Outsourcing News ( BPO & Call Centers )

[CallCenterVet]

For those who would care and understand, it seems like the BPO industry is not as rosy as it seems to be OR not as looking positive as it used to be.

The reason? Accelerating wages and currency appreciation. Seems like the current good trend in the value of the peso and the growth of the indutry itself! As you may well know, the law of supply and demand comes into play here. Less qualified people, the higher salary offers. AT Kearney has a 2007 Global Services Location Index which shows the Philippines dropping sevral places from where it was last year.

For those who are concerned with the call center and outsourcing futures of the Philippines, read on these articles and let me know what you think.:D

http://www.atkearney.com/main.taf?p=5,3,1,160&utm_source=pr&utm_medium=atk

http://www.offshoringtimes.com/Pages/2007/BPO_news1564.html

[CallCenterVet]

The Philippines dropped from #4 behind India, China, Malaysia in 2005 to #8 this year 2007. Overtaken by Thailand, Brazil, Indonesia and Chile.

If you look and study Atkearney's analysis, More than anything else, the reason why we are not looking good is our supply of skilled workers are not keeping up with the demand. Our rating for people supply is STILL static at 1.2. And it has been 2 years! Somebody needs to look at this!!! As for the the countries that overtook us, they have definitely increased significantly. If you look further, since 2005, it seems that the Philippines is the only BPO destination losing ground and not looking good.

For the readers, what can you say? What solutons do you see? :(

[stepehenyan@12]

i heard mas malaki kinikita ng mga call center agents sa singapore compared to philippines. demand? who wants to take calls forever people move in and out hop to another call center. another thing not everybody can qualify to work in a callcenter. In my case i just wanna survive but taking calls isn't something i wanna do in the coming years very stressful indeed. but that's the business trend nowadays take it or leave and work in another country that's life.

[CallCenterVet]

Call centers comprise just a small chuck of what the BPO industry is. The bigger more lucrative segment of BPO nowadays are graphic design, legal and medical outsourcing. I understand what you are saying but what we're talking about here is a much larger picture than what people are usually concerned about.. say surviving in the industry.

Our concern here is how we can keep up with the growth of the industry, how we can address issues that the Phil. BPO's face in order for us to attract more investments, more opportunities for our workforce in short term 2-4 years at least. This is going to be a short world-wide growth in the BPO industry and if we can't keep up... we will be getting less of the cake so to speak.

[stepehenyan@12]

you gotta answer this question the salary that the people in this country are earning from BPO's is it enough for them not to migrate to another country and look for greener pastures. The purchasing power of our peso won't pay an installent to buy a house, get an education for your family if you plan to have one in the near future. as for how to attract investors to invest in this country that will depend on our political stability in this country you have to ask the goverment if they are really concerned about our welfare. After this elections i don't expect any changes.

[CallCenterVet]

you gotta answer this question the salary that the people in this country are earning from BPO's is it enough for them not to migrate to another country and look for greener pastures. The purchasing power of our peso won't pay an installent to buy a house, get an education for your family if you plan to have one in the near future. as for how to attract investors to invest in this country that will depend on our political stability in this country you have to ask the goverment if they are really concerned about our welfare. After this elections i don't expect any changes.

The decision to migrate is similar to getting a job in the BPO's. It's not for everybody. So on that, to each's own. I definitely don't believe you can't have any future with BPO's. BPO's will definitely increase the number of lower-middle class. As for future planning, it is definitely up to each person. A lot of other people before managed to build a house and family, buy a car, put their kids to school even before BPO's came around so I don't see any reason why people in BPO's can't do the same. In fact, they are very poised to do it. It's just a matter of "diskarte sa buhay".

Back on the topic of rising salaries and present outlook rating of the Philippines. If we look at India's status with the BPO's. They have always been the hottest destination because of a few things: Talent supply, Lower-cost of operating, good infrastructure, mature vendors and supportive government policies.

For the first two, I believe we might not be able to catch-up in the forseeable future. Given India's huge population, number of graduates every year and one of the lowest standard of living in the world... Not matter how hard and fast we churn out our own graduates, we will always be behind. It's a fact.

For mature vendors, we have that already in some very established institutions who have been here since 2000.

What we need to do better on is good infrastructure. And I don't mean Makti, Ortigas, Alabang and Eastwood only. With the current trend in the BPO sector world-wide, they have opted to go to tier-2 or even tier-3 cities to establish their offshore business. This means when they come here, some if not most of them will be considering establishing bases outside of metro Manila because rising cost to operate there particularly average wage inflation. So they will look around to Cebu, Davao and other major cities. I believe they a couple have already established in Cebu and 1 in Davao. What we need to offer these BPO's are options in locating. Right now, we don't have good IT infrastruture outside of these locations mentioned. The public and the private sectors must cooperate to establish "IT techo-parks if you will... to at least establish an area similar to North-Cybergate in Alabang outside of Metro Manila particularly areas generally peaceful but not saturated with established BPO's already. Maybe we can develop Palawan or Pampanga or Bacolod.

In supportive government policies, this is going to be a sensitive subject because it deals with salaries. Even with India, they have a ballooning wage inflation problem. Not everybody would agree I'm sure but I really have to say that we need some government policies or laws to control this wage inflation because we will not be able to sustain the BPO's here if we keep this up. Based on the ATkearney reports average wage increase in this industry back in the originating countries is 5% while here in the philippines it is 30%. This means that there will come a time soon that it would not be cost-effective for BPO companies to establish or maintain operations here.