Cedfit now full-time industry association

CEBU, Philippines - Meeting the new demand and needs for hyper-growing Information Technology-Business Process Management (IT-BPM), Cebu officially launched the CIB.O (Cebu IT/BPM Organization).

Formerly known as the Cebu Educational Development Foundation for IT (Cedfit), the new full-time industry association was formally introduced yesterday at the opening of the "Transformation Summit," held at the Marco Polo Plaza Hotel.

"The exponential growth of Cebu's IT/BPM industry coupled with the heightened competition warranted the Board of Trustees' decision to evolve Cedfit from human resource development organization to a full-time industry association to sustain the industry's growth and be ready for the challenges ahead," said CIB.O chairman Francis O. Monera.

From a mere manpower development centered organization in the last 16 years, Cedfit transformed into a full time industry organization focused on assisting the needs and concerns of bug players in the outsourcing sector.

With this, CIB.O's new vision is to make Cebu as the preferred IT/BPM location for higher value IT and IT-enabled services, developing and promoting further the strengths of Cebu and sustain the growth of IT/BPM industry driven collaboration, innovation, and excellence.

CIB.O president Gregg Gabison said that although the group is not officially affiliated with the national organization IBPAP, the two will constantly work together.

With new mandate, CIB.O will not only serve as a organization that supports the development of human resource pool for IT related industries in Cebu, but it now serves as the mouthpiece of the growing IT-BPM sector in Cebu, which currently employs an estimated 140 thousand people.

CIB.O is now the official industry association for bigger players in the IT/BPM sector in Cebu, such as Accenture, Lexmark, JP Morgan, Cognizant, NCR, Dash Engineering, among others.

The Cedfit organizational system is retained, which is a consortium of IT/BPM companies, academe, support groups, government agencies, and civil organizations. It currently has 128 members who work together to create solutions and programs for the IT/BPM industry which generates P27 billion annual income. (FREEMAN)