fast-tracking the construction of office, commercial, and residential towers in the 72-hectare Iloilo Business Park due to the strong demand, brisk sales and rental inquiries for residential, commercial, and office spaces. This year, three office towers, namely, One Global Center, Two Global Center and Richmonde Tower, are scheduled to be completed. The three towers, with a total of 25,000 square meters of leasable spaces, will be able to accommodate around 10,000 full time employees (FTE) for the Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) companies. Megaworld will also start the construction of another two office towers by August this year: One Techno Place and Two Techno Place, which will generate an additional 8,000 FTEs in the township. Both towers, with a total of 19,000 square meters of leasable spaces, are scheduled to be completed in early 2016. “With the heavy influx of inquiries from BPO companies who want to be part of Iloilo Business Park, we see the urgent need to hasten the construction of more office towers to meet the strong demand,” said Jericho P. Go, senior vice president of Megaworld. StarTek Inc., a US-based BPO company, has already started its operation in the Richmonde office tower this month of June and is poised to launch its standalone BPO office building at Two Global Center by 4th quarter of this year. As the first BPO company opens in Iloilo Business Park, McDonald’s also opens its standalone store in the township. The branch will be Read More …

A WEB-based application that promotes awareness, tracks reforestation sites, and helps sustain local communities through eco-tourism bested 41 other entries at the first-ever Hack the Climate: Manila held from June 6 to 8. The 56-hour hackathon, or coding marathon, was the longest hackathon ever mounted globally. It was organized by two Princeton University students, Jacob Scheer and Michael Lachanski, with a grant from Davis Projects for Peace through the Pace Center for Civic Engagement. It was supported by Smart Communications, Inc. (Smart), through the Smart Developer Network, and the De La Salle-College of Saint Benilde. Team Instigators won the grand prize for its app, Tanaw, a web-based application which has geo-locator features and heightens environmental awareness by tracking reforestation sites. At the same time, it hopes to bolster economic activity in local communities via tourism by promoting various destinations in the country.The team is composed of young developers Dominic Tuazon, Mic Gutierrez and Louis Michael Concepcion. Runner-up was Team Superuser with Agila, a Cloud-based cross-platform solution that helps track the user’s energy usage and carbon footprint and how much one is contributing to climate change. The app links up communities that have the same advocacies for the environment. Comprising the team are developers Ivan Dominic Baguio, Joniel Ibasco and Kix Panganiban. “Many of the applications developed during the hackathon showed promise for commercial deployment. The output also showed the relatively high level of awareness of the young developers on climate change, and how they have creatively integrated this into the Read More …

THREE-star Quest Hotel announced it has improved its meeting packages to increase its share of the Meetings, Incentives, Conventions and Exhibition (Mice) business in Cebu. “We are redefining our Mice package as we further strengthen our name as a conference center,” said Emet Sendin, area manager of catering services at Quest Hotel, in a press conference last Friday. He said the improved setting and new concepts are meant to bring out the best in each meeting. “If we will just retain the regular set-up, we might only get regular results. Meetings are where concepts and ideas are formed and are supposed to be nurtured,” he noted. The hotel came up with its own Mice package which stands for memorable settings, intriguing concepts, compelling rewards, and exciting experiences. The new Mice program at Quest features three themes for meetings, namely, Zen, Zest and Zugbu. The Zen package highlights a wholesome and healthy themed meeting, while Zest is an energy-packed themed break. Zugbu, on the other hand, highlights Cebuano comfort food. “We came up with themed meetings to provide choices for our corporate clients and as a strategy to attract more clients to hold meetings or conferences here,” said Sendin. He reported the Mice market of the hotel is growing by at least five percent year-on-year. Fifty-five percent of the meetings are from Cebu while the rest come from Manila or are foreign clients. Quest Hotel has a total of 10 function rooms. Cebu ready to host Mice: hotelier At least P1,500 Read More …