Manila, Philippines, 3rd Sept, 09: Less than a decade very few people could have imagined that Philippines would become business process outsourcing (BPO) powerhouse. This is second sought BPO destination after India. It has vastly larger talent pool, a longer industry track record and number of BPO services.
Infact, till 2001 Philippines was known as nascent call center industry. It only employed no more than couple of thousand employees engaged in low value-added work like answering phone related to technical queries through an inbound call center.
Gregory Domingo, former managing director of the Department of Trade and Industry’s Board remembers the exact moment when the tide turned in Philippines favor. He said that, they were in US during the President’s trip in late 2001 and his boss had decided to invite some officials of IT research firm Gartner for meal.
Over dinner, both the trade officials briefed Gartner officials and analyst about the potential of the country to become one of the BPO locations, banking on Filipinos traditional strengths and the varieties of BPO services it can provide.
The trade officials pointed out that Philippines had proficient English speakers, fluency in concepts of accounting, engineering, technical infrastructure and affinity to the culture of United States. This could be helpful in providing different BPO services.
Almost overnight major companies started to set up their BPO units. From 1,500 employees, the BPO industry is now setting sights to hire as many as million workers.
Eric Smith