Call Center Industry In The Philippines

Made up of more than 7,000 islands, you would be amazed by the different languages Philippine archipelago embodies. Who would think that the Philippines is the home of the best English speaking custom care agents most ideal for business process outsourcing?

Aside from the fact that Philippines offers lower operational and labor costs, we supply various call centers with agents proficient and competent in the English language. In fact, we also offer agents that are bilingual and multilingual that can handle just about anything from sales, investor relations, customer care, crisis management, and marketing. Customer care agents generally speak English and Spanish. Other languages include Japanese, Chinese and Arabic. These makes agents in the Philippines flexible and reliable when it comes to the matters of call centers.

Statistics will show that as of 2004, Philippines has attracted 20 percent of the total world market share in call center services. It is further forecasted that if things go the way it has been presently going, Philippines could capture almost 50 or 60 percent of the overall English speaking market by the year 2008. Philippines is also one of the top BPO destinations worldwide according to a survey conducted in 2005. Indeed, Philippines is the way to go if you are very serious about expanding your outsourcing business.

Call centers are a very lucrative source of income in the Philippines, contributing at least 12% to the Gross National Product. It also seems that call center jobs are the number option for fresh college graduates. It is estimated also that by 2010 call centers in the Philippines will generate USD 13 billion giving jobs to at least one million or more Filipinos.

In the limelight of the call center industry, the Philippine President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo incorporated in her 2006 State of the Nation Address a plan for interconnecting all call centers across the country. The Philippine Cyberservices Corridor is a vision and plan outlined in her ten point agenda which at the same time comprises the five "super regions". Services include business process outsourcing, medical transcriptionist and other related jobs.

So, where would these be located? Well, according to the outlined plan, the corridor will expand 600 miles starting from the city of Baguio in the north up to the city of Zamboanga in the south. One of the greatest achievements of Philippine Cyberservices Corridor is represented by the establishment of Philippine Silicon Alley located at the heart of Philippine Technology Park. This is a technology park which houses 20 firmware and software outsourcing companies. These companies include: SYSTEMA Computer Solutions Corp., JAVA Research and Development Center, ASTRA and MICOM. Philippine Technology Park provides a network over 60 small and medium software companies which has not stopped expanding since its incorporation.

Dumaguete, Davao and Naga have become the major locations for medical transcriptionists, while the cities of Bacolod City, Iloilo, Cagayan de Oro, Baguio, Angeles, Legaspi, and Tacloban houses several call centers in the country.

Presently, a major center of the corridor is undergoing construction. It is called the Silicon Gulf and will be based in Davao.