The Market Monitor Minding the Nation's Business
The local business process outsourcing (BPO) sector will continue to have US companies to remain its largest market even in the next few years, despite the inward-looking policy of United States President Donald Trump.
Contact Center Association of the Philippines (CCAP) Chairman Benedict Hernandez said the local industry is yet to be affected by the “America First” policy of Trump, as the US continued to share largest contact center and BPO demand in the global market.
“Right now, in terms of direct impact to us, we have not really seen any material impact in the way our clients are working with us,” Hernandez said.
He added that 70 percent of the current demand came from North America, with majority of the demand coming from the US. He said America would remain as the country’s top contact center partner due to the robust growth of healthcare demand. Majority of healthcare services that the local contact center served was for the US.
The industry expects the trend to continue in the next six years, but with the share of US in the pie shrinking. “Our expectation is its going be majority North America. That is the largest market in the world and continues to grow. But what we’re saying is, the mix between U.S. will continue to be smaller, but continue to be (in the) majority,” Hernandez said.
He said that, unlike seven years ago, when the market for Philippine contact center was concentrated on the US, the demands were now seen on other parts of the world, including Europe and the Asia-Pacific.
He said the highest growth demand was in the Asia-Pacific, with Australia and New Zealand as the fastest-growing market for Philippine contact centers.
He added that jobs in the industry will remain despite firms employing new technologies and adoption of automation in their business operations. Hernandez said with the digital technology transformation in the industry, those repeatable and rules-based type of work are now being automated.
“Now its automated, I can use my unique human capability of judgment and decision making, and focus my time for the value adding part,” said Hernandez.
“With technology, jobs will be transformed, but the people who will be doing the jobs will be developed,” he stressed, adding that future types of jobs in the industry would be more complex.
CCAP President Joselito Uligan said the industry invested in significant amount on technology and developed the skills of its workforce in order to meet the demand of more complex work in the industry in the coming years.
Currently, 50 percent of jobs in the contact center are basic and simple, while the remaining 50 percent are moderate to complex jobs.
By 2022, CCAP executives project simple jobs to share 25 percent of the total jobs in the industry.
The contact center sector employs over 751,000 people in 2016, with revenues amounting to $15 billion. LUIS LEONCIO