MANILA, Philippines - Convergys Corp., the largest business process outsourcing (BPO) provider in the country, has upgraded its contact center in San Lazaro, Manila to hold approximately 2,400 employees.

Located near Manila's University Belt, Convergys' San Lazaro facility now has 6 floors that can house 1,500 seats compared to only 2 floors a year ago.

It boasts of executive and administrative offices, training and conference rooms, a recruitment center, as well as employee lounges throughout its 139,000 square feet of workspace.

Marife Zamora, Convergys Philippines country manager, said the company has experienced "phenomenal" growth in the last few years, prompting continuous expansion.

"Continued high demand for Philippine-based services will allow as to continue to expand our footprint in the country in the future," she added.

Since 2008, the company has opened 5 new contact centers in the country and provided over 8,000 jobs.

Zamora said they are eyeing to increase workforce to around 25,000 by year-end. They may also start operations in new sites.

She said the company is still scouting for strategic sites, but these would most likely be in the so-called "next wave cities" for BPO.

Among the next wave cities identified by the Business Processing Association of the Philippines (BPAP) are Davao, Sta. Rosa in Laguna, Bacolod, Iloilo, Cavite, Lipa in Batangas, Cagayan de Oro, Malolos in Bulacan and Dumaguete.

Currently, Convergys employs 22,000 Filipinos in 12 sites across the Philippines that now handle as much as 188,000 inbound calls per day.

The company serves international clients in industries such as financial services, collections, retail, healthcare, and telecommunications.

Recenlty, it activated a new state-of-the-art command center in Manila that has the capacity to monitor and manage huge call volumes coming into its contact centers and through its communications network around the world.

The command center is one of three for Convergys. The other two are located in its home base, Cincinnati, Ohio; and in Gargaon, India.

The BPO industry posted P7.1 billion in revenues during the first quarter of 2010, according to the BPAP.

BPAP estimates that industry revenues will rise to P9.3 billion by the end of the year.