Philippines will be number 1 in BPO
BPO will be widespread and a household word in every Filipino household.
Without much fun, global marketing and globetrotting, the Philippines has become a natural choice and preferred destination for global business process outsourcing (BPO) companies today. This phenomenon came about simply through word of mouth from existing BPO players in the country. After establishing their administrative offices in the country, the global BPO players learned from their administrative experiences just how world class Filipinos are when it comes to voice services. BPO companies realized how the Filipinos were excellent in their command of fluent English with a neutral accent.
Today, the call center or contact centers has become widespread in the main cities and is a success story for all interested parties. As word of mouth spreads to other BPO players, the next challenge for the Philippines is to keep pace with the rapidly growing BPO industry. Our country must focus all its attention on FORMING a good part of the human resources desired by the growing BPO industry.
The brain drain of Filipinos leaving to look for work abroad has been occurring annually for the past several years, peaking at 1 million Filipinos leaving to work abroad in the year 2006 alone. Information and Communications (ICT) through BPOs are the sector of the solar industry that could provide the necessary alternative to brain drain syndrome.
If we want the Philippines to become the world leader in outsourcing, the country’s momentum must focus our attention on TRAINING. ICT in my language means – I for infrastructure (the necessary connectivity), C for content – (the software or application), T- for training – (provide much needed human resources).
The global potential for outsourcing is in the trillions of dollars. We can capture a significant part of that if we raise and frog-jump our human resource training and educational components. The Philippines will only be number 1 depending on the absorptive capacity of the human resource needed by the growing and growing global BPO industry.
My push at the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry (PCCI) USA Philippine Business Club (PUBC), of which I am the ICT Committee Chair, was also aimed at reaching the US BPO market. 50% of that global outsourcing market comes from the United States. Our Kababayans in the US, whom we know as Filipino Americans (FILAm), are able to offer a steady and ongoing supply of the market as BPO marketing advocates while at home we continue our national BPO training programs to through the educational learning institutions that PCCI/PUBC intends to spread to the grassroots level.
The plan is for PCCI/PUBC to create and establish local ICT chapters for entrepreneurs in the different local chambers of commerce nationwide. My previous advice to local entrepreneurs back then was to invest in back office provisioning, but now we should also include BPO training centers to support the high demand for human resources in the sector.
PCCI/PUBC should already identify BPO champions in local business chambers of commerce across the country and create BPO training centers of excellence. My vision is for BPO to prevail from the national level to the grassroots level.
My energies will be focused on promoting high value BPO services instead of just traditional voice services. Non-voice services are architecture and engineering, finance and accounting, computer aided design, animation, software and wireless application development, and many others. Our ultimate aim and goal is for BPO to become mainstream and a familiar byword in every Filipino household.