DTSI Group offers investment sans large capital outlays

MANILA, Philippines - Some of the largest investors in the Philippines—especially in terms of number of jobs created—have benefited from services enabling them to enter the country and begin operations with very low capital outlay. A company under the DTSI Group, Anthem Solutions, offers investors—in its most comprehensive service offering—a facility such as an IT-BPO or shared services operation that it can literally walk into and operate, according to the group’s founder.

Speaking at the International Outsourcing Summit recently, Miguel Garcia, founder of DTSI Group, told delegates that his firm has helped more than 60 IT-BPO companies and enabled over 200,000 facility seats since it was founded in 1997. Those seats accounted for over 30 percent of all IT-BPO seats in the Philippines at the end of 2010. Clients include some of the most well-known brands in the IT-BPO industry, in companies employing tens of thousands of Filipinos.

The IT-BPO industry is expected to employ approximately 630,000 by the end of 2011, and generate more than P11 billion in revenue, according to the Business Processing Association of the Philippines (BPAP). The Philippines is the acknowledged global leader in voice services for the industry, and a strong number two in what analysts refer to as complex, non-voice services which include legal services other than transcription, medical services, engineering, financial risk analysis, creative services and the like.

Despite investment incentives and strong government support for investors, starting a business in the Philippines can be a complicated process. In its just-released “Ease of Doing Business” report, the International Monetary Fund ranked the Philippines 136 out of 183 countries, a two-point drop from the previous year. In Southeast Asia, the only country the Philippines outperformed was Cambodia. It ranked even lower for ease of starting a business, at 158.

“We take the complexity out of starting a business for investors,” Garcia told summit delegates. “Not just in terms of legal and regulatory processes, but in terms of start-up funding.” Garcia said that his firm will build an investor’s facility to spec, provide telecommunications infrastructure from the backend to the desktop, and furnish the facility. The company will agree to provide this service for as few as 200 seats, but more typically builds and equips facilities with several hundred more.

Anthem Solutions finances turnkey build out of the investors’ facilities, significantly lowering upfront investment risk, according to Garcia. There is a trade-off, however. “We provide an attractive ROI,” Garcia said, “for serious investors. Everything we do and provide is best-of-class globally.

“Our specialty is delivering turnkey build outs. Because clients always want to fasttrack development, we’ve learned to do this very quickly with the high quality global IT-BPO and other multinationals expect,” Garcia said.

Industry executives and analysts suggest that services such as those provided by Anthem Solutions can dramatically facilitate investment into emerging economies that are striving to create jobs because it removes significant hurdles to investment. “Despite the hurdles, the IT-BPO industry has grown incredibly fast in the past decade,” said Garcia, who also co-founded BPAP. “We like to think that we’re a small part of the reason, and are proud to facilitate the creation of jobs for Filipinos.”