THE Board of Investments (BoI) said on Wednesday that IMP Shipyard and Port Services, Inc. is planning to expand its operations in order to service larger vessels.

In a statement, the BoI said the company’s plans surfaced after IMP launched a P500-million shipyard project in Albuera, Leyte, last month.

“Looking ahead, IMP Shipyard plans to expand into strategic locations to accommodate larger vessels and potentially establish a ship-breaking and recycling facility to support the government’s ship retirement and replacement program,” the BoI said.

“Prospective investors and domestic shipowners are invited to explore collaboration opportunities,” it added.

IMP Shipyard’s Leyte project, expected to be fully operational by mid-2024, has 10 berths, with eight dedicated to repair and two to new-ship construction.

As the first shipbuilding and repair facility approved by the BoI under the Strategic Investment Priority Plan, the Leyte project also aims to build energy-efficient ferries to win contracts during the refleeting of Metro Ferry Cebu.

IMP Shipyard also plans to build commercial fishing vessels and a fish port with refrigeration facilities to service the needs of small-scale fisherfolk.

“The project will provide significant employment opportunities, in collaboration with the Department of Migrant Workers-National Reintegration Center for OFWs (overseas Filipino workers),” the BoI said.

“The company aims to capacitate returning seafarers for their upskilling and reskilling and provide potential business opportunities in the ancillary services of IMP Shipyard,” it added.

In the last 10 years, the BoI has approved 35 shipbuilding projects.

The Philippines is the fourth-largest shipbuilding nation, with 115 registered shipyards under the Maritime Industry Authority employing over 30,000 workers. — Justine Irish D. Tabile

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY and business process management (IT-BPM) companies featured prominently in the fifth annual Best Workplaces List in the Philippines, according to the list’s compiler, Great Place to Work (GPTW).

“Many of these organizations are from the IT-BPM industry, primarily (from the point of view of hiring) a lot of employees,” GPTW Philippines Managing Partner Antoniette Mendoza-Talosig told reporters on the sidelines of the awards ceremony late Tuesday.

“Historically, we’ve already seen that (IT-BPM companies) are putting much effort into employee satisfaction or employee happiness,” Ms. Mendoza-Talosig said.

She said that IT-BPM companies on the list are listening to their employees on flexible work arrangements.

One example, she said, is Synchrony Global Services, Inc., the top workplace in the list for companies with 1,000 and more workers, which has decided to embrace remote work.

She said the company noticed a downward trend in employee engagement, with departures resulting from the announcement of the initial return-to-office order.

“So they listened to their employees and implemented remote work, which has improved their employees’ experience substantially,” she added.

Synchrony was also awarded the “Great Place to Work Legend” title for being on the list for five consecutive years, together with DHL Express Philippines, which topped the list in the medium category — companies with 100 to 999 employees.

The other top workplaces in the large category are Accenture, TaskUs, Lexmark Research and Development Corp., Teleperformance, Capital One Philippines, DXC Technology Philippines, CGI Philippines, Inc., [24]7.ai Philippines, and Tech Mahindra Ltd. Philippines.

For the medium category, the other companies on the list were Cisco, Hilton, Atlassian, Via Appia Philippines, Inc., 3M GSC Philippines, Hilti Philippines, Inc., Balsam International Unlimited Co. Philippine ROHQ, General Motors Philippines, Lingaro (Philippines), Inc., Amadeus Marketing Philippines, Inc., SCJ Philippines, Aurecon, Genesys Cloud Services Cayman Ltd., and Thumbtack Philippines. 

Ms. Mendoza-Talosig said there were 15 awardees for the medium category, as there were more entrants for companies with 100 to 999 employees.

Meanwhile, the list for the small category (companies with 10-99 employees) was included Kollab, ECo Global Consulting, Inc., Limitless Connect, Logix BPO, Zenutna Holdings Corp., Takeda Healthcare Philippines, Inc., J4RVIS, Interconnected Business Process, Inc., Fulcrum Solutions, and Air Accounting.

Jack Madrid, president of the IT and Business Process Association of the Philippines, said that the recognition that the industry is a good one to work for shows how employees recognize the successes of IT-BPM companies.

“It’s heartening because it proves that the IT-BPM industry is really founded on that bedrock of Filipino talent,” Mr. Madrid said.

He said that over half of the awardees are from the IT-BPM industry, which will spur further efforts to improve the work environment within the sector.

“I think work flexibility will always be important,” he said. “Flexibility is here to stay, but having said that, we are also seeing a gradual uptick of employees going back to the office. It’s moving towards that, but at a slow pace,” he added.

Ms. Mendoza-Talosig said that overall, GPTW reported a downward trend in employee experience in the Philippines, with only the awardees being able to sustain their performance.

“There are many factors that we are seeing, and I think one is the rapid changes in the organization. One will be artificial intelligence (AI). How are organizations supporting their employees when it comes to AI?” she said.

“Second, I would say, would be economic factors. Anywhere, not just in the Philippines, employee dissatisfaction about pay is increasing, but pay has always been what we call a universal dissatisfier,” she added.

She said that one of the reasons for the downward trend would also be the employees’ dissatisfaction with psychological safety in the workplaces in the Philippines.

Around 77% of employees of ‘not best workplaces’ said that their companies are a psychologically and emotionally healthy place for work, which is well below the 90% of employees of ‘best workplaces’ who agreed that they have psychologically healthy workplace.

“There’s a big discrepancy. And many of the organizations that you see in that data actually include companies (on the list). So imagine employees who work for companies (not on the list),” she said.

Now in its fifth year, the Best Workplaces List in the Philippines was compiled from the responses of over 600,000 employees across 200 different organizations that subscribe to the Great Place to Work Model. — Justine Irish D. Tabile

FOXMONT Capital Partners and Boston Consulting Group (BCG) said the Philippine startups are expected to number 1,000 each year, possibly signaling a rebound from the 2023 decline in venture capital funds raised.

“We’re very, very bullish on the market in the Philippines. We see 1,000 startups a year, and we see existing portfolio companies of ours mature to a stage where they’re ready for growth funding,” Foxmont founding partner Jelmer Ikink said at the launch of the Philippine Venture Capital Report 2024 on Wednesday.

“We see a maturation of early-stage deals going into the growth stage, and that means bigger tickets. So I think there’s very much a demand from the Philippine startups for that,” Mr. Ikink said.

He also noted growing interest from regional and global investors to invest in and allocate more capital to the Philippines.

“In principle, that should result in growth… it’s hard to really predict, but the fundamentals are there. And I think that’s also the key takeaway of the report, that we believe that the fundamentals are there for continued momentum,” he said.

Foxmont and BCG’s Philippine Venture Capital Report 2024 indicated that venture capital deal volume rose 16% to 96 deals last year.

However, total funds raised last year fell 14% to $960 million.

“In line with the global trend given prevailing macroeconomic conditions, total deal value in the Philippines experienced a decline in 2023 when compared to its record year in 2022,” according to the report.

“The decline was relatively modest at 14%, especially when compared to a decline of 62% in Southeast Asia, with Indonesia and Singapore feeling the largest drops at 68% and 73%, respectively,” it added, citing the Global Private Capital Association.

Despite the decline, Foxmont and BCG said that the Philippine share of funds raised in Southeast Asia grew to 13% in 2023 from 7% in 2022.

They said that the share growth was the result of maiden investments made by DSG Consumer Partnership, Softbank Ventures Asia, Cercano, HSR Ventures, ACA Investments, and SK Capital.

“These (maiden investments), on top of the record high deal volume in 2023, underscore sustained interest in Philippine startups,” according to the report.

Fintech and e-commerce remained among the top three sectors funded in 2023, while startups in the business-to-business software-as-a-service (B2B SaaS) industry, an up-and-coming sector, received major funding as well during the period.

The fintech sector accounted for 22 deals out of the 96 booked last year. Other sectors that received funding were B2B SaaS (14), e-commerce (13), direct to consumer (5), health (4), agriculture (4), media (4), property technology (4), food and beverage technology (3), education technology (3), artificial intelligence (2), and Web 3 (1).

BCG Managing Director and Senior Partner Anthony Oundjian said that the e-commerce industry will continue to grow even if a large number, or 64%, of Filipinos still prefer offline purchases.

“The whole e-commerce industry continued to grow even last year, albeit at a slower rate of growth than the previous year,” Mr. Oundjian said. — Justine Irish D. Tabile