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THE
organization of contact centers in the country, Contact
Center Association of the Philippines (CCAP), said the
US recession would only affect the industry in the
immediate term and not in the long run.
Ninety
percent of the country’s call-center clients are based
in the US, according to CCAP.
“The
volume of US businesses may go down and they have the
possibility to migrate to offshore operations,”
explained Vic Endaya, president and CEO of Advanced
Contact Solutions, at Wednesday’s opening of CCAP’s
Annual Call Center Conference and Expo at the SMX
Convention Center, SM Mall of Asia Complex in Pasay
City.
The
Philippines remains as having one of the lowest telecoms
costs in any country in the index of A.T. Kearney Global
Services Location in 2007. It was awarded the Best
Offshoring Destination by the UK-based National
Outsourcing Association.
“Filipinos are admirable in terms of performance quality
and human-resources quantity,” added Dave Rizzo,
managing director of Teleperformance. Another issue
faced by the industry is the dynamism of
foreign-exchange fluctuation. Some midscale call-center
companies have shut down while the multinationals “are
pressured on margins.” Many of the companies took the
option of hedging by entering into forward contracts,
while some stuck to what they can control.
Endaya
said, “We are losing P10 to a dollar, and, thus, we
diversify our revenue sources in Canadian dollar, UK
pounds and Australian dollar.”
“This
year’s exchange rate [$1:P44-P45] is better than last
year. But, of course, we minimize the unfavorable impact
on things we can control, like operations and training,”
explained Annie Pineda, president and COO of PacificHub
Corp.
She
added, “By doing so would result in productivity and
cost-efficiency.”
Talent
retention, the industry’s strongest concern being worked
out until today, was also given emphasis during the
press conference.
“The
average stay of a call-center agent is now 22 months
compared with last year’s 18 months,” informed Dan
Reyes, president of Sitel Philippines Corp.
“[Those]
figures are the result of the efforts of the industry to
making employees special, creating an environment that
they would be proud of and be part of, and providing
them amenities they would enjoy,” said Maulik Parekh,
general manager of Teletech.
CCAP is
projecting an additional 50,000 jobs this year and
expects the call-center revenue to grow by $4.35 billion
or account for two-thirds of the BPOs expected year-end
revenue of $6.7 billion. Furthermore, the industry is
eyeing the number of seats and employees at a year-end
growth of 176,000 and 239,000, respectively. |
