Pointwest Technologies, a Filipino-owned software development house, has been named the ?Best Filipino-Owned Company of the Year? at the recently concluded 2014 International ICT Awards Philippines.
Former chair of the National ICT Confederation of the Philippines (NICP) and Bacolod City councilor Jocelle Batapa-Sigue, meanwhile, bagged this year’s ICT-Business Process Management (BPM) Individual Contributor Award.
Being one of only two companies that qualified for the category, Pointwest is also the first one to win the award that was introduced only this year.
The Information Technology and Business Process Association of the Philippines (IT-BPAP) and the Canadian Chamber of Commerce of the Philippines (CanCham) have introduced the Best Filipino-owned Company of the Year category to recognize the contributions of Filipino-owned companies to the overall growth of the outsourcing industry in the Philippines. It also highlights the values of Philippine companies in uplifting the welfare of Filipino IT and BPM specialists.
The award was received by Pointwest president Ma. Cristina ?Beng? Coronel who noted that the company?s growth is attributable to its people who have been instrumental in strengthening Pointwest?s presence in the outsourcing sector in the country.
Pointwest was founded in January 2003 by pioneers of the Philippine IT and BPO industry with the goal of building a Filipino-owned outsourcing company that is at par with international counterparts.
In the last 11 years, Pointwest has provided first-in-class IT and BPM services to top Fortune 500 companies, as well as leading companies of various industries here in the Philippines.
Pointwest also managed to achieve appraisals under the Carnegie Mellon?s Software Engineering Institute CMMI v1.3, a measurement of the maturity and reliability of an organization?s processes, as well as an appraisal for Maturity Level 3 (out of five) in Services and Development.
It is also the first time that a Southeast Asian company has ever achieved ?twin? appraisals, and only the third throughout Asia.
Another major milestone for Pointwest in 2013 was its gaining naming rights for the Alpha Building of the UP-Ayala Land TechnoHub. The company was one of the first tenants of the IT park when it opened in 2008. It is the only fully Filipino-owned company with naming rights to a building in the Technohub.
In the 11 years since the company?s founding, Pointwest has posted 40 percent year-on-year growth; 95 percent of its revenues is in export revenues. Its efforts have paid off as the company has received several awards. These include the Best Homegrown IT-BPO Company award in 2008 from that year?s edition of the ICT Awards and the Technology Leadership Team award in the Asia CEO Awards in 2012.
Batapa-Sigue, on the other hand, founded in 2007 the Bacolod-Negros Occidental Federation for ICT (BNEFIT) which eventually became a pioneer member of the NICP when it was created in 2008.
As NICP president from 2010-2012, she helped other cities and provinces all throughout the country to develop their business ecosystem, talent and other factors in bringing about conducive locations for the ICT-BPM industry, with the support of the former Commission of Information and Communications Technology (CICT).
She also steered NICP’s flagship project, the eGovernance Awards for Local Government Units (LGUs), which seeks to annually recognized LGUs best practices in integrating ICT for efficient and effective delivery of government services implemented with the support of the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG).
In 2012, Batapa-Sigue was named as the Eisenhower Fellow of the Philippines, for her leadership in the sector, allowing her the opportunity to be exposed to Silicon Valley, the Research Triangle and major ICT companies in the US.
She is currently the cluster head of the Visayas ICT Cluster Organization (VICTOR) where she oversees projects under the National Industry Cluster Capacity Enhancement Program (NICCEP) of the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) and the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA).
Now on its 8th year, the ICT Awards mainly recognizes ICT-BPM Companies in the Philippines with the sole category for individual contribution. Former recipients of the individual awards are Bong Birka (2007), Mitch Locsin (2008), Celeste Ilagan (2009), Ray Anthony Roxas-Chua III (2010), Danilo Sebastian L. Reyes (2011), Lilia De Lima, Monchito Ibrahim, and Virgilio Pena (2012), Edgardo Angara and Sigfrido Tinga (2013).
