BPO giant Alorica opens new office

MANILA, Philippines - Premier business process outsourcing company Alorica recently opened a new office in the Philippines, bringing to five the number of facilities that the company operates in the country.

With customer satisfaction being its core value, the US-based contact center giant believes that manpower leadership is a key point in its success and aims to further build its employee base that is ready to commit to its goals of delivering the best service to customers.

Alorica opened its latest facility at the newly minted Alphaland Southgate Tower in Makati City. It will also be its fifth office in the country after Makati, Ortigas in Pasig City, Eastwood in Quezon City, and another in Lipa, Batangas.

The new office, where Alorica put in approximately $5 million to build, has a 2,500-seat capacity making it Alorica’s largest base in operation in the Philippines to date. The company also intends to use part of its $40 million to $50 million investment for its local expansion.

The opening of the new Makati office was graced by Vice President Jejomar Binay, who lauded Alorica’s investments in the Philippines.

Binay said the government is already keen on building manpower that will fill the needs of local contact center firms, including Alorica.

“It goes without saying that as we work together we make doing business here in the Philippines eminently fruitful. But not only will our common efforts make your business fruitful, it will tremendously boost the Philippine business of improving its global market perception as the preferred outsourcing destination for IT enabled services,” said Binay.

Alorica Inc. chief executive officer Andy Lee said that with the establishment of their newest office, they aim to attract the best industry performers to work for them.

Such people, he believes, are always looking to work for the right company that believes in their skills and also support their growth as professionals.

Lee said Alorica aims to be the leader in best-to-market services by focusing on manpower development, not just on soft skill sets but on professional capability training.

The type of professional build-up programs that Alorica sets for its people are based on the specific industry that they are focusing in.

“We believe in creating opportunity for our people and our customers so they can exceed what they think possible,” Lee said.

Lee added that with their direction toward finding key people with leadership capabilities, the next important component is speed to scale by which the company expands operationally and supply needed voice-related support.

The value of developing employee leadership capabilities is that they would be able to meet the demands of the industry they are servicing. Continuous training will also result in improved service delivery, which in turn leads to higher customer satisfaction.

“We’re looking for the best and brightest people in each of the industries we cover. They should have the right attitude, the right work ethics and are driven to excel. These are the people who are fundamental aspects of our growth,” said Lee.

Alorica Philippines managing director Charmaine Wang said Alorica is tapping into the huge number of college and university graduates per year where they can get potential hires.

She added that the expansion of Alorica in the Philippines also factors in the number of graduates and their potential to expand to other English-speaking markets outside the US.

“We have among the best people in this part of Asia where we can provide English language voice services abroad. This gives us the edge to offer our services to the US market, which in turn, we can leverage on other target destinations,” said Wang.

Wang added that being the best in the outsource services industry would make them an attractive choice for the Philippines’ best contact center professionals. According to her, the best minds attract each other, which results in expanding their network of skilled professionals.

“Being excellent as a company will earn us a reputation and in turn will attract good performers who want to join a winning team,” Wang said.

James Sherin, Alorica Philippines chief operating officer and country manager, said the opening of the new facility will boost their manpower build-up in the next 12 to 24 months as they aim to hit the 10,000-employee mark.

Currently, the company has 3,500 people handling a number of major accounts in broad-spectrum industries, namely finance, telecommunications, media, manufacturing, retail, food and beverage, automotive, and logistics, among others.

The company provides mainly inbound voice-based technical support, frontline customer service, sales order taking, fax, e-mail and Web-based social network collaboration.

Despite increased competition from other contact center providers in the Philippines, Sherin believes that their key strength is on building a network of employees with leadership qualities who also draw people with the same set of capabilities.

“We have massive growth potential and we need more people. We expect to grow by 50 percent in the next several months and this means having to scale our operations,” Sherin said.