Philippines overtakes India as leading BPO country

The Philippines has finally won over India after years of fierce rivalry for the top business process outsourcing (BPO) spot globally. The country now leads the world in business support functions which include shares services apart from BPO. The Philippines was in fact able to outdo India the previous year, as reported by IBM’s most recent Global Locations Trend Annual Report published in New York City. As a result, India is now ranked 2^nd in the world, its first time ever to be second to another country in terms business support functions.

IBM further reported that the Philippines offers extremely fruitful business opportunities and environments that is at par with India. One of its advantages however is the freeze on labor costs as opposed to India’s most well-known BPO regions. The Philippines’ Contract Center Association also reports that the country is now the global call center, having as many as more than a third of a million natives employed as call center agents. India, meanwhile, has roughly 330,000 call center employees to date.

The CCAP adds that revenues from the Philippines’ call center industry is forecasted to peak at around US$5.7 billion by the end of 2010, which is clearly higher than the target set by India which is pegged at around US$5.5 billion. Almost 70 percent of the entire Philippines BPO industry consists of call centers located all throughout the heart of its capital, Metro Manila, providing voice services which include customer support and sales, as well as technical support for products.