Thanks to booming IT-BPO industry Phl fastest growing enterprise telephony market in Asia

MANILA, Philippines - The Philippines is the fastest growing enterprise telephony market in the Asia Pacific region, thanks to a booming information technology – business process outsourcing (IT-BPO) industry, says a recently released report from consultancy firm Frost & Sullivan.

According to a report titled “Asia Pacific Enterprise Telephony Market Q2 2012 Tracker,” the Philippine market grew 7.2 percent in the second quarter and by 24 percent to about $8 million in the first half compared to a year earlier.

“Within the region, the Philippines is the fastest-growing market,” the report says.

“Despite the turbulent global economy leading to reduced telephony spend in general, the $497.9-million Asia-Pacific regional market is expected to grow by almost 6.2 percent or $2 million by end of 2012,” the report adds.

 DTSI Group president and chief executive officer Miguel Garcia cites the impact of the booming IT-BPO sector on the enterprise telephony market in the Philippines. Garcia served as a resource person for the study.

“Growth in telephony in the Philippines reflects the positive spending outlook and the overall thriving economy of the Philippines as well as the impact of the booming IT-BPO industry on telephony,” Garcia says.

 He pointed out that the boost the market received from the IT-BPO industry was particularly significant, especially the contact center sector.

 According to Business Processing Association of the Philippines (BPAP), the call center employee base is estimated to expand 15 percent to 567,000 in 2013 on the back of growth in key domestic verticals, including the banking, financial services, and insurance (BFSI), telecom, travel, and hospitality sectors.

However, the industry still remains to be primarily fueled by the offshore outsourcing market as companies diversify their outsourcing strategy and growing concerns over the high attrition rates in India.

Garcia sees continued growth in telephony and technology spend for the industry.

“Technology is a means to enhance competitiveness not just by increasing efficiency and productivity, but by creating new sources of revenue that drive value creation. Because the principal benefit of technology is the capability to deliver new, innovative services, we believe that we are on the cusp of a new era of technology innovation that includes traditional technologies such as telephony, but much, much more that is driven by cloud and other radically new approaches to leveraging technology,” he adds.

For one, the official anticipates significant shifts in the Philippines’ unified communications (UC) segment of the market.

UC refers to integration of all forms of communication technology, both traditional and emerging.

According to him, growth for such things as real-time video conferencing and collaboration is slowing, but Philippines telcos foresee high adoption for instant messaging (IM) and presence solutions (status indicator of online availability of devices) among enterprises operating in the Philippines and government agencies.

Government and the BFSI sector are seen to lead the adoption of UC solutions.

 “As organizations grow, so does the need for streamlined and integrated resources and communications. UC solutions integrate various applications in one platform and enable real-time collaboration, leading to efficiency and cost-effectiveness,” he says.

The DTSI Group is a member of NTT Communications and is a full-service provider of game-changing technology, advanced communication systems, and state-of-the-art facilities to global Fortune 1000 and mid-sized companies.