Philippines Becoming Dominant Business Process Outsourcing Destination
Manila: Metro Manila has edged out Mumbai from the second spot in a worldwide ranking of top business process outsourcing (BPO) sites as other locations in the country had improved from their previous ratings.
In a ranking conducted by strategic offshoring advisory firm, Tholons, Metro Manila has moved on to the second spot of the list’s Top 100 Outsourcing Destinations Rankings in a report released last week while Bangalore maintained its place in the top spot.
Aside from Metro Manila, Cebu in Central Philippines, also figured in Tholon’s top ten list, maintaining its ranking at number eight.
Five cities outside Metro Manila have also moved up the list’s Top 100 Outsourcing Destinations Rankings in a report. These are Davao City in Southern Philippines and Bacolod City in the central portion of the country, which moved up one notch from their 2013 ranking (70 and 94 respectively). Santa Rosa in Laguna South of Metro Manila moved up two notches from 84 to 82 in the ranking.
Undersecretary Louis Casambre of the Information and Communications Technology Office of the Philippines’ Department of Science and Technology (DOST-ICT) said the improvements on the ranking of the country’s outsourcing sites speak well of efforts by the private and government sector to make the country an attractive site for business process offshoring.
The business process outsourcing (BPO) sector had grown by leaps and bounds over the last decade as an increasing number of companies locate certain aspects of their business to countries with multilingual and competitive workforce such as those in the Philippines and India.
In the Philippines, the government through the Department of Science and Technology-Information and Communications Techology Office (DOST-ICT) oversees the development of the BPO sector which involves data as well as voice-based process outsourcing.
ICT hubs
To provide clearer direction for the country’s ICT sector, the DOST-ICT came up with the so-called “Next Wave Cities” programme that identifies ICT hubs beyond Manila, based on criteria such as worker supply, telecom infrastructure and other factors necessary to sustain a local BPO industry.
The Philippines became the world’s largest exporter of voice-driven BPO, in 2010 edging out India as the global call centre hub, according to the Everest Group. In non-voice BPO, involving back office services and complex business services, the Philippines is a strong second to India with over 200,000 employees providing global sourcing services to the world.
Industry sources said the Philippines’ success in attracting demand for BPO service hinges on its a large talent pool of English and other foreign language speaking workforce, competitive telecommunications infrastructure, and relatively low pay for workers. Aside from these, another important factor that locators and outsourcers find to be fairly unique to the Philippines among developing countries is a strong affinity to Western culture. The Philippines had been a former colony of Spain and the United States and was briefly occupied by Japan during the Second World War.
Source:
By Gilbert P. Felongco, Correspondent Published: 16:08 January 24, 2014