BPO sector seen posting $11-B revenues this year

MANILA, Philippines –  Business process outsourcing (BPO) industry players will implement various initiatives, including aggressive marketing of the country’s outsourcing services to more customers in key markets to achieve a revenue growth of 20 percent in 2011.

“That is close to $2 billion additional revenue because we are expecting to end the year with about $9 billion.

That should translate to about 110,000 jobs next year, Oscar Sañez, Philexport trustee for the information technology (IT) services sector,” said in an interview.

Sañez said they will continue promoting the BPO sector in the markets where more investments are expected to come from like the United States, Europe and Australia.

“To do that, we need to partner with government. So hopefully, we get some financial support from the government for promoting the industry,” he stressed.

Sañez said they also intend to improve the recruitment quality through scholarship programs for the near-hires and the implementation of the K+12 program which adds two years to basic education in the country.

“The government should proceed to implement that. We want education reform to be implemented because the quality of our education is declining every year. And it shows why the recruiting rate is very low. Out of 100, less than 10 get hired,” he pointed out.

Apart from these initiatives, Sañez, also the chief executive officer of the Business Processing Association of the Philippines (BPAP), underscored the need for the country to pass important legislation for the BPO sector.

He said these include the proposed law related to data privacy, the upgrade of the Commission on Information and Communications Technology (CICT) to a department level, the cybercrime bill and a few amendments to the Labor Code.

Sañez pointed out that the attainment of more than 20 percent revenue goal in 2011 mainly depends on the implementation of these important initiatives and the passage of key legislation crucial for the sector.

“If the government doesn’t help us with our promotion or with our scholarships or with our legislation agenda or if they remove some of the incentives that we are enjoying right now under PEZA (Philippine Economic Zone Authority) or BOI (Board of Investments), those are some of the risks (to the achievement) of our goal. Because if government doesn’t come and support us, then we will not be able to get the new investments that we need,” he said.