South-East Asia Destination

By: Roberto L. Bacasong

How can we say that the Philippine outsourcing is ideal in the world? There are so many reasons why the Philippines is considered. This industry is truly amazing because the way it helps the Filipino workers in terms of contribution to the large scale of development for the country. Working in a call center in the Philippines is worthy enough in helping the Filipino families boost up their morale and the level of their competence in terms of adopting English language.

Beyond expectation, contact center is widely known today in the Philippines. It is a word of mouth which now became a common trend setting for yuppie Filipinos strongly agreeing that there's better future on working in call center. For instance, once they have graduated from their respective bachelor's degree thousands of them employed easily to different world class contact centers in the country. It is with great knowledge that call center companies offer great package such as salary scheme and benefits which attract Filipinos workers grabbing the opportunity with no doubt. Despite the high attrition rate in this industry, looking for staffing and manpower services have never been a problem to the call center locators in the Philippines. Most of them, received volumes of applicants everyday in which the shortlisted applicants were thoroughly screened upon reaching the job offer. The ratio goes this way, only three out of ten successful applicants qualified were mployed in the call center arena. But this does not mean that the level of competency is affected, this only reflect how the human resources team of hundreds of call center companies in the Philippines doing stiff hiring process to fill in their vacant position.

Outsourcing in the Philippines is very ideal in the world, as what most commented by some international call center owners published nationally and internationally in different medium especially in the newspapers. In Asia, along with the Philippines that is known for outsourcing are India, China, Thailand, among others. With strong command in English is a great advantage among other competitors. The country has huge number of graduates from reputable colleges and universities which is also a factor to consider.

In a research entitled: "Outsourcing to the Philippines: Metro Manila and Beyond" by neoIT highlighted some economic activity which contributed by this industry. The report noted that Metro Manila is considered as the most popular destination for outsourcing. This is because that Manila has a large skilled resource based that assures smooth operation scale-ups. The city houses 81 institutions of higher education and 1,600 other schools, boast a literacy rate of 92.4, and is home to institutions such as the Asian Institute of Management (AIM), Ateneo de Manila, De La Salle University, the University of the Philippines and the University of Santo Tomas. But not only this, the research further showed that not only Manila is the focus of call centers, it is also incubating other provinces such as Pampanga, Bacolod, Iloilo, Dumaguete, Cebu, Davao and Cagayan de Oro. It further revealed that as an offshore outsourcing enters its next phase of evolution, the competitiveness of offshore nations will rest on their ability to develop multiple centers of excellence within their boarders - centers that satisfy the skill requirements, delivery capabilities,and risk appetite of outsourcing organizations.

Outsourcing continue to gather crowd of interest in the country. It opened opportunities to the Filipinos and combat the war against unemployment which is one of the major problems of the Philippine Government. The increasing demand in this industry has been given attention by the national government in order to attract other investors to stay in the country. It is no doubt that truly the Philippines is not only the land for its bountiful rich in tourism but also the home for the growing outsourcing industry.

Roberto L. Bacasong, 27, works as company writer for Call Center Philippines Unique
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