PLDT unit eyes Aussie BPO market

Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co.-owned outsourcing firm SPi Global Holdings Inc. plans to tap the Australian market to diversify its portfolio of international clients and increase revenue.

SPi Global president and CEO Maulik Parekh said that a growing number of companies in Australia were now exploring the possibility of outsourcing to the Philippines.

“We foresee an expansion in our business now that the Australian market is opening up and companies there are seeing the advantage of entrusting to Filipinos their voice and, soon, their non-voice outsourcing needs,” Parekh said.

SPi’s advantage, Parekh said, was its ability to offer value-added voice and non-voice BPO solutions anchored on its strong operational presence in the Asia-Pacific region.

The company said it had a deep pool of well-trained call center agents in its seven centers in the country.

“They are very well-versed in the verticals that are relevant to Australian companies,” Parekh said.

The company currently specializes in serving clients in the Philippines and the United States.

“What we offer is a complete end-to-end solution that covers clients’ needs for various processes. Companies who outsource are now looking for fewer vendors that can do the whole suite of services they require, and if they find one who can perform all this better, faster and at lesser cost, then the option to outsource becomes compelling,” Parekh said.

The company said many Australian firms were looking at call center services because of the success of Filipinos in this area with the Americans.

Parekh believes that SPi Global is well-poised to meet the outsourcing needs of companies in Australia and their partners. Aside from voice-based customer service products, Parekh said the local industry had also shown potential in several niche services such as content and healthcare BPO, which SPi Global would like to explore.

These include editorial, digitization, database, transaction processing, knowledge process outsourcing, revenue cycle management and coding compliance services.

“Our valuable years of experience in key niche markets enable us to help our clients achieve their business goals. Our heritage as a company and the quality of our performance in the verticals that we serve set us apart,” said Parekh.

Earlier this year, SPi was named “BPO Company of the Year” in the International ICT Awards. It has also bested other foreign BPO companies in Vietnam to win the Sao Khue 2011 Prize for the best BPO service in the BPO services category.