RP has to offer more to attract business process outsourcing

The Philippines will have to show to the world that it has a more to offer in terms of hosting business process outsourcing (BPO), a senior journalist from Hong Kong told a business forum yesterday.

During the first BayanTel CEO forum entitled "Outsourcing Beyond Call Centers, It’s Impact on the Philippines and the Region," Asian Wall Street Journal editor Reginald Chua emphasized that while he is fundamentally optimistic that the Philippines can capture the attention and business of global customers, it must show "regulatory stability, good marketing and gumption."

Latest research shows that about 3.3 million jobs in the US will be offshore by 2015, valued approximately at $136 billion.

The value of information in business is growing. About one-third of US GDP is in information processing or services. "The good news is the stage is open for the Philippines to compete globally. The bad news is the stage is open for the Philippines to compete globally. People (customers) are looking everywhere," Chua said.

The good thing is they are looking at the Philippines. The Philippines is on the map. But it has to compete with everybody else for the global market," he added.

Potential problem areas exist though for the Philippines. These, according to Chua, include regulatory decisions, political stability, Supreme Court decisions on business issues, and the budget deficit (fiscal discipline).

Chua noted that while India has been able to take advantage of available opportunities, this is not a zero-sum game. "There’s plenty of business to go around. It’s not just a matter of cost. Outsourcing has a lot to do with infrastructure support, and because they’re giving up so much of their business processes, they need trust and reliability," he said. He explained that outsourcing or distributed business processes is not just about the business process nor cost savings nor something to boost business performance.

"It’s a dramatic revolution in the way we do things. It took 100 years for people to understand how to use electricity properly. The same thing is happening for business process outsourcing. We are only now, in the last six years or so, beginning to understand how to use it, how to leverage it to make ourselves more efficient, or operate optimally," he said.

According to him, there are basically three characteristics of the environment in which business process outsourcing is taking place. First, people are learning to do things properly/differently, increasing efficiency, optimizing brain power. Second, there’s a wave of prosperity being created by users and providers of outsourcing. And third, the marketplace is global, the service can be located anywhere the customer is comfortable it should be.

The Philippines, Chua noted, has a lot of high-skilled labor that can be offered: Banking, accountancy, doctors, nurses, graphic artists, technical people basic stock research, editorial services. Any process that does need face-to-face contact, or even some that do need face-to-face contact, can be outsourced.

"It’s not all about how much goods you make or sell (physical processes). It’s also about how you get your bills (information process)," he added.