The Philippines is now ranked the world’s number two Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) hub, and the country gets to actively present this position of influence to the world at large when it hosts the first ever global outsourcing convention next month.
The Business Processing Association of the Philippines (BPA/P) partners with the Commission on Information and Communications Technology (CICT), Department of Trade and Industry, Board of Investments and TeamAsia to organize the “International Outsourcing Summit: Global Market Leaders Addressing Global Issues” to be held in the country on October 20-21, 2009 at the Sofitel Philippine Plaza Manila.
Slated as delegates to the summit will be senior executives of international outsourcing companies from the US, the UK, India, France, Ireland, Japan, Australia, Canada, Brazil, China, Egypt, Malaysia, the United Arab Emirates, Mexico, South Africa and Singapore, including representatives from industries affiliated with BPO such as telecommunications and IT infrastructure providers. According to BPA/P, the summit will be the perfect venue for discussing “the changing nature of the industry, identify and address challenges to growth, and build global partnerships to capitalize on increasing opportunities.”
Needless to say, this is an important conversation, one that will be led by some of the most significant figures related to outsourcing here and abroad, like Armand Angeli (Director for Outsourcing Business Development, Grant Thornton), Ian Bellord (Principal Consultant, ID Bellord Consultancy), Jonathan Defensor De Luzuriaga (Executive Director – Industry Affairs, BPA/P) and, of course, Oscar Sañez (President and CEO, BPA/P).
The summit is perfectly timed. The industry is shifting in a lot of different directions. For one, developed countries no longer just send offshore non-core functions but are now looking to take advantage of more knowledge-based higher-tier services. Outsourcing companies like Open Access Marketing, Accenture and Sykes have been gearing up for this and offer services such as web content support, information development and technical writing. Having said that, Knowledge Process Outsourcing, or KPO, is set to go bigger still in the next five years. This is something outsourcing companies need to prepare for for them to stay competitive and competent. No room for complacency there which is really a good thing because the existing and looming demands are firing up the BPO industry with such verve and drive to reach for newer heights. The challenge there is building workforces and enabling infrastructure that can handle the educational and technical requirements of KPO.
Another change that will very much affect the industry is the amount of outsourcing Europe has been doing lately. That rapidly increased this year which means that outsourcing destination countries need to shore up on competencies, especially on language capabilities at the same rate that language preferences are set to evolve to include more than just English, Japanese and Spanish.
Yes, it is an exciting time for Philippine BPO and we should be proud of our initiative and the fact that the first International Outsourcing Summit will be Philippine-organized and Philippine-hosted, but with the changes on the global front and after the demands and proposed solutions are mapped out at the summit, the question really that will be posed to us outsourcing destination countries is this:
Are we up for it?