Philippines predicts $15B from call centers by 2016

8:57 pm | Tuesday, September 18th, 2012

MANILA, Philippines—The Philippines expects to boost its revenues from call centers to nearly $15 billion by 2016, sustaining its three-year lead over rival India, industry leaders said Tuesday.

The archipelago, which already hosts global giants Accenture, Convergys, IBM, NTT Docomo and Hinduja, is attracting more and more likeminded companies, Contact Center Association of the Philippines head Benedict Hernandez said.

“The reality is we have established ourselves as the pre-eminent brand in call centers,” he told reporters at the sidelines of an industry conference.

The sector passed India in revenue terms in 2009 and in manpower terms in 2010, according to industry figures.

Revenues this year are projected at $8.4 billion with 493,000 people employed, Hernandez said, with turnover expected to rise to $14.7 billion by 2016, employing 862,000 people, he added.

Hernandez said that even the sharp appreciation of the Philippine peso against the Indian rupee in recent months, as well as attractive tax incentives offered by other countries, is not expected to dampen interest.

Philippine call centers were also expanding their market from being predominantly English-speaking to other languages including Spanish, Japanese, German, Mandarin, French, Korean, Bahasa and Thai, he added.

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Tags: Business process outsourcing , call centers , Earnings Forecast , Philippines

http://profile.yahoo.com/AH7MNEFRF4G4ZQ6PA2OE4Z3BEU Verlito

The government must work harder to provide reliable, fast and affordable internet services at the grassroot level. Independent online contracting services has also unlimited potential among Filipino professionals who want extra income.
superpilipinas

If Apple Inc. or Toyota or IBM has call centers all over the world to serve different foreign languages, it will save them a lot of money to just set up fewer if not only one multilingual call center.

We should strive to increase our non-English voice services. We are still too much concentrated on English. Other countries will catch up fast in English and can grab the industry by offering cheaper labor. Vietnam and China can easily do that in a few years.

We should use our leverage now while we are ahead of the competition. The gov’t must help by offering free language courses. It will not only help BPO but also nurses, domestic helpers, and professionals get more opportunities in so much more places.

rickysgreyes

I have worked in international relations for several years, I can assure you that no other Asian country is as fluent in English as we are, with the exception of India. But they have that accent. Maybe Singapor but they are not interested in being call center agents. China and Vietnam are far, far behind.

RomyLitz

The most scary thing being a call center employee is that career path is predominantly ZERO, no ups and down in the table of organization compared to some OFWs where becoming a consultant or project manager is a distinct possibility. If you reach the age of 60 as a caller, you will retire as a caller. Only the owners of call centers will reap the billions of dollars.
superpilipinas

I have been commenting about most of the BPO industry. It is unsustainable. Sooner or later we will have so many uemployed because we are riding on a bubble. A lot of factors can crash our BPO industry.

Just like a lot of people years ago thought nurses will always be in-demand. The projections were so appealing that parents sold their possessions in order to send their child to a nursing school. Government did not do anything about it. But now we have an oversupply of nursing graduates who even ridiculously have to pay hospitals to work and get experience.

Nobody in our government does any risk management when it comes to theses things. We are “milking the BPO cow” but when the cow dies, runs away, or is stolen, we die!

But we are caught in this situation already. I think the only way out is to remove the limits to growth. I believe that while English and cheap pay made us a good source of workforce to other countries, it is also what limits us and what can be used by other countries with cheaper workforce to grab industries dependent on English language.

Therefore, our government must invest in offering free courses in Mandarin, German, French, Arabic, and Spanish. The government should use tax money from BPO. I believe it is not too expensive to setup learning centers and hire foreign language teachers.

Then we can serve as many countries to perpetuate our BPO success and also enable our nurses to work in rich non-English speaking countries. Our tourism industry will get a boost. I believe the return of investment will be huge and might enable us to develop new alternative industries. what can be better than “hitting AT LEAST 3 birds with one stone”!
CmdrAdobo

Petty cash compare to OFW remittance. And remittance is money injected from nothing. Maraming salamat sa inyo mga OFW.

Better than nothing though. Kudos sa mga taga call center.

Francis Vinluan

OFW is caused by failure to create local jobs. BPO is much better in the long run because it can improve the economy more. Think about it, OFW’s have to spend most of their earnings in their host country, only the disposable(excess) goes to their families back home. With BPO the workers have to spend their earnings locally, giving employment to our local farmers, dept store workers, fast food servers, and many more who benefit indirectly from these local workers. Yes OFW’s make more right now, but it’s not good that we keep sending our best and brightest to the rest of the world instead of keeping them. I believe that call centers is just the beginning, there will be more high paying jobs in computer consulting, animation, and other fields that can be off-shored and all we need is to equip ourselves with the necessary skills. Mabuhay Pinoy!

CmdrAdobo

In the long run? I see best and brightest people trapped in a call center job. How many of you are Engineering and Science graduates and work just to answer phone calls?

It’s much better to go trained abroad and send nice money than working in a call center.

Hayek_sa_Maynila

You are correct CmdrAdobo – those who do analysis comparing
BPO revenues with OF remittances are like adding apples with oranges…they are
not the same.

Total OF remittances reported are net dollar earnings whereas BPO revenues are computed in
gross terms…Of the $11Bn revenues, I bet only $5Bn or less is actually net inflows to
the PHL, which means BPO earnings still have a long way before catching up with
remittances…let’s not pin all our hopes on BPOs.

To get to $20Bn net,
BPO industry revenues will have to climb to $40Bn, still a long way to go.

PHP must remain competitive! We will squander all our momentum if we let
USD/PHP drop too drastically.

Philippines predicts $15B from call centers by 2016

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