"The Philippines‚ unique selling proposition is it is the closest to American in Asia. Americans in general find the Filipinos easy to work with compared to other countries in Asia," according to American outsourcing expert Richard Mills, chairman of Chaire Associates Executive Search.
As a previous US colony, much of the Philippines’ social, political, and educational system was patterned after the US. American English was taught to young Filipino students and even the basic form of government was patterned after the American model.
The Philippines’ track record and roster of major international companies with operations in the country likewise left a positive impression to American firms participating in OutsourceWorld New York.
According to Senior Trade Undersecretary Thomas G. Aquino, head of delegation of the US trade mission, "many American companies were surprised to know that a number of Fortune 500 companies are already using the Philippines as outsourcing destination of their non-core functions such as financial and accounting services, human resources, logistics, content management and publisher services."
Some of the well-known American brands with outsourcing projects in the Philippines are American Express, FedEx, Intel, Microsoft, Dell, Kodak, General Motors, MCI, Procter & Gamble, and Verizon among others.
Firms outsource in the Philippines because of the English language capability and competitive IT skills of its people, government support to IT services, and reliable telecom infrastructure.
As more and more US firms focus on core competencies, opportunities abound for niche back office services.
"We saw opportunities in outsourcing application support and maintenance, technical support, business analysis, accounting, HR, insurance processing, bank processing, medical transcription, legal services, animation and other non-core back office processes," added Aquino.
Programa Technologias Informacion of the Fundacion Chile said that the solid English speaking contact center industry presents partnership opportunities with Chile for the Spanish-speaking requirements of Philippine US clients.
The Philippines was represented by 17 BPO companies in OutsourceWorld New York, namely ADEC Solutions, Inc., Advanced Contact Solutions, Inc., Ambergris Solutions, Inc., Berthaphil Business Park, Business Process Outsourcing International, Inc. (BPOi), Comfac Global Group, Diversified Technology Solutions International, Inc. (DTSI), Eximius BPO Services Inc., Exist Software, Pointwest Technologies Corporation, Quisumbing Torres, SENCOR, Teledata Philippines, Inc., Transprocure Corporation and Virtual Assistants. Telco giants Innove Communications and the Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company (PLDT) are supporting the project as sponsors.