Tags: Outsourcing
By Anna Valmero
PASAY CITY, METRO MANILA – After surpassing India in voice-based outsourcing services, the local business process outsourcing or BPO industry has outlined a strategy to grow its global market share to ten percent by 2016.
The five-pronged strategy will focus on investing to improve skills of near-hire trainees, training more English teachers, establishing industry standards, offering service management degrees and improving domestic marketing for outsourcing jobs, said Alfredo Ayala, chairman of the board for the Business Processing Association of the Philippines or BPA/P.
Improving the supply of qualified workers for the BPO industry is the next step for the Philippines if it wants to capture at least ten percent of the $270-billion global market by 2016, , Ayala said during the International Outsourcing Summit held in Manila.
And the Philippines have to meet the the demand for workers faster as more Asian countries have ventured in the BPO space as well.
According to The Everest Group, Asia accounts for 21 of the 38 new delivery centers established in the second quarter of 2011. Meanwhile, Brazil is already classified a mature location for IT services while Nicaragua and Kenya are both classified as fast-growing emerging markets.
“Competition may be tough, but it opens a world of possibilities as well, especially for Asia. Our focus is on strengthening the country’s IT-BPO sector,” said Raymond Lacdao, BPA/P industry affairs executive director.
Ayala said that BPA/P is proposing an investment of $100 for 100 hours of training of a “near-hire”, an applicant who fell short of qualifications. “If we take the most qualified of the near-hires, there is a 70 percent chance that they will become employable after the training,” he said.
This would answer the “very low” recruitment rate of five percent – only five out of 100 applicants get hired by BPOs.
Key to the first strategy is retaining and encouraging good English teachers to stay instead of going abroad to teach the Chinese or Koreans. “Without teachers, we cannot produce quality graduates who will fill out any industry in the country,” Ayala said.
Ayala welcomed a “Balik Guro” project – or enticing English teachers to return home – which is similar to the “Balik Scientist” program of the Department of Science and Technology. Teachers should be well compensated so they will stay and teach students.
The next two strategies aim to improve the educational system by having a standard exam that would gauge the skills and trainability of students even before they graduate and secondly, by offering a service management degree.
Using a standard skills test, high school students and parents will be notified of the potential jobs that would match a student’s skill set even before entering college and what needs to be improved should they decide to enter the BPO industry, explained Ayala.
Schools will benefit from the system so they could gauge their present curriculum and improve it based on demands of the job market. For employers, this would mean access to a greater talent pool.
A service management degree is seen by BPA/P as a way of helping schools match their skills training to the needs of the industry, particularly in terms of customer service.
“Customer service certification involves a skill that can be applied across industries, be it BPO or the tourism industry,” said Ayala.
The fifth strategy calls on effective marketing on the benefits of working as a BPO agent and to remove the misconception that the industry is only about answering calls. Emphasis on the extensive domains of knowledge process outsourcing – dubbed the next “evolution” of contact services – should also be highlighted, added Ayala.
“Domestic marketing that outsourcing is one of the best career tracks is the most important part of the strategy to attract applicants who will supply the needed labor force in the BPO industry. Aside from fresh graduates, career switchers can also consider a career in BPO.”
A fresh graduate could earn up to P20,000 on his first job in a BPO company, and up to P50,000 in three to five years and as much as P100,000 when they reach mid-level management.
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Medical outsourcing boom in the US favors Filipino nurses, physicians
PH still behind India and China in global outsourcing – report
Scholarship program targets 3 million outsourcing jobs by 2016
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