Phl overtakes India as world's BPO leader

MANILA, Philippines – The Philippines has overtaken India as the world’s number one country for shared services and business process outsourcing (BPO), according to IBM’s Global Locations Trend.

This is the first time the Philippines is in the top spot for these activities.

IBM growth markets general manager Bruno Di LeoHe said the Philippines is attractive to international business due to its well-educated workforce, strong work ethic and good language abilities.

“Filipinos are competitive and flexible and productive. That is why we are confident in investing in the future of the Philippines,” he said.

IBM yesterday announced the opening of three new service delivery facilities inside the UP Ayala Techno Hub in Quezon City that will deliver outsourced process services, including human resources, finance and administration, customer relationship management, application management services and shared services (IBM internal) to existing and future clients of IBM’s BPO unit. 

This expansion also further strengthens IBM’s existing service delivery capability in the Philippines which serves over a million client employees across 84 countries.

A mix of BPO services will be delivered to global companies from sectors such as healthcare/ pharmaceutical, consumer goods, technology, entertainment, telecommunication and distribution through these new facilities.

Di Leo emphasized that the company is committed to growth and to the Philippines. IBM operates in eight world-class locations in the business centers of Metro Manila and Metro Cebu and delivers IT and business solutions to leading public and private sector clients throughout the country.

He said the three new global delivery facilities here will further add to IBM Philippines’ ability to deliver business services to both domestic and multi-national clients around the world.

Di Leo also revealed that in the next five years, IBM intends to more than double its employees in the Philippines because the country is a world leader in providing business support functions.

He added that next year, IBM intends to double its business growth in these global delivery centers by building centers of competence with deep industry expertise in business analytics, applications management and helpdesk operations. “We will hire more industry IT architects as well as graduates from top universities,” he noted.

Meanwhile, IBM Philippines country general manager James Velasquez said this expansion demonstrates their continued commitment to the country.

“The Philippines is one of the strategic locations in IBM’s Global Delivery network that integrates capabilities, assets and skills without borders. With abundant resources and globally benchmarked processes and methodologies, IBM will provide solutions to global and domestic clients to help them reach higher operational efficiency in a cost-effective way,” he said.

Meanwhile, IBM Corp. vice president for global process services delivery Peter Lynt explained that global delivery as a concept has evolved from outsourcing primarily for cost benefits to partnering with clients to demonstrate greater value and differentiation.

IBM recently rebranded the BPO business from Managed Business Process Services (MBPS) to Global Process Services. This new organization has been constructed to deliver the benefits and advantages of the breadth IBM as a company (software, research, etc) to its BPO clients, Lynt said.

IBM Global Process Services started in the Philippines in 2004 and has been experiencing dramatic growth ever since, he noted.

Lynt pointed out that the three new IBM buildings are part of IBM’s commitment to extend existing investments in the country and part of the company’s strategy transformation into a Globally Integrated Enterprise - where the workforce is remixef to the locations where IBM finds the skills necessary for today’s highly globalized economy.