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Philippine Call Centers Attracting Global Interest
A survey recently conducted by Columbia University indicated that after India, the Philippines have been the “second largest recipient of outsourcing, capturing almost 30 percent of the market.” While another study done by an independent group in 2004 stated that the Philippines ranked sixth in the offshore location attractiveness index and the fourth choice location in Asia after India, China and Malaysia.
All these indicators suggest that the call center industry is the fastest-growing business in the Philippines accounting for thousands of new employment generated which, in turn, considerably helping the economy and thus being named as one of the sunshine industries in the country. In fact, call centers in the country are not concentrated only in the business and financial districts but are also present in the provinces. And because of the high demand for manpower, representatives from Cyber City Teleservices Ltd, the largest call center in the country, is looking to as far as Zamboanga City to recruit call center agents to fill up the many available positions the company offers. Although it should be noted that these foreign companies are resulting to outsourcing mainly to cut costs and boost shareholder returns.
There are currently more than 50 call centers in the country and judging from the worldwide trend of outsourcing, many more are projected to set up operations here in the near future. The Philippines can very well capitalize on this opportunity because of the Filipinos’ English-proficiency advantage against its Asian neighbors.
Outsourcing in General
Outsourcing is the execution of an entire business function by a third party service provider. It involves the transfer of a significant amount of management control to a supplier and it always involves a considerable degree of two-way information exchange, coordination and trust. Plainly, outsourcing is the most popular practice of local and foreign companies who want to reduce costs while still providing excellent customer service. It must be noted that outsourcing is different from offshore outsourcing and offshoring. Outsourcing potentially enables businesses to reduce costs and concentrate on core competencies while transferring noncore business processes, thereby providing more effective goods and services elsewhere.
Business functions that are usually outsourced include information technology, human resources, facilities and real estate management and accounting. Several companies also outsource customer support and call center functions, manufacturing and engineering.
Outsourcing has been around for decades. In recent years, it has been estimated to be a trillion global industry. But with the growth of this industry, critics have raised several issues, among them the loss of confidentiality, poor quality of service and most significantly, the loss of employment for those people whose job falls under the outsourcing category. This is because overhead costs of customer service are less where outsourcing has been used.
In current years, outsourcing has sparked debates from those in favor and to those opposed. Critics point to poor quality of service and technical support, and more importantly, they argue that outsourcing threatens the livelihood of domestic workers. Advocates, on the other hand, counter that companies who utilize outsourcing use the savings for investment and larger domestic payrolls. Evidently, outsourcing has its pros and cons, and ultimately it is up to the companies to consider which is best suited for their companies.
About the Author: Global Sky is a US owned and operated call center based in the Philippines offering US Quality at Offshore Rates. Find out more about Philippines call centers and call center outsourcing. Also check out our call center services.
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