Growth of Asian BPO Industry to continue in 2007

The Philippine Daily Inquirer quotes an Indian BPO Exec:

“While 2007 will see India’s stature as world’s back office growing, the Philippines will evolve as the preferred destination for offshoring customer-facing jobs based on the benefits of cost reduction, manpower availability, and quality that it brings to global organizations,” the report said.

Tholons of India, founded by former neoIT Inc. founder Avinash Vashistha, said that the Philippines would be able to accomplish this because of its “committed and highly trainable workforce, a strong cultural affinity with the west, and the expansion of existing BPO companies.” The BPO industry now employs over 160,000 professionals".

Phil BPO rams through despite natural calamities

Backed up, Redundant, Mirrored, Fail Safe, etc... These words are now proving that Asian BPO firms can deliver despite catastrophes.

Last month, it was the super typhoon "Milenyo". This December, the country was struck by a much stronger storm "Reming". Overall, close to a couple of hundreds of houses were destroyed and thousands of lives were lost . If you are familiar with the famed Cagsawa ruins near the world famous Mayon Volcano, let me inform you that only the roof of the bell tower is left after mudslides rampaged through the place.

The other night, internet access, which made the Asian BPO Industry possible, was suddenly cut off when a series of strong quakes hit Taiwan, a couple of days ago. While most BPO companies took the interruption in stride, hardest hit was the Call Center sub sector which relies on good real time connection, in order to make person to person communication possible. Despite that, industry insiders reported that most contact centers were able to quickly recover and are now back on operation. The Makati Business District which houses a big number of contact centers is back to its normal activities, unlike a couple of nights ago, when an unusually big number of call center agents were seen hanging around their offices, unable to work.

Despite some difficulty in sending and retrieving important files to and from their partners across the globe, other BPO firms, at this point, continue to operate at full capacity.

Merry Christmas!

The Philippine Outsourcing industry had a very good year and the economy, in general, was in a better shape. Andolini writes that the Philippine Mutual Fund Industry is in good shape. Prior to that, news about price rollbacks of petroleum products and the record breaking performance of the Forex market was all over the news.

Let's hope that the Philippine Outsourcing Industry as well as the rest of Asia continue with its climb.

Happy Christmas, everyone!

Phil: Call Center Industry Continues To Expand

Despite its current size, the contact center company, Convergys, continues to look for expansion sites all over the Philippines. The past few years saw the company rapidly expand, and yet, the enormous growth continues.

"Convergys now employs nearly 10,000 Filipinos in the country, with more expected to be hired due to the expansion in Cebu City.

Benefits Of Outsourcing

Being a BPO practitioner, this page strongly prefers (rejoices?) the endorsements of third parties. Today, a survey conducted by Accenture showed that outsourcing is not purely a simple cost saving instrument.

Here are some of the results, conducted on 800 executives (US & Europe), as published by Informationweek.

1. 25% of the responders reported an improvement in the business process, on the first day.
2. More than 50% reported traceable improvements within the first six months of outsourcing.

“The most frequently cited improvements included better ability to plan, higher levels of operational reliability, and more rapid implementation of new strategies and initiatives.”

3. Initially, IT functions were outsourced. Eventually, other functions were on its way.

“While IT services continues to be the leading outsourced function, more companies are turning to outside sources for supply-chain operations, learning and training, human resources, accounting and financial services as well as customer relationship management. 43% of the executives surveyed have IT outsourcing arrangements in place.

Supply-chain management was seen as the most rapidly rising area for outsourcing, with 36% of the respondents undertaking it, followed by 31% initiating outside learning and training functions.”

4. More than 80% of the responders expressed commitment to permanent outsourcing of at least one key function
5. Only 14% viewed outsourcing as a temporary remedy.

The days of outsourcing have arrived.

BPO biz in the Philippines to grow by 100% by 2007

Businessmirror reports that the Phil BPO industry is already assured of a minimum 80% growth by the year 2007.

"Jojo Uligan, executive director of the Contact Center Association of the Philippines (CCAP), said existing call centers will continue to be in expansion mode next year, especially with clients giving high marks to the quality of services of the industry."

The current size of the industry is estimated at approximately 150,000 call center agents. Initiatives taken by the industry, together with a number of academic institutions, has assured the steady increase of qualified manpower.