» More Call Center Outsourcing Feature Articles

Call Center Outsourcing Featured Article

June 02, 2006

ANALYSIS - CALL CENTRES A SUNSHINE FDI SECTOR FOR PHILIPPINES

TMCnet News

(Asia Pulse Businesswire Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge) (Analysis from Asia Today, Australia's regional business magazine. Contact: asiatoday(at)asiatoday.com.au)

MANILA, June 1 Asia Pulse - Philippine President Gloria Arroyo in March inaugurated two new call centres - for Dell (News - Alert) Computers, the world's largest computer maker, and Sutherland Global Services. Both announced plans to double their call workforces within the year to 1,400 each. Another call centre, eTelecare, said it would increase its 4,000 labour force by another 3,000.

While small numbers within the totality of the global call centre industry, they represent major growth in the Philippines' efforts to grab a share of the foreign investment outsourcing companies are spreading around the world.

The Philippines, which has graded itself as having a competitive edge in the field, has aggressively promoted what it sees as a sunshine foreign investment sector. "We have done very well," insists Celeste Ilagan, Executive Director of the Board of Investments' Investment Promotion Group.

The Philippines began aggressive promotion in 2000, with 1,500 call centre seats operated by Sykes and AOL emailing out of Clark Freeport Zone. By early 2006, the sector had generated 90,000 seats, including those of Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) firms, employing 120,000 Filipinos. "We grew by 100 per cent every year," Ilagan told ATI. Some of the world's biggest call centre and BPO companies, including Convergys (News - Alert), Sitel, ICT Group, Apac and Westel Services, now have a presence in the Philippines. They have brought in investments totalling US$2 billion.

The Ilagan team wants to double employment figures to 250,000 by the end of 2006, and, by 2010, the sector should employ 920,000 Filipinos. But the Philippines does not see itself as a competitor to India, which is years ahead in call centre and other IT-enabled industries.

"The market is huge, there is enough business for everybody," Ilagan says. "Rather we try to identify where we have the competitive advantage." Beyond call centres and BPO, the Philippines wants to offer software development, engineering design, animation and transcription (legal and medical) services.

"We think we have better verbal skills (than the Indians), so we started with call centres," she says. India is way ahead in software development, but we think we're ahead of India in voice quality as our agents don't need much training in accent neutralisation. Indian-owned businesses such as Sutherland and BPO specialist Daksh have set up shop in Manila to complement their Indian facilities.

Ilagan acknowledges that the Filipinos' shrinking grasp of English in recent years has become a challenge to efforts to develop the sector. To mitigate this trend, the Government has allowed the companies to forge study and training programmes directly with private and State colleges to offer English language training in the students' final year curriculum.

The scheme to produce corporate-ready graduates who can be quickly absorbed into the job market has been working well, Ilagan says. She adds: "We have rolled out this programme to over 20 colleges and universities." President Arroyo, at the inauguration of Sutherland's call centre, announced that the Government technical training school was to offer up to 100,000 scholarships to students to train for the call centre industry.

ASIA PULSE

01-06 1747

» More Call Center Outsourcing Feature Articles

TMCnet's Online Communities™

TMCnet Magazines

TMCnet Events

TMCnet's Technology Sites

Browse News by Topics

TMCnet BLOGGERS

TMCnet Resources

About TMCnet

Subscriptions

Follow Us Your Way

CHANNEL BY TOPICS

QUICK LINKS

Call Center Outsourcing