The Philippine business process outsourcing (BPO) industry is widely praised as one of the saviors of the country’s economy.
It brings in millions of dollars in investments and billions in revenues every year and employs several hundred thousand workers, who in turn support other industries.
Most of this strength has come from call centers, which take advantage of the country’s relatively well-educated middle class and make them answer phone calls during the night from half a world away.
But multinational technology and outsourcing company Accenture says the country should start looking in another direction and take its booming call-center driven BPO industry to the next level.
“We don’t want the world to think that the Philippines is just for voice-based services,” says George Son Keng Po, who heads Accenture’s Delivery Center Network for Technology in the Philippines.
To many Filipinos, Son Keng Po says Accenture is known as a BPO company, and it has earned its spurs in this regard. The company is one of the biggest players in the country’s BPO sector, with over 20,000 workers in several locations in Metro Manila and Metro Cebu.
The problem, however, he says, is that most Filipinos also equate the country’s BPO sector to call centers. Just this year, the Philippines surpassed India as the world’s biggest call center service provider.
More value
But Son Keng Po says Filipinos can deliver more value to multinational clients than just answering phones and dealing with irate callers on the other end of the line.
“I’m not saying this is a bad thing. At least we’re getting recognition for voice services that we deliver,” he says in a recent interview.
The advantage of this world-wide fame, he says, is that many companies are starting to get used to doing business in the Philippines or dealing with Filipino firms.
He says these same foreign companies are starting to ask Filipino BPO providers: “Can you also do this for us?” The “this” being asked, of course, meaning more complicated and higher-value services.
“For Accenture, the answer is ‘yes, we’ve been doing this for a very long time,” Son Keng Po says.
Son Keng Po is Accenture’s longest-serving Filipino employee, having joined the company in the ’80s, just after it set up shop in Makati. Long before it gained fame as in the call-center dominated BPO sector, Accenture has been offering high-value services to clients around the world, Son Keng Po says.
“BPO is not a fair representation of Accenture. We see ourselves as a technology and consulting company. We only entered BPO in 2002,” he says.
Among the tasks that Accenture delivers from out of the Philippines are IT systems integration and application management. The company also offers various platforms and services that provide cost-efficient and innovative services.
This includes enterprise solutions, which allow company employees to access and manage real-time information and transaction processes across an entire organization.
Consulting services
Accenture also boasts of its comprehensive consulting services which give clients insight on areas such as customer relations management, finance and performance management, process and innovation performance, talent and organizational performance and strategy.
Like many in the industry, Son Keng Po says these high-end services should be the way forward for the Philippines, which has a workforce capable of more than taking calls. He says many BPO companies have started to follow Accenture’s lead by bringing in more non-voice jobs to the Philippines.
He says this was a good start to addressing the reputation as a big supplier of dead-end phone operator-type jobs for college-educated folks.
This reputation is no deserved of course, he says, noting that voice and nonvoice alike BPOs offer advancement opportunities for their employees. Of course, his journey through Accenture’s local corporate ladder is testament to this. But the truth and the public’s perception are not always the same thing.
Son Keng Po says challenging jobs offer employees a greater sense of fulfilment, resulting in loyalty and confidence. Also, the pay is better.
“At Accenture, we always ask potential hires if they want to be challenged. Ayaw namin sa mga tamad dito (we don’t hire slackers),” he says. In return for hard work, employees are given generous incentives and promotions.
The company also looks after the well-being of its workers; assigning them to career counselors and frequent training sessions to improve their skills, both in technical and managerial areas.
But changing the public’s view of the BPO sector will only be the first step to ensuring rapid and sustainable growth.
Growing challenge
A growing challenge is the threat of the Philippine talent pool getting thinner and thinner, either as a result of an education system prioritizing unemployable professionals (i.e. nurses) or the exodus of the country’s best talents to pastures made greener by dollar salaries.
“A few years ago, nursing was the hot course. But the job market for that has dried up. Now, people are getting more interested in HRM (hotel and restaurant management) courses,” Son Keng Po says.
“But what we need to impress on young people is that IT is where the jobs are,” he says.
He says the country will need more engineers and technology professionals that companies like Accenture can hire, especially if it wants to compete in an Internet-driven globalized world.
He says the government needs to do its part in encouraging colleges and universities to produce these kinds of graduates to give them the chance to land high-paying jobs, even if they can’t fake a proper American accent.
For its part, Accenture conducts frequent seminars with students and their parents to convince them to pursue careers in the field of IT.
He says the industry needs this steady supply of talent badly, and voice services will not be enough to sustain growth figures over the next decade. “I’d like to think that we’re not the only ones hiring,” he says.
The Philippines dominance in the field of voice may be secured for now. He says the country has this golden opportunity to become a major center for voice and nonvoice outsourcing services, not just in Asia-Pacific, but in the world—a distinction that competitors like China and Vietnam would gladly take if given half a chance.
“We are always left behind by other countries because we grow complacent. But now that we have this leadership position in BPO, we have to maintain it,” Son Keng Po says. “I don’t want to lose it.”