What Else can you offer? Tholons reminds Phl not to sit on its laurels

CEBU, Philippines - Although the Philippines, specifically Cebu and Manila, consistently hold prominent places in the world's top 100 outsourcing destinations, a Tholons executive warned the country not to be complacent as other cities worldwide are also working hard to climb up the ranks.

"Top locations particularly in the Philippines [Manila and Cebu] should bear in mind that there are serious competitors outside, and they promote themselves far more agressively," said Vikrant Khanna, Tholons principal.

Based on the latest 2014 Tholons report on the Top 100 Outsourcing Destinations in the World, Manila ranked number 2 in the list closely snatching the number one position of Bangalore, India. Cebu on the other hand, is stuck in the 8th ranking.

"Cities [like Cebu and Manila] need to step up. As locations become granular cities need to market more aggressively to their end clients," said Khanna, who spoke at the second day of the Cebu ICT-BPM Conference.

He further forewarned the Philippines that the "ballgame" now being played by international outsourcing investors is not merely to search for cheap talents--but the right supply of talents.

While the Philippines has successfully made its name as one of the best performers in "customer service" related outsourcing, it doesn’t mean the country will consistently hold this niche as other cities in the world are also putting their nerves in attracting this kind of outsourcing investments.

What the Philippines should do to sustain its prominence, or improve its ranking is to constantly develop diverse choices of talent capabilities such as specialty skills, software and product developers, data analysts, technology scientists, among others.

"What investors want to know is what else can you do?," he said explaining that in the Philippines for instance aside from English language profeciency and customer service niches, it has to define other skills in order to get ahead with the competition and improve its ranking.

Diversifying the country's portfolio is very critical in the movement of world's ranking and attractivesness to investors, Khanna said if a city for example has already developed its research and development capabilities, it has to move to luring "wise" BPM.

In next year's ranking, aside from the sensitive issues on availability of right talent, there are two important factors that will largely influence the decision of investors to locate in a destination, these are demographics and socio-economic state.

"The sources of gravity of outsourcing investors are the locations' socio-economic changes and the availabilty of the working-age population," he said.

He suggested that the Philippines should put more "aggression" in what its currently doing in attracting outsourcing investment.

While working to add its portfolio, Philippines should also protect its nice in customer service. Other cities in the world which also recognized outsourcing as their economic growth boosters are also trying to look other pathways for growth.

"You can only protect if you have more values to offer," Khanna stressed.

He added that while the business process outsourcing have grown five times more in the last five years, the focus now of the identified best outsourcing destinations like Cebu and Manila is to grab the tremendous opportunity brought about by the technology analytics and cloud outsourcing and the apps industry which market size is expected to reach US$160 billion by 2016.

 Tholons is a Services Globalization and Investment Advisory firm that combines "Best of Breed" consulting experience with deep execution expertise and investment insights to deliver truly effective services to its clients. Its yesrly report aimed at reflecting the dynamic shifts occurring across regional outsourcing landscapes. (FREEMAN)