Outsourcing - BPO
Philippines Catching up with India in the Outsourcing Industry
TIndia, the dominant player in outsourcing touted as the “back
office of the world,” would soon have to contend with a third-world
rival—the Philippines.
A highly skilled English-speaking labor force. A reliable telecommunications
infrastructure. Low cost of qualified personnel. These are some
significant reasons for choosing India or the Philippines for
outsourcing support.
IT OUTSOURCING IN INDIA
India, a former colony of the British Empire for almost two centuries,
has the second-largest IT talent pool in the world, a result of
its Britain-influenced education system that places great emphasis
on science and mathematics. With 120,000 trained IT professionals
added to the Indian workforce yearly, India is gearing to be an
IT giant in the third world and is ranked as the first choice
of U.S. companies for software outsourcing. According to Nasscomm,
a conglomerate of India-based software and services companies,
Indian companies are software solution provider to more than half
the Fortune 500 companies.
The launch of India’s first private undersea cable has tremendously
improved the international bandwidth situation. In addition, considerable
bandwidth is available with the state-owned Videsh Sanchar Nigam
Limited, partially owned by India’s largest business conglomerate.
The privatization of telecom industry has also resulted in a significant
drop in telecom rates. Observers predict that the entry of newer
industry players will see a further drop in telecom prices. In
the last ten years, telecom costs in India have dropped by 85
percent.
Over the years, India has built a strong brand equity as an attractive
destination for software development and support. India is host
to established IT companies such as IBM, Intel, Microsoft, Oracle,
Cisco, Sun, HP, and Alcatel.
OFFSHORE DESTINATION: PHILIPPINES
But the Philippines—one of the world’s second-largest
English-speaking populations—is fast catching up to India.
With a literacy rate of 94%, the Philippines has a large pool
of information technology professionals and a cost-competitive
telecoms infrastructure. The country ranks third in Knowledge
and Information-based jobs in the 2002 Global Technology Index
research done by the META Group. Three million college graduates
join the workforce each year, providing a tremendous source of
talent.
An American colony for close to 50 years, the Philippines has
a Western-influenced culture, a unique trait that clearly distinguishes
the country from other offshore destinations. Although Asian in
orientation, Filipinos watch American TV and are thus able to
communicate effectively in American English.
PHILIPPINES: CALL CENTER HUB
In recent years, the Philippines has become the offshore destination
of choice for call center outsourcing, specializing in customer
support services. Because of the Filipinos’ high level of
English proficiency and strong customer orientation, many leading
multinationals have used the Philippines as a global center for
customer service. American OnLine, the largest U.S. Internet service
provider, maintains a staff of 600 at its call center in Clark,
Pampanga. Caltex, Procter & Gamble, Barnes and Noble, among
others, have built large-scale service centers in the Philippines.
One very promising industry that has sought outsourcing support
in the Philippines is the medical transcription business. The
Philippines boasts a large talent pool of medical professionals,
including doctors, nurses, and medical technologists. The demand
for medical transcription has risen as U.S. hospitals are now
required by federal regulations to convert medical records into
data format. Seventeen medical transcription companies are now
in operation, employing 1,200 Filipinos.
GIVING INDIA A RUN FOR ITS MONEY
While the Philippines may not be as a huge an offshore provider
of web and software services as India, it holds great promise
in the customer service industry. Although India does charge lower
than the Philippines—for data encoding work, India charges
around $4 (U.S.) versus $10 in the Philippines—more multinationals
are choosing the Philippines because of the high quality of work.
Moreover, Filipinos make good customer service agents not only
because they are fluent in American English but also because of
their helpful and friendly nature.
More companies are choosing the Philippines for offshore support.
Among the services offered in Philippine-based outsourcing companies
are copyediting and indexing; web design and maintenance; data
conversion, data warehousing, data capture and data entry; OCR
and scanning services; proofreading; encoding and keyboarding;
imaging services and graphics design; call center and customer
service; abstracting and document conversion; typesetting; and
tagging, among others.
About The Author
Winston Pepito is the President of Phil-Am Outsourcing Solutions,
Inc. (one of most successful outsourcing companies in Asia) based
in Cebu City, Philippines. More details about his company can
be found at http://www.outsourcing-services.net
winston@outsourcing-services.net
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/
|
