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Welcome to Inside Outsourcing: The Outsourcing Week in Review
THE WEEK IN REVIEW
The impact of new technologies, and the need for the BPO industry to adapt to their requirements was strong theme in events this week. Google announced it has launched CallJoy, a virtual customer service system for helping small business owners in handling their inbound phone calls. CallJoy is targeting about 30.2 million small business owners in the US. The growth of “anything-as-a-service” (XaaS) cloud models, with their easy scalability, improved cost management, and almost unlimited flexibility, is likely to drastically alter the IT outsourcing landscape, says Andrew McCreath, director of enterprise field development at datacenter company Equinix.
What is also essential, says an MIT Technology Review report is the continuous re-skilling and training of workers in Asia. Coding skills in the country are falling behind demand, says Joey Gurango, founder of the Philippines- based Coders Guild. The Guild is aiming to boost computer programming talent coming out of colleges by partnering with local government units to launch its Computer Science Education Program for Grades 11 and 12 students. It will also offer free training to teachers.
The battle to improve the nation’s broadband also received a boost. A Singaporean company will invest around US$ 2 billion to deploy fiber optic cables in the country in the next ten years, according to the Department of Information and Communications Technology.
Driving these changes, however, will only happen if BPO companies choose to do so, said Wilfredo Sa-a, managing director of the Cebu IT-BPM Organization, speaking at the Transformation Summit held recently in Cebu. Sa-a has also been pushing for a review of the criteria used by Tholons in its annual Top 100 Super Cities rankings, that saw Cebu drop to 12th place in this year’s listing. Joining the debate, is Jonathan de Luzuriaga, president of the Philippine Software Industry Association and National ICT Councils in the Philippines, who has argued that insufficient information provided on the local industry was a major factor for the failure of Cebu and the Philippines to move up from last year’s rankings.
Still, judging by demand for office property in the country, BPO business is still booming. The office market in Metro Manila is estimated to grow by 1 million square meters annually from 2019 to 2021, according to Colliers International. In Cebu, outsourcing and offshore gaming firms are the top occupiers of office space in Cebu, while demand from English-as-a-Second-Language tutorial centers is rising fast, says Colliers. This will be reassuring news for Eton Properties Philippines, which plans to invest about P2 billion (US$38.3 million) in BPO offices of the LT Group Inc’s total P19 billion of planned capital expenditure.
Internationally, HCL Tech has become India’s third-largest services company, overtaking Wipro. The latter is trying to build up its international activities, and is currently seeking to hire bid and account managers to expand its sales team in Australia and the Middle East.
Employment demand is also holding up, with BPO jobs among the most in demand during Iloilo City’s recent Labor Day job fair. Teleperformance Philippines has once again been certified by the Great Place to Work Institute as a ‘Great Place to Work’; making it the first company in the Philippines to receive back-to-back certification for that distinction.
Wednesday, May 15, 2019
NEWS THIS WEEK
13 May 2019
- Metro Manila office market to grow 1 million sq.m. yearly –read article…
- HCL Tech becomes India’s third-largest services company, beating Wipro – read article…
- Cebu seeks separate Tholons ranking criteria – read article…
10 May 2019
- Wipro to expand sales team to win more deals – read article…
- Worker re-skilling is critical in AI age, says report – read article…
- XaaS models changing the future of outsourcing – read article…
9 May 2019
- Coders group urges parents to get kids into programming – read article…
- Singaporean firm to invest USD2bn for fiber optic cables in Philippines – read article…
- Eton Properties to spend PHP2bn for construction of BPO offices – read article…
8 May 2019
- Office space demand from ESL, offshore gaming firms rises –read article…
- Insufficient information may be to blame for Cebu City’s Super Cities ranking drop – read article…
- Teleperformance certified as Great Place to Work – read article…
7 May 2019
- BPO jobs are the most in demand at Iloilo job fair – read article…
- Transformation Summit urges IT-BPM industry to “change by choice” – read article…
- Google launches phone agent for small businesses – read article…
