What Is The Latest Outlook Of The Philippine BPO industry?

Several years back, the Philippines was more known for its top export – skilled workers. However, with the changing of times, this has slowly changed into becoming one of the top contenders when it comes to providing outsourcing services. This means that unemployment has become a lot less in the country and there have been more investors coming in. Thanks to the call center industry in the Philippines, more and more people here are landing jobs without having to go abroad.

First off, what is the BPO industry?

When it comes to businesses, the whole operations would mean having to hire a lot of people. It means that you would have to have someone do customer service. You should also have another person doing other important tasks like marketing, human resources, and sales. For a small business or company, you may only need one person for each team to do the job. Of course, you would have to make sure that each of these people have their own working space and that equates to having to spend on enough space in your facility, office materials, overhead, training, and salary.

Now, when you decide to expand your business because it has been doing well and has been growing significantly, this would mean that you would have to add in more people to do the additional jobs that the expansion brought with it. You cannot just have the original number of people do everything or else you may find yourself with no employees at all. So when it comes to expanding, you would need more and more people to do the additional jobs. Additional people should mean having to spend again on the same things as you did with the original employees.

What the BPO industry offers you is a chance to have these employees working for you without you having to shell out as much as you would if you were going to hire them as in-house employees. So if you have a business selling auto parts online, you can easily tap a BPO company from the Philippines to get you the extra employees you need. Usually, companies outsource the non-core tasks and that should include web development, web design, content writing, customer service, and bookkeeping. You only have to pay a certain amount for each person working for you from a Business Process Outsourcing firm as compared to having to spend on more facilities, overhead, and salaries.

This is the most important benefit that these companies in the country bring to the market. And this is what makes the Philippines quite so popular nowadays.

Making waves because of Contact Centers

It is not a secret that the country is now known for being the hub of inbound call center services and facilities around the globe. Although there are other countries out there who may offer the same services as those offered in the Philippines, this Asian country still tops the list. It still is making waves and it is still the most popular destination for companies who are looking for a contact center to trust to do all their outsourced tasks.

Magellan Solutions Outsourcing Inc., one of the top inbound call center companies in the Philippines, has been able to express that it has received quite a number of companies inquiring about the services that they are offering. In fact, this company has also been able to disclose that it has seen the huge need for outsourcing services and thus they have decided to expand their services.

When companies go to a call center based here, they are looking at various factors. One of them is that the location of the country is something that they can work with. It also has got a lot of wonderful places to go to so that a trip to the country would be a combination of business and pleasure. Another factor that they do look at is the accent that Filipinos have. Although India may be one of the top contenders of call center in the Philippines, more and more companies are choosing to go with the Philippines BPO industry because of the accent. Indians have a heavier accent, like those of the British. On the other hand, Filipinos have a more neutral accent which is easier to understand.

Technology is also another factor that companies are looking at when it comes to choosing the company that they would be outsourcing to. Of course, one would choose to go with a company that has the latest technology and programs and applications which are very essential in this industry. If one chooses to stick to the old methods, then there is a huge chance that companies would not choose that because what businesses are looking for are those companies that have the latest technology and are not afraid to upgrade if there is a need for that.

Because a lot of companies are choosing to entrust extra jobs to business process outsourcing Philippines, this means that more and more companies are bringing in business to the country. That means more investments coming in and more money rolling. It has been very beneficial for the country and for the economy of the Philippines. Instead of going abroad to earn dollars, they can actually do that without leaving the country and leaving their loved ones behind. The BPO industry is one of the top reasons why the economy is getting better. It sits next to the tourism industry.

The numbers keep on rising

The contact center business in the Philippines has been growing. The boom came somewhere in the year 2000 and that was when many investors saw the potential of the country in housing such services. Investors started flocking in and many Filipinos found it a beauty that they did not have to leave the country to be able to provide enough support for their families. The investors also saw at how much they were able to save because the labor costs were not that high. It was a win-win situation for both sides. Nobody could be any happier.

Come this year, 2014, the statistics have it that business will continue to boom and will continue to grow. This is despite the fact that a lot may have said that it is already slowing down and that the country is already congested. The truth is, it is not yet congested. It may seem congested as there are a lot of call centers popping up in the country’s capital. However, there are a lot of other locations in the country that are slowly turning into call center hubs and one of these top places is Cebu. There are other spots in the country that are also proving to be good hubs especially when things continue to grow.

In a recent study done by the Oxford Business Group, it has been cited that the country will still be getting more revenue for this year. In fact, they are looking at a 15% increase just for the business process outsourcing industry alone. That is a huge amount of increase knowing that the country already has quite a number of companies offering such services to those who need them. This is the very reason why the Philippine government has been making sure that this industry stays alive and stays happy as it is one of the top sources of revenue and income for the country. If all of these businesses went away in one day, the country’s economy would really suffer a lot. As of 2013, the country has earned $13.3 billion. That surely is a huge number and yet that number signifies a growth of 15% from a year earlier. If this trend continues, can you simply imagine just how much money is coming in to this small country in Asia? Although it is not as huge as remittances brought in by all those Filipinos working abroad, this is a really huge feat. Tourism has only brought $4.8 billion so far and that is a far cry from the $13.3 billion that the business process outsourcing industry has brought.

Another boost that could help with this continuous growth is a new program that would be launched by the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN). The Philippines belongs to this group and thus it is going to benefit a lot from this move. The new program would be all about the economic community as ASEAN has focused on three main pillars in their organization. Security and sociocultural integration have already been done and so they now have to focus on the economy. This third pillar would soon be launched next year. The association has decided to create such so that all countries would be able to experience even better growth in these three pillars.

BPO services offered in the Philippines

Although a lot of people may think that the only services offered in the Philippines would be the jobs in call centers (which is essentially inbound and outbound calls), you may be surprised to find out that the country has a lot more to offer than just that. It is interesting that when it comes to BPO services, most people (even those who are in the Philippines) think that outsourced jobs are all for call centers when in fact there a lot of other jobs outsourced and done in the country.

In the call center industry, one would be able to see that they do not just offer inbound and outbound call services for companies. You would also be able to find out that these companies also have people who are there to do email support. One would be able to see that the call center industry is mainly made to help out companies by being their customer support team. Some of these companies offer 24/7 services especially for those huge businesses that need customer service support anytime of the day. This industry takes up a huge portion of the whole BPO industry that is why it is the most known outsourced job. Numbers have it that it takes up about 80% of the whole BPO industry so that should be quite a huge one.

Another type of outsourced work is transcription. This one is a very popular job that can be outsourced because of the detailed work that needs to be done and the number of hours needed to accomplish a task. The legal and medical industries in the United States usually need written copies of all proceedings or documentations of patients. So legal and medical companies in the US outsource the transcription job to the Philippines because it should allow them to get the needed output without having to spend much on finances as compared to if they had to in-house transcriptionists.

Backroom operations happen mostly in the Philippines, in case you have not noticed. A lot of companies have chosen to outsource backroom tasks to the BPO industry here. You would see a huge amount of people doing accounting, finance, and logistics tasks. There are even those people who are known as virtual assistants.

These are the people who do the odd jobs that can cost a company too much money. By outsourcing, they do not have to train these people and they do not have to pay for office facilities. The companies handling these individuals would be the ones responsible for the training and the office equipment.

These are few of the tasks that have been shipped to the Philippines for the Filipinos to do. It is a blessing for Filipinos to get a lot of job opportunities like these because it means that they do not have to spend their time away from family when in the Philippine culture, family is everything. The Philippines has got a huge talent pool and they are skilled in various outsourced jobs that even include software development, web development, animation, internet marketing, copywriting, and web design. So with the opportunity coming to Filipinos, they do their very best to make sure that they do it well and that they do it with care. These people take pride in their jobs and make sure that they focus on each one.