BPO looks at PPP to attain 2016 goal

MANILA, Philippines - Key industry players are banking on a much stronger public-private partnership (PPP) and improvement of both the quantity and quality of talent supply to enable the business process outsourcing (BPO) sector achieve $25-billion revenues by 2016.

Raymond Lacdao, industry affairs director of the Business Processing Association of the Philippines (BPAP), noted that an integrated talent development approach is important to meet the total 2016 requirement.

Lacdao said this requires growing the talent base, improving the relevance of education, imparting the employability skills, attracting more graduates and schools to the sector, and up-skilling and retaining experienced staff.     

To implement talent intervention programs successfully, he said concerted action across key effort areas is essential. These include facilitating deep academe/industry partnership through more flexible regulatory environment and advocating for structural changes and funding.     

“(The industry aims to) accelerate scale-up of talent, while sustaining or improving cost competitiveness, regulatory environment, capital availability, and risk perceptions,” he said.

To this end, Lacdao said they would further strengthen government role in creating an enabling environment for information technology-BPO.

Industry players would also encourage greater public and private capital flows to drive-scale and promote entrepreneurship. 

Moreover, Lacdao said industry players would intensify marketing and branding campaign efforts geared to penetrate and grow footprint in new markets like the United Kingdom and the Asia Pacific (APAC) region.

However, he said they would continue protecting and consolidating traditional strongholds in voice-based service, particularly in the United States.

“The industry is showing initial signs of diversification beyond traditional areas of strength,” he said. “As the market grows, its composition is also expected to evolve; BPO, specifically non-voice, will be a key growth area.”

Citing Everest Group’s analysis, Lacdao said industry-specific services like banking, healthcare and media are expected to gain significant share compared to traditional non-voice service, including finance and accounting and human resource.

“For the Philippines, 2016 revenues can vary from $15 billion to $25 billion depending on the strength of industry effort and government support,” he noted.

Lacdao said attaining $25-billion revenues could result in incremental $33-billion export revenue through 2016, giving the Philippines a solid 10-percent global market share. – Philexport News and Features