Increasing acceptance of outsourcing appears to have benefited the Philippine BPO industry as client companies focus on cost-saving and productivity-enhancing measures. Clients are also outsourcing more complex processes, increasing the value of services offered by the industry, according to the results of a recent industry forum and a related survey.

BPO executives attending an industry briefing and survey respondents alike are overwhelmingly optimistic in their forecast for the next 12 months. Close to 80% of BPO companies see expansion of between 6% and 80% in their workforce in the next 12 months. “Our previous survey showed a return to optimism in the industry. The current survey shows that sentiment achieving momentum,” said Oscar Sañez, BPA/P CEO.

The range of services offered by the industry has continued to expand beyond process-based services to more complex, judgment-based services, a trend observed in successive quarterly surveys. Back-office; IT, data and software; and knowledge-based processes in finance, medicine, and legal services are among the increasing number of high-value offerings provided by respondents’ companies. In all, respondents’ companies are engaged in delivering services in more than 20 sectors. Read more...

(www.mb.com.ph)

BPAP have discussed the Philippines establishing itself as a major BPO player with delegates in the World Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) Forum held in Jersey City, New Jersey.

The forum served as a venue for delegates to discuss the latest trends, issues, challenges, as well as best practices, in the global outsourcing industry.

The Philippine delegation consisted of representatives from 10 Philippine BPO companies led by BPAP President and Chief Executive Officer Oscar Sañez and former Commission on Information and Communication Technology (CICT) Chairman Ray Anthony Roxas-Chua III.

Sañez and Chua shared to the participants the dramatic growth of the Philippine BPO industry over the past 10 years. Read more...

By Pia Lee-Brago (www.philstar.com)

Eastwood City Cyberpark prides itself as the country’s first information technology (IT) park.

It has a reputation of having been buildings for "business process outsourcing (BPO). The eighth building with a floor area of 34,000 square meters will be competed by the end of the year.

That makes Eastwood City Cyberpark, sitting on a 24.6-hectares area in Libis, Quezon City overlooking the Marikina Valley, the biggest concentration of BPOs in the whole country. After all, the firm, owned by office and condominium developer Megaworld Corp., was specifically designed to be the BPO and IT "capital" of the Philippines.

Among the more prominent locators in Eastwood City Cyberpark are IBM, Dell, Siemens and eTelecare.

The locators are engaged in call center, IT business services, human resource infotech, and animation, among many other activities.

According to Jericho Go, Megaworld’s first vice president for business development, Eastwood City Cyberpark has all the makings of being a BPO capital.

He said the new building "will address the expansion requirements of our locators as well as the office space requirements of new BPOs."

He explained that apart from having all it takes to operate a BPO – wired environment, adequate communications facilities, back-up power and fiber optic cables – the cyberpark also offers BPO officials and employees new residential condominiums for lease. Read more...

By Amado P. Macasaet (www.malaya.com.ph)