Ayala unit eyes healthcare BPO acquisition

LiveIt Ltd., the business process outsourcing arm of Ayala Corp., is mulling entering the healthcare BPO space, to complement its existing portfolio of services.

In an interview with reporters on Tuesday, LiveIt president and chief executive Alfredo Ayala said the company was always looking for new opportunities to expand its business.

“We’re still looking at other acquisitions. We already have voice, advertising and graphics, and legal management. We’re also looking at healthcare because that’s a big BPO area. We have a lot of nurses here, so that’s a great opportunity,” he said on the sidelines of the International Outsourcing Summit.

He said LiveIt had not set any specific budget for future acquisitions. Instead, the company was just exploring opportunities as they come.

Ayala Corp., through LiveIt, has been building its BPO portfolio over the past several years, boosting its presence in key verticals and also in key geographical markets such as North America, India, Eastern Europe, and Latin America.

The Ayalas’ eTelecare Global Solutions combined with Stream Global Services Inc. two years ago to form a BPO service provider focusing mostly on voice services.

LiveIt unit HRMall, a company engaged in human resource management services, bought a majority stake in IQ BackOffice early this year, further beefing up the company’s suite of services in the HR management space.

The Ayala firm also had a majority stake in Integreon, the leading global provider of research, legal and professional business solutions.

The healthcare BPO sector, which LiveIt was eyeing, presented a host of opportunities and would be a good complement to the company’s existing BPO service portfolio, Ayala said.

According to Healthcare Information Management Outsourcing Association of the Philippines president Myla Reyes, as of end-2010, the healthcare BPO sector provided 14,000 jobs, all for frontliners such as medical transcriptionists, agents who answered patient queries over the phone, and the like. Revenues reached $94 million.

With the healthcare BPO sector now in expansion and consolidation mode, she said it had the capacity to absorb at least 86,000 jobs over the next five years, for an industry total of 100,000 employees by end-2016.

By the end of the year, the number of employees in the healthcare BPO sector should reach about 28,000, she said.

In terms of revenue, she said the industry was targeting to corner 6-8 percent of the $3 billion to $4 billion potential market, from US-based clients alone, within five years.