Posted on 06/29/2012 6:48:30 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
IT’S midnight in Manila, and the capital is just waking up to the start of another working day. At the Worldwide Corporate Centre office block, thousands of young Filipinos are crowding into endless open-plan offices. Once seated, they quickly start answering the questions and calming the frustrations of vexed American consumers beginning their own day on the other side of the Pacific Ocean.
These Filipinos are call-centre workers. To outsiders it is hardly a glamorous profession, yet despite the antisocial hours these men and women have every reason to be as well-motivated and cheerful as they seem. They are well paid and know that they work at the heart of their country’s most dynamic industry.
The rise of what is known as business-process outsourcing (BPO) in the Philippines has been nothing short of phenomenal. The very first calls were taken in 1997; today the sector employs 638,000 people and enjoys revenues of $11 billion, about 5% of the country’s GDP. Last year the Philippines even overtook India, long the biggest call-centre operator in the world, in “voice-related services”. The country now employs about 400,000 people at call centres, India only 350,000.
The South-East Asian upstart (population 101m) is unlikely ever to surpass the South Asian behemoth (1.2 billion) across the entire range of outsourcing offerings, which also include all kinds of information-technology services. Yet given the extraordinary growth so far it is hard to gainsay the Philippines’ own projection that its BPO industry could add another 700,000 or so jobs by 2016 and generate revenues of $25 billion. At that point, the industry would make up nearly a tenth of GDP and be bigger in value than the remittances from the 10m Filipinos working overseas.
As in the call-centre business so far, some of these new jobs will come at the expense of India. Yet India’s relationship with the Philippines in back-office work is more complex than the numbers suggest.
The main reason for the success of the Philippine call centres is that workers speak English with a neutral accent and are familiar with American idioms—which is exactly what their American customers want. Of these, many have taken to complaining bitterly about Indian accents (which no amount of “voice neutralisation” coaching seems to have overcome). As a result, the Indian firms themselves have been helping to move jobs to the Philippines by setting up call centres in Manila and other parts of the country. Infosys and Wipro, as well as scores of other Indian firms, now have substantial operations there. And they aren’t drawn to Manila by cheap labour. Wages in the Philippines are slightly higher than in India since the Filipino accent commands a premium.
It also helps that the country has a big pool of well-educated workers. The million or so Filipinos who graduate every year have few other options to choose from, besides emigrating. And working in a call centre is considered a middle-class job (new recruits start at $470 a month).
The big question is whether the Philippine BPO industry, having conquered the call-centre market, can now move up the value chain. To keep growing rapidly—and profitably—it needs to capture some of the more sophisticated back-office jobs, such as those processing insurance claims and conducting due diligence. In these businesses, called knowledge-process outsourcing and legal-process outsourcing, India still rules supreme.
Integreon offers a glimpse of what the future may hold. The firm occupies just a few discreet, very secure offices. It employs 300 people in Manila, 40 of them lawyers who help multinational law firms with litigation. Familiarity with America helps. “It makes it very easy for us to do legal research for American firms,” says Benjamin Romualdez, the firm’s country manager.
This sort of operation is new in Manila, but Mr Romualdez expects that he can find the skilled workers to double his workforce over five years. Western banks have also discovered the Philippines. JPMorgan Chase now has over 25,000 workers on its own payroll in the country, many of whom do much more than answering phones. The Philippines is set to compete with India across the BPO board.
OK that is LOL funny.
“And working in a call centre is considered a middle-class job (new recruits start at $470 a month).”
This is why I’m probably going to retire to the Philippines. Retire young to a place where your money can go a long way, and the beautiful girls will line up to marry ya... where’s the downside?
If I weren’t already married ( to a Japanese woman ) and didn’t own a home in Japan I’d be there !
Many many dittos!
Talking with Philippinos is like talking with other Americans (especially in NYC, where *everyone* has an accent lol), and I’ve figured out why. Philippinos learn English from Americans and Indians learn from the British, which has a big impact on the accents. In addition, the majority of Indians speak too fast, and no amount of pleading will slow them down. When speaking about technical things, I don’t have to explain as much to someone in the Philippines. They seem to think along the same lines as we do.
I still have a hard time understanding Philippinos which I why I use the site’s secure email rather than the phone whenever I have a question I need answering.
“This is why I’m probably going to retire to the Philippines. Retire young to a place where your money can go a long way, and the beautiful girls will line up to marry ya... where’s the downside?”
Speaking as someone who’s married to a Filipino and has lived in the Philippines for 5 years, I can confirm that there is very little downside.
The Philippines is a wonderful country. I do sometimes miss the much greater variety of food in the U.S, and the ants, mosquitoes, flies, and other unknown creatures I’d never seen before do bother me to a certain extent, but overall this is a great country to live in.
Yeah, I’ve thought about the food. I’m not big on seafood, so if I ever do move there, I’d better get used to eating fish. Or, maybe I’ll just open a restaurant and cook whatever I like.
I like the pork dishes (like pork adobo) and mangoes there.
My limited experience, there is a lower level of trust between people there.
actually the Philippines is a great place to retire, although I’d pick an area with lots of expats for a social life, or else marry a Filipino so you become part of an extended family...(Here most of the social life is in families).
Yes, we have typhoons, floods, earthquakes, volcanoes and Dengue fever, but I used to live in Oklahoma, where we had ice storms, severe heat, and had to hide in tornado cellars a couple times a year.
I’d pick Cebu or Cagayan de Oro (actually I have already picked CDO City ,, have houses up the mountain by the airport) ....
I lived in Makati back in the 60’s and loved it. I worked with Philippine architects qnd engineers, designers , construction types....... We (OICCSWPAC, Budocks/NavFac)
Decades later working on projects in Saudi Arabia I found I was working with Philippinos again. They worked for Korean or Japanese or American or Saudi or French contractors in the country and were the core of the company. They know American methods and construction management and codes and ASTM and MIL specs cold. It can be said truthfully that Philippine engineers and construction managers built modern Saudi Arabia.
I worked for several years with one guy and he went home and into the construction business. He got small Buy American Contracts with the US Navy. He came to me to buy stuff and find him vendors...... a complete circle in 25 years.
I find that this is a positive thing concerning call centres based in India—many Tech people in India are tied to this sort of thing and outside of Indian companies who are offering their services to the international market, this practice has been frowned upon in India in local buisness circles for some time.
Lots of local projects are put on hold because the right type of people are not available—shifting this type of buisness to the phillipines is a good compromise.
Hopefully the practice of rellocating most of the call centres if not all to the phillipines will continue.
The benifit of making sure the phillipines is not too heavily tied economically to China is a positive dual development in light of the recent south china sea confrontation.
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