Call Center Success
Success
It’s midnight in Manila, and the capital is slowly waking up to the start of another working day. At the Worldwide Corporate Center office block, thousands of young Filipinos are crowding into endless open-plan offices. Once seated, they quickly start answering the questions and calming the frustrations of vexed American consumers beginning their own day on the other side of the Pacific Ocean.
These Filipinos are call-center workers. To outsiders it is hardly a glamorous profession, yet — despite the antisocial hours — these men and women have every reason to be as well-motivated and cheerful as they seem. They are well-paid and know that they work at the heart of their country’s most dynamic industry.
The rise of what is known as business-process outsourcing (BPO) in the Philippines has been nothing short of phenomenal. The very first calls weren’t taken until 1997, but today the sector employs 638,000 people and enjoys revenues of $11 billion, about 5 percent of the country’s GDP.
Last year the Philippines even overtook India, long the biggest call-center operator in the world, in “voice-related services.” The country now employs about 400,000 people at call centers, India only 350,000. The Southeast Asian upstart, with a population of 101 million, is unlikely ever to surpass the Indian behemoth of 1.2 billion people across the entire range of outsourcing offerings, which also include all kinds of information-technology services.
Yet, given its extraordinary growth so far, it is hard to ignore the Philippines’ projection that its BPO industry could add another 700,000 jobs by 2016 and generate revenue of $25 billion. At that point the industry would make up a tenth of the country’s GDP.
These Filipinos are call-center workers. To outsiders it is hardly a glamorous profession, yet — despite the antisocial hours — these men and women have every reason to be as well-motivated and cheerful as they seem. They are well-paid and know that they work at the heart of their country’s most dynamic industry.
The rise of what is known as business-process outsourcing (BPO) in the Philippines has been nothing short of phenomenal. The very first calls weren’t taken until 1997, but today the sector employs 638,000 people and enjoys revenues of $11 billion, about 5 percent of the country’s GDP.
Last year the Philippines even overtook India, long the biggest call-center operator in the world, in “voice-related services.” The country now employs about 400,000 people at call centers, India only 350,000. The Southeast Asian upstart, with a population of 101 million, is unlikely ever to surpass the Indian behemoth of 1.2 billion people across the entire range of outsourcing offerings, which also include all kinds of information-technology services.
Yet, given its extraordinary growth so far, it is hard to ignore the Philippines’ projection that its BPO industry could add another 700,000 jobs by 2016 and generate revenue of $25 billion. At that point the industry would make up a tenth of the country’s GDP.