Can Philippines Defeat Other BPO Global Leaders?
This is the question lingering in the minds of many business professionals, especially those engaged in the latest global business prevalence. In the 2005 neoIT’s Mapping Offshore Markets Update, Philippines exchange places with other countries which had long before engaged in the business process outsourcing industry.
Philippines is included as one of the BPO destinations with the largest industry size in outsourcing in 2004, along with Canada, China, India, Mexico and European countries such as Poland and Ireland. The countries were selected based on the present and future potential sizes of their offshore industry. In the Offshore Attractiveness Index focusing on BPO, the Philippines ranked second, following India. Completing the top ten are Poland, Ireland, Canada, Mexico, Czech Republic, Malaysia, China and Hungary, respectively.
In the BPO Evolution of Offshore Markets providing a perceptible manifestation of the current and the predicted future attractiveness, the country retains its position as the second. The study asserted the the BPO market growth in the country has something to do with its colonial past and strong cultural ties with the US. These result to the country’s high rate of proficiency in the English language, thereby becoming more productive service providers.
On the other hand, though India constitutes a huge skilled labor pool, superior service maturity, strong governmental support and cost competitiveness, it faces future threats resulting from its poor infrastructure and bureaucracy. Canada and European countries encounter problems of high wage rates despite the excellent business environment they have. While China boasts of its cost-competitiveness and large labor pool, it receives criticisms of low service maturity, difficulty in English language and negative perception of geopolitical risk. Meanwhile, Malaysia is also threatened by problems like the unpopularity of BPO jobs.
Mexico is another country growing as a strong competitor but some companioes hesitate to consider it since its workforce specializes only in low-end jobs. Though Russia emerges as another rival, its poor infrastructure and linguistic capabilities in languages like English and Spanish hamper the BPO industry.
Philippines, however, also affronts barriers like the unfavorable geopolitical situation. However, the country is currently undergoing political changes to resolve this issue and developments are presently evident. Still, Philippines takes pride in its good telecom infrastructure, cost competitiveness and excellent English language proficiency. Also, another advantage of the Philippines over all the other competitors is its familiarity with American cultural framework and Spanish language.
At present, India still excels most in the BPO market, but as criticisms arise, it is about to lose its position. What exists today may not be true in the future. Having the second position in the global BPO market, the Philippines has more to offer. Perhaps the answer to the question above is crystal clear. Can Philippines defeat other BPO global leaders? The answer is probably. As they say, the best has yet to come.
Sources:
1. http://www.indobase.com/bpo/competitors-of-india.html
2. http://66.218.69.11/search/Offshore