PLDT subsidiary launches cloud-based contact center

MANILA, Philippines - PLDT Alpha Enterprise, the corporate enterprise arm of dominant carrier Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. (PLDT), has launched its first cloud-based contact center service to ride the boom in the information technology business process outsourcing (IT-BPO) over the next few years.

Juan Victor Hernandez, PLDT first vice president and head of PLDT Alpha Enterprise, said in an interview with reporters that the PLDT Cloud CCaaS (contact center as a service) would take advantage of the projected 49 percent jump in revenues of the IT-BPO industry over the next three years.

Hernandez said industry revenues are projected to grow by 49 percent to $25 billion and employ 1.3 million by 2016 from the projected $16 billion and 750,000 workers by the end of 2013.

In 2012, the BPO industry grew by 22 percent to $13.4 billion from the previous year’s $11 billion, contributing almost 20 percent of the total employment rate with 720,000 workers in 2012.

In the Philippines, the offshoring and outsourcing (O&O) industry through the IT-BPO sector has seen a significant increase through the years as reported by the IT & Business Process Association of the Philippines (IBPAP).

PLDT head for corporate business voice category Fay Ocampo said the service would enable enterprises to easily manage application and software consumption as application licensing charges are on a per-minute or per-use, per-application scheme reducing operational and IT costs of businesses through the PLDT Cloud.

“PLDT CCaas is a pay-per use application, they have the options to make it a per minute or per log agent or for concurrent users,” Ocampo explained.

She said the company is targeting major players in the IT-BPO industry particularly call centers as well as the financial sector especially banks.

Industries that are heavy on their contact center operations are ensured of the security and reliability of PLDT’s fortified network housed in PLDT VITRO data centers.

PLDT leads the country among telco providers with more than 71,000 kilometers of fiber optic network and four landing stations strategically located in the archipelago. It also operates three VITRO Data Centers in the country, including the country’s first ISO 22301:2012 Business Continuity Management System certification from Société Générale de Surveillance (SGS) ensuring customers of world-class business continuity.

Housed in PLDT’s network of world-class data centers VITRO, PLDT Cloud CCaaS provides enterprises’ contact center operations with vital applications including conversational and PCI-compliant interactive voice response (IVR), automatic call distribution (ACD) and reporting and call recording. Also available are remote office, agent performance, and professional services for a seamless integration of back-office applications from multiple platforms.

Virtualized contact centers have seen a boom in the US, prompting enterprises, particularly small seat deployment companies to rely on the cloud in their operations. According to a study by leading market research firm Frost & Sullivan, contact centers in the US have pointed cost reduction as the top challenge in contact center initiatives prompting companies to rely on low upfront investment hosted contact centers.

“PLDT Cloud CCaaS is a highly flexible solution that easily evolves to match the changing contact center needs of enterprises, and seamlessly fit into existing infrastructures,” said PLDT EVP and EICB head Ernesto R. Alberto.”