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Growing in numbers: Contact centers Philippines

Call center solutions in Philippines are growing at a rapid pace fueling a much needed growth in the country's IT industry. In 2000 contact center Philippines had only three players: e-Telecare, People Support, and Sykes. According to The Philippines Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), in the first quarter of 2004 call centers investments by companies amounted to 92% of new IT investments in the period. The department estimates the call center industry, which is growing at an annual rate of 100% to have 80,000 seats in 2005 up from 40,000 in 2004.The Global research firm International Data Corporation (IDC) estimates that the call center market reached almost $73 billion in 2004, representing a compounded annual growth rate of 24%. The Philippines at present still plays second to India in the global outsourcing industry, but some studies have suggested that the country may capture the top position in outsourcing within five to seven years. Already some of the most reputed companies have established their BPO units in Philippines. Accenture, American Data Exchange, Headstrong, IBM, Hewlett-Packard and SPI Technologies, Chevron-Texaco, Time Warner and Procter & Gamble are just a few multinationals to have outsourced their processes . The growth of rate of the industry has been so great that shortage of skilled workforce is being felt. The hiring rate of various call centers is around 3% to 5% of applicants. Various initiatives have been implemented by private sector, academic institutions and government to check this shortfall. An interesting development has been emergence of call center tutorial classes in various parts of the country to select and train skilled workforce.

Companies are considering outsourcing their call center solutions in Philippines because of the extremely low labor costs prevalent there. The government has shown keen interest in development of the service sector and has announced attractive plans and incentives to attract and sustain new investments. Companies at present are making full use of these investment bonuses, and the Philippines is fast becoming a hot outsourcing destination. The future of the service industry in the country seems bright but depends on many external factors such as future government policies, availability of workforce and global trends of outsourcing customer services.