BPO firms NCO Group, APAC merge, eye infra investments

MANILA, Philippines—Business process outsourcing firms NCO Group Inc. and APAC Customer Services Inc. have merged under the umbrella of Expert Global Solutions Inc.

(EGS), which plans to increase its presence in the country.

EGS president and country head Rainerio Borja said the company would invest heavily in infrastructure in the next two years.

“We did the merger formally in April. We’ve been doing a lot of the integration ever since,” Borja said in an interview with reporters on Wednesday.

According to Borja, EGS will put up a stand-alone building in Metro Manila that will serve as its new headquarters.

“We want to be in that building by 2014 when some of our leases expire,” he said.

“We’re also looking at other provincial locations. One we are looking at is in Mindanao and the other one is in the north,” Borja added.

At present, EGS has three sites in Quezon City located at ABS-CBN Compound, Mezza Residences and Cyber Park in Araneta Center. It is also present in Muntinlupa City, Leyte, Clark Freeport in Pampanga, Marikina City and Bonifacio Global City in Taguig City.

EGS aims to employ 15,000 by the end of the year, representing a third of the company’s global workforce. The company currently employs 12,000, of which 5,000 came from APAC while the rest from NCO.

Prior to the merger, APAC’s strength was in customer relations management (CRM) while NCO was very strong in accounts receivable management (ARM), Borja said.

“Merging the two companies has the benefit of both so now we become a very strong global player in both the ARM and the CRM,” he said.