Non-voice BPOs gaining ground in the Philippines

CEBU, Philippines - While the Business Processing Association of the Philippines (BPAP) expressed optimism on the non-voice information technology-business process outsourcing (IT-BPO) in the country, Cebu enjoys the same upbeat performance from investors from the industry.

Cebu Investment Promotions Center Managing Director Joel Mari Yu said that there is a huge potential projected for the province and the country from the Knowledge Process Outsourcing (KPO) industry.

To date, he noted that from the 100 BPO companies in Cebu, around 50-70 are from the non-voice IT-BPO.

Among these companies, Accenture is the biggest KPO company with more than 25,000 professionals in Cebu and Metro Manila.  

He cited that large companies such as Convergys and Aegis People Support had also expanded their services to KPO accounts.

“We’re happy with that. It’s value-added. Higher ang value chain, higher pa ang compensation. We have a lot of college graduates who may not have the voice skills but are good in financing, accounting and technology. It has already been growing two years ago and we see a bigger potential,” he told The Freeman.

He added that there is rapid development observed in such field in the past two years and further growth in the next years to come.

Aside from the proficiency skills, he said that Cebu has greater advantage than Manila since the former is not subject to bad weather than the latter.

Once a typhoon hits Manila, Yu said that call center clients are unhappy and international customers keep on complaining since employees who are affected by the storm could not report on duty due to flood.

He noted that employee working for a KPO account earns an average initial income closer to P20,000 every month which is considered higher than the P14,000 earned by an agent from a voice BPO company.

In recent reports, BPAP is bullish about the prospects of the non-voice IT-BPO segment in the Philippines as revenues surged 26 percent in 2011.

It also showed that the non-voice sector increased to an estimated 30% along with the IT-BPO industry growth of 24% last year.

In a statement, BPAP Senior Executive Director Gillian Virata said that such expansion was driven by strong service delivery in the financial services, insurance, human resources, logistics, engineering, software, media, health care, IT and legal industries.

The non-voice sector has generated 33% of $11 billion in country’s IT-BPO revenues last year which includes medical transcription, animation services, banking, transportation, manufacturing, pharmaceutical and retail.  (FREEMAN)