Phillippine BPO Trends to Watch Out for This 2017

Business Process Outsourcing undeniably has become a common term in modern business. In the past, BPO was seen primarily as a cost-control strategy with relatively short-term objectives, mostly to meet economic changes or to meet a sudden demand on service. Today, many organizations are looking to their BPO suppliers to provide other value in addition to cost control. According to a survey conducted by Forbes on more than 200 top-level and C-suite executives at $1 billion-plus multinational companies, organizations are now seeing BPO on a newer light on how it can be a medium in achieving other business priorities such as growths plans, expanding, and stabilizing sales. They believe it is very important for their BPO relationships to have added value and that it should go beyond those short-term objective. Nowadays BPOs have also become more strategic in providing value-added services in line with the competition with other BPO provider. BPOs are now helping organization in the free cash flow, market penetration, and customer satisfaction.

It has been predicted in the past that BPO will make a lot of impact especially for English-speaking countries like the Philippines. In 2016, the Philippines have already made a reputation of being the call center of the world. Philippines is now the more preferred location for outsourcing. BPO in the Philippines continues to grow and spread out it roots. BPO companies are even looking at the possibilities of expanding their reach. There are now many offices outside of the National Capital Region. It is expected that it will still continue its steady growth in 2017 and years to come as many companies believe that BPO will still be an option that will support their business model for at least three more years.

Clearly, organizations have changed their perspective on how they look at BPOs nowadays and the demands for outsourcing continue to rise in this swift-paced era. But this still doesn’t guarantee the stability of the industry. With great changes on the international market and from countries that offshore to the Philippines like United Kingdom and USA, we may also experience a lot of changes on the structure of the BPO industry in general. The following are just some of the predicted trend for BPO in the Philippines in the coming years:

1.       BPO revenues will take over OFW remittances.  Jose Mari Mercado, president of the Information Technology-Business Process Association of the Philippines has predicted that with more than one million people working for the business processing outsourcing industry, its contribution to the Philippine economy is seen to overtake the income remittances from overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) in the next two years.

2.       More BPO offices will be constructed outside of Metro Manila. According to the Colliers International Philippines director for research and advisory Julius Guevara on a phone interview with Manila Times, the increasing rental rates on Metro Manila has pushed BPOs to find affordable locations that at the same time will become more accessible to labor. And with the expected talks on Federalism, this might really be a wise move for BPO service providers.

3.       BPO will endure international political movement. BPI Securities president Michael Angelo Oyson in an interview with Inquirer said that the BPO might take a hit on the potential protectionist policies from US with the change on the power but will soon get back on as eventually the political rhetoric will be tempered by the political realities.