It’s official: PH bests India as No. 1 in BPO

[ccpp]

MANILA, Philippines—After challenging India for the top position for several years, the Philippines is now the world leader in business support functions like shares services and business process outsourcing, according to the latest reports and trends analyses.

In fact, the country overtook India in these categories last year, according to IBM’s latest Global Locations Trend Annual Report, released recently in New York.

India now ranks No. 2, the first time it was not in the leading position for these activities, according to the IBM report, launched in October but made available online last month.

“The Philippines has taken over the lead in the global ranking from India,” the report said.

The IBM report said the Philippines offered a similarly attractive business environment for international business support functions as India. Unlike India’s BPO hot spots, however, labor costs here have not increased as much.

Revenue: $5.7B in 2010

On Thursday, the Contract Center Association of the Philippines said the country had become the call center of the world, with around 350,000 Filipinos working in call centers against India’s 330,000-strong workforce.

Revenues from the country’s call center industry are also expected to reach $5.7 billion this year, higher than India’s $5.5 billion, the CCAP said.

The call center industry, which provides so-called “voice” services like customer support and sales, is part of the BPO industry.

Call centers make up 70 percent of the BPO industry in the Philippines.

Currently, there are 600,000 Filipinos employed in the country’s BPO industry, according to the Business Processing Association of the Philippines.

India is here

In yet another sign of the Philippines’ BPO dominance, Tata Consultancy Services, the information technology services, business solutions and outsourcing arm of India’s giant Tata Group, opened its first BPO center in Southeast Asia at the Bonifacio Global City in Taguig on Thursday.

“We believe that the Philippines has a very high quality of talent that can represent the company before our Asia-Pacific customers and our global customers,” said Vish Iyer, head for the Asia-Pacific region for Tata Consultancy Services.

Iyer also said Tata chose the Philippines because it “wants to be here to see the Philippine BPO industry grow from its current $9 billion [in annual revenues] to the projected $25 billion in 2016.”

The BPO center that Tata Consultancy inaugurated will have 400 seats, and a target of three clients, including Citibank.

Abid Ali Z. Neemuchwala, vice president and global head for business process services and process excellence, said the company expects to more than double this to 1,000 seats and a target of five clients two years from now.

The firm generated revenues of about $6 billion last year.

Support for BPO industry

In November, Senator Miriam Defensor-Santiago said she would file a measure to “jump-start legislative support for the BPO industry, especially its workers” and urged other legislators “to formulate laws supporting this booming sunshine industry.”

According to the International Labor Organization, the BPO industry may be broadly divided into voice services such as call and contact centers, and non-voice or “back office” services, like finance and accounting, data processing and management, and human resource development.

An ILO report released last July noted that Filipino BPO employees were earning 53 percent more than workers of the same age in other industries.

The study pegged the average monthly salary of local BPO employees at P16,928, with men earning 13 percent more than women.

Local BPO employees also work 44.7 hours per week on the average, with overtime work averages of 1.12 hours per week.

Night work

The study also found that 42.6 percent of BPO employees in the country work at night, and that respondents have reported sleep disorders, fatigue, eye strain and body pains.

Following India in IBM’s ranking of BPO leaders were the United States, Poland, China, Britain, Columbia, Costa Rica, Fiji, Ireland, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Hungary, Australia, Egypt, Chile, France, Canada, France, Singapore and the Netherlands.

The IBM report said Sri Lanka was another Asian country that had succeeded in positioning itself as an alternative to India. Reports from Cynthia D. Balana and Lawrence de Guzman, Inquirer Research

It’s official: PH bests India as No. 1 in BPO - INQUIRER.net, Philippine News for Filipinos

Philippine future IT Superpower

 

[Markus]

I have myself worked in the BPO sector for some time.

India is now moving away from low margin BPO to high margin KPO.

Its natural for other countries (Philippines being one of them) to take over.

 

[Enigma]

BPO's are like colleges where you get to learn a lot. Only difference is that you dont have to pay for the training, instead you get paid for learning with incentives. I knew almost nothing about insurance and stuff, its when i joined a bpo which had "aviva" as its client, learnt hell a lot about motor insurance, premium packages, claims and other stuff. Though the work culture is tiresome but its compensated with 2 weekly holidays. And is a very good place for chick hunting :p you can jump from call centres to call centres to learn new processes gain knowledge and get paid and laid at the same time but if youre blacklisted by NASSCOM there the joy ride ends there.

 

[India Rising]

I have myself worked in the BPO sector for some time.

India is now moving away from low margin BPO to high margin KPO.

Its natural for other countries (Philippines being one of them) to take over.

very true....our TCS centre in bangalore is totally converted into KPO.... good sign

 

[AMCA]

Indeed.... Recently TATA Consultancy Services Opens a Branch In Philippines

 

[Jade]

Cost is a very important component in outsourcing business. As the wages in India are growing, the outsourcing business is just moving to that parts of the world where cost are comparatively lower than that of India.

However, the best part in India is that Industry is moving up the value chain. R&D, KPO, Analytics and Financial Research outsourcing are slowly replacing the "voice" outsourcing

 

[vikramaditya AC]

We need to shut down all our Bpo and call centers and emerge as a Leading software maker..
Good to know India's IT power is on it's way
Thank u CCNP for ur post...

 

[Awesome]

Pinoys have forced Indians out of Dubai as well. They are now probably close to beating the Indian majority.

The thing is they are hard workers and easily adopt to English speaking standards that modern societies want as compared to the cheap labor given by India. Pinoys will be a force to reckon with in a decade or two, no doubt about that.

Only problem is as hard as their women work, the men are that much lazy. Its a very different sort of culture where the women support the men. Which is why Indians still are the largest group in Dubai since when it comes to menial labor they need the men.

Of course the other factor is that India's own wages have raised quite a bit and most Indians just don't see the benefit of earning marginally more in Dubai than earning the same amount in India, their home country and the same money can buy a lot more in India than foreign countries.

Similarly it may just not be profitable for companies to outsource into expensive India as compared to other countries.

 

[Dr sim]

its high time. let us move onto something better!

 

[jha]

Pinoys have forced Indians out of Dubai as well. They are now probably close to beating the Indian majority.

The thing is they are hard workers and easily adopt to English speaking standards that modern societies want as compared to the cheap labor given by India. Pinoys will be a force to reckon with in a decade or two, no doubt about that.

Only problem is as hard as their women work, the men are that much lazy. Its a very different sort of culture where the women support the men. Which is why Indians still are the largest group in Dubai since when it comes to menial labor they need the men.

Of course the other factor is that India's own wages have raised quite a bit and most Indians just don't see the benefit of earning marginally more in Dubai than earning the same amount in India, their home country and the same money can buy a lot more in India than foreign countries.

Similarly it may just not be profitable for companies to outsource into expensive India as compared to other countries.

This is the main reason..I myself got an offer from Dubal last month..They were paying twice my salary here...But I didnot go..
The thing is that Salary in India is increasing very fast ..

 

[johnny boy]

obviously whowants low paying bpos anyways.........we are into cloud computing nowadays..............

 

[vikramaditya AC]

Lets dump those BPO call centers jobs..
Let the philliphines have them..
WE have to concentrate on software development..
I hope 5 years down the line..
Americans will be speaking with philliphinos instead of indian.
Yippeee
Thats cool future...

 

[Impasse]

Congratulations to PH... I don't think BPO is a bad deal for any country when it helps employee people at large..

 

[Infinity]

Pinoys have forced Indians out of Dubai as well. They are now probably close to beating the Indian majority.

The thing is they are hard workers and easily adopt to English speaking standards that modern societies want as compared to the cheap labor given by India. Pinoys will be a force to reckon with in a decade or two, no doubt about that.

Only problem is as hard as their women work, the men are that much lazy. Its a very different sort of culture where the women support the men. Which is why Indians still are the largest group in Dubai since when it comes to menial labor they need the men.

Of course the other factor is that India's own wages have raised quite a bit and most Indians just don't see the benefit of earning marginally more in Dubai than earning the same amount in India, their home country and the same money can buy a lot more in India than foreign countries.

Similarly it may just not be profitable for companies to outsource into expensive India as compared to other countries.

You are Writing as if Indians work in Dubai as only Labours.

Nearly 70 % of UAE population are South Indians and they work in all profession, They own, Business, factories, Schools, Gold market etc etc
Arabis know without Malayalis their life line will get broken.

Have you Heard about Lu- Lu Center ( owner Indian )
He to employs Pinoys.

So Pinoys or Pakistanis cannot ever beat Indian population in UAE

 

[KS]

Good to know this.

The Call-Centre mania had done its job of providing employemnt for many people and increasing the wages and hence the standards of living, admirably well. Many moved out of poverty into Lower middle class category.

Now the voice based outsourcing (of selling furniture,cleaning AC duct etc) being replaced by Knowledge Process Outsourcing - a notch high than the BPO on the value chain.

Hope it does a similar kinda thing in the PH also.