ECCP leads trade mission to Spain for BPO tie-ups

The European Chamber of Commerce of the Philippines (ECCP) led a five-day trade mission to Spain in an attempt to forge business process outsourcing (BPO) partnerships between Filipino and Spanish companies.

"We are following through on what we started last year when we pooled together 16 companies to train and develop an integrated capability in European management systems.  We are now looking at business potentials for them," ECCP executive vice president Henry Schumacher said in a statement.

According to Schumacher, the objective of the mission is to give the local participants a glimpse of how the Spanish companies work as well as explore potential partnerships with companies that conform to European Foundation for Quality Management excellence model.

"We maintain the BPO as one of the sunshine industries in the country and that it is competitive enough to provide Europe’s outsourcing needs," Schumacher said.

The project, dubbed as Mission Urdaneta was participated by five Philippine BPOs under the Common Quality Language (CQL) project consortium of the ECCP. These are BlastAsia, Leverage Systems Technologies, Navigator Systems, Pointwest Technologies, and Radix Systems Services.

The mission was funded by the European Commission and the Association of Industries for Electronic and Information Technologies (GAIA) of Spain.

The companies have targeted Spain as part of their global clientele and have received Capability Maturity Model Integration, International Standards Organization, or Microsoft certified partners certifications.

While in Spain, the companies took part in a roundtable discussion in Barcelona with their counterparts in Casa Asia — a non-profit organization that aims to increase and improve cultural and business relations between Spain and Asia.

As the companies traveled to San Sebastian, they were introduced to GAIA members during a standardization seminar.  Meetings were also held with telecommunication companies Igarle, Nextel, and Ikusi for possible business partnerships.

The country’s BPO industry is expected to hit $12 billion in 2010 after it reached $3.63 billion last year.