The Philippine BPM Outlook in the Next 6 Years

The year of 2016 is about to end with the entrance of the last quarter of the year in the next few weeks. By 2017, the Philippines’ BPO/IT space would have been in existence for 20 years. In that 20 years – a couple of highlights have happened:

1. The Philippines has overtaken India as the premier choice and location for voice services;
2. The population of BPO has grown to 1.2M population covering several verticals of the BPO/IT space – from call centers, shared services/ captive market in banking, healthcare, insurance, energy, transportation, even animation;
3. Revenues totaling $25B making the industry one of the top producing industries for the country;
4. Out of the 1.2M jobs created, an incremental 3M jobs businesses created a ripple effect of the income and opportunities. This has paved the way for credit rating agencies to maintain the stable outlook for the Philippines. 

Not to pre-empt the 2022 Roadmap of the IBPAP plans, the BPO / Outsourcing outlook will continue to flourish and grow in the next 6 years. IBPAP projects to grow by another 1 million in the said period.  We foresee the growth to be still in the contact center arena as more companies and regions continue to look at the Philippines as a top alternative for their voice work. Over the last 2 decades, the call center industry comprised at least 64% of the total revenue and headcount, followed by the back office at 17%, healthcare and IT outsourcing comprising at least 8% each.

Call centers will continue to be in the 60-65% as hiring is still in demand for most of these centers. Not only are they hiring for new business that these outsources have gotten, but they continue to backfill for their requirements as we are still seeing double-digit attrition averages across the industry.

We foresee the back office to grow by at least 25% over the next 6 years for a couple of reasons:

• Advent of multi-channel solutions as options for customers of players (from chat, mobile app, analytics, finance, HR, online marketing / digital social media customer service support services. This is very doable for most ramps with the locators here as they can have options for candidates that will not pass English proficiency assessments.

• Most companies will also adapt this changes as companies continue to drive their products in mobile apps and web services. For companies that usually average 10-12% hiring for voice work, they can tap an additional 10% of those to consider for their non-voice channels and back office fulfillment work.

Healthcare and IT outsourcing we will also see double-digit increases by as much as 13-15% by the end of 2022. Following the developments in US /offshore healthcare and insurance will push companies to do labor arbitrage to continue lower their healthcare /insurance cost per claims. In the insurance industry, catastrophe modeling analytics, and effects of global warming will also drive the claims / cost hence it will encourage heavy consideration to outsource back-office work. Start up companies will also consider outsourcing some tier 1 level work from an IT standpoint as there will be a drive from them to lower costs and expand and focus more on developing their products.

The enablers to the 2022 roadmap – We believe that the  enablers for us to achieve the outlook will still be the same. Scalability of talent, cost competitiveness, infrastructure, govt support -public private partnership need to continue if we expect the industry to grow to 1 million. With the roadmap being created on a 6 year plan- this also aligns with the tenure of the country’s President – whose term also ends on 2022. A lot of leaders and businessmen are very optimistic about the continued growth of the country.  The new president brings a couple of “changes” that will continue to help support and drive this growth. They are as follows:

1. Lower taxes on business and personal income – this means more incentives for companies to open shop here, attract and retain the right people for their organization. Ripple effects include more disposable income and thus boost consumer spending
2. Better peace and order – immediate impact is being seen since the start of the administration. This translates to a better pool of talents considering working nights or midshifts. More businesses will expand outside Manila generating more opportunities and business for locators and players. This will help further develop companies’ Business Continuity Plans (BCP), minimize attrition, etc.
3. Charter change – reforms on the constitution will further improve red tapes and government efficiencies in enabling and attracting more long term businesses. This includes factories and tourism ventures which once they enter the market, would consider setting up their shared services. This is a practice currenly employed by prominent companies in the likes of Johnson & Johnson, P&G and Unilever.
4. Infrastructure spending – the new administration plans to spend at least 6-7% of country’ GDP within the 6 year tenure. This translates to better infrastructure like telecommunications, connectivity, roads, and airports. The impact of which will enable BPO players that have huge population (more than 5,000) employees to other locations outside Manila – enabling them more continuity and flexibility from a growth standpoint.
5. Enhanced Diplomacy Reforms – The administration continues to extend its arm of diplomacy, truce, and peace processes including disputed relations with China. This improved relations can further bolster more business and partnership not only with China but with other ASEAN regions. Most of our Asia/ASEAN counterparts would require either English customer service voice support or US/ International standards in finance and accounting, which the Philippines has a huge pool talent to tap.

What We Do

Teledevelopment has always been at the forefront of these developments. We continue to help support start-up companies and assisting them with key strategic decisions on How, When, Where to start and who to talk to. We have assisted on this year alone, 4 start up companies on their growth plans in the country – providing them with market study landscape, comp and ben industry benchmarking and HR support services including the recruitment of their initial leaders and staff. TDS also provides Medical coding training to support the growing requirements of our clients in the healthcare space.

Our highly-experienced consulting group has a proven track record assisting small and large companies to achieve their business objectives - from start-up to steady state and everything in between, across all business function.

Email us at marketing@teledevelopment.com

Original source: The Philippine BPM Outlooks in the Next 6 Years