Philippine IT companies set sights on e-services projects in Japan

Manila, Philippines - 9/04/05

Japan's e-services market presents significant opportunities to Philippine IT firms, according to Philippines' Center for Trade Expositions and Missions (CITEM).

Japanese information technology (IT) services spending is projected to hit the US$120-billion mark in 2008 with a steady 7.3 percent growth.

Six Philippine-based IT companies joined Japan's SODEC 2005 generating US$8 million in total sales, further leveraging the Philippines' strength in project management software solutions, according to Philippines' Trade Undersecretary Thomas G. Aquino.

Philippine software development companies present in SODEC 2005 were: ADTX Systems, Inc., Astra Philippines, N-Pax Cebu Corporation, Pointwest Technologies, Tsukiden Software Philippines, Inc. (TSPI), and WeServ Systems International, Inc.

Pointwest Technologies already met with potential partners in the Japanese e-services market.

Astra Philippines, meanwhile, closed a contract with a multinational manufacturing company for a web-based urchasing/logistics system application.

N-Pax’s COMPASS received the most number of inquiries. COMPASS is a software package of closely interwoven and highly functional components, including "Workflow," "To do list," "Activity Report," "Groupware," "Document Management," and "Project Management." The software was recognized as one of the Best e-Business Products in e-Services Philippines, the country's most comprehensive IT exhibition, this year.

SODEC 2005 had about 12, 921 visitors composed of IT professionals, middle managers, CEOs and presidents of IT companies. SODEC had 146 exhibitors.

Japan is the world's second largest economy with a GNP of US$5,000 billion, next to the United States. Japan's software market has reached US$100 billion in 2000 and continues to grow.

Total market demand for computers in Japan has also been growing at around 15 percent annually. Packaged business software is likely to remain as the largest sector within Japan's PC business software market, reports said. This sector is expected to grow by 44.8 percent to reach ¥847.8 billion or 67.3 percent share in 2008.

"Philippine IT companies with their track record in building up the Philippines' e-services infrastructure, are well placed to compete for software management projects in Japan," added Aquino.

There are about 20 to 30 companies that are Japanese subsidiaries performing software and software-related operations in the Philippines.

According to Naoya Higashi, President of N-Pax Japan, the Philippines’ good customer orientation is very strong among Japanese customers.

Besides this, however, he said one factor to maximize the Philippine potential in software outsourcing in Japan is to increase the Filipino bilingual (English-Japanese) bridge software engineers.

Other opportunities cited for Philippine companies were: project management solutions/systems integration, mobile applications, engineering design services, web development, embedded systems, data warehousing, electronic manufacturing services (EMS) and consulting.

TSPI, one of the Philippine exhibitors, meanwhile added that "We should look into expanding our service offerings by tapping our JAVA technology to address Japan's growing mobile Internet market."

During the same event, 43 Japanese businessmen representing 37 companies attended the first Philippine business seminar (29 June) at Tokyo Big Sight.

The Philippine participation to SODEC was organized by the Department of Trade and Industry’s Center for International Trade Expositions and Missions (CITEM) and the Board of Investments (BoI).

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