Globally, the BPO industry is referred as an economic pillar, lifeline and powerhouse. Offshore outsourcing companies became an integral contributor to world economies. Oxford Business Group (OBG) even described it as “one of the largest white-collar employers” in many countries. The Philippines ranks third in the BPO industry. There are countless hubs in and around Metro Manila; economic zones and provincial metropolitan districts catering and garnering high satisfaction ratings from serviced offices. More so, voice-work here has the highest position in the outsourcing industry, evidenced by the top 16 offshore call center projects the country secured in 2016 and registry of 3 new outsourcing companies weekly.
The 2017 A.T. Kearney Global Services Location Index reported that the Philippines steadily remain a leader in the service industry. This is a very good indicator that the Philippine BPO industry has a strong foothold in the global outsourcing market.
The Philippine macroeconomic model pays close focus, gives leeway and incentives to promote the expansion of global in-house call centers in the country. Initiatives have been undertaken in high-value fields like engineering and legal BPO to design mechanisms that will hinder the threat of automation. It is also proactive in giving the sector all the necessary support including tax shields or incentives.
The country aims to maintain its position in the global market and gain advantage over worldwide competition. Today, BPOs significantly improved their services by merging human and artificial intelligence in their service protocols. This further lure new investments; ensuring millions of jobs and other employment opportunities to citizens while having the success of investors in mind.
Visa, a leader in the Banking and Finance Industry, opened a number of centers in the country to service millions of their clients. Investments like these from major industry players reflect highly on the viability and profitability of setting up inbound offices and having offshore teams here. The country even doubled the World Bank’s estimated lifetime BPO revenue of $50B to more than a $100B.
Aside from language skills, Filipinos are highly educated with strong customer service orientation. They are capable not only in handling diverse customers, knowledge-intensive IT and business services but also research and project development. Filipino workers have proven themselves to be easily and highly trainable. This is a big save on training cost specially, in the IT field.
IT training, for the average Filipino, starts in secondary school. Continuous IT education is later given in college. It is integrated in university curriculums in all fields of learning; making Filipinos computer-literate, even proficient, at the time of employment. This is an advantage investor appreciate.
These factors make Filipinos desirable employees to foreign employers. Many skilled graduates and workers are funneled out of the country by multinational corporations. They have seen and experienced the promising potential Filipino talents contribute to business growth. Philippine GDP Report shows that overseas remittances from migrant Filipino workers account for the 10% of the country’s GDP over the past decade while BPO income contributes 5%.
Further, the Philippine IT-BPM alliance had given the industry a voice. They collaboratively seek to further improve the country’s service quality to secure 15% global outsourcing market share as stated in its Roadmap 2016-2022.
Roadmap22 aims to further improve the skills of BPO agents to become globally competitive. It will arm Filipino talents with multi-industrial expertise, keep up with technological innovations in AI, software, analytics, big data and use them to the benefit of the emerging sectors serviced worldwide. This assures growth and profitability to the country and to all inbound offshore operations. They project that this will further boost the country’s market standing globally. For inquiries, you can write to bd@athl.com.hk