The Philippines is a country in Southeast Asia with a population of 94 million people. A predominantly Catholic country, the Philippines is the third largest English-speaking country in the world. What is putting the country in the global business map nowadays, however is the fact that the Philippines is currently one of the leading suppliers of outsourcing in the world and ranks up there with perennial leader India.
The Philippines' success in outsourcing may ber attributed to the growing demand for offshore call centers. Since the Philippines has an abundant supply of educated, English-speaking workers, the country became a natural haven for competent call center workers. In fact, the Philippine call center industry comprises 80% of the whole business process outsourcing industry in the country. Indeed, the low cost of labor in the Philippines has made outsourcing to the country a real alternative for first-world companies who aim to cut manpower expenses.
Last year, the Philippines earned a total of $5.7 billion just from call center outsourcing operations. BPO companies have clients coming from the U.S., Europe, and Australia. India, which used to be the number one call center outsourcing supplier in the world, earned $5.5 billion. This signals the fact that the Philippine call center industry has already overtaken India's although the latter continues to be the most dominant outsourcing supplier in the world overall, however.
Aside from call center outsourcing, the Philippines also has a thriving legal and medical transcription outsourcing sector.
Companies involved in medical transcription do mostly medical reports, discharge summaries, operative reports, therapy/rehabilitation notes, chart notes, and hospital and clinic reports using software and equipment from the U.S. Legal transcribers, in turn, often work on transcribing cases and actual court proceedings.
The Philippine business process outsourcing industry now employs 530,000 individuals and makes up about six percent of the country's GDP. Especially now with government support being drummed up, the Philippine outsourcing industry is seen to further grow as it had in the past few years. In fact, to achieve and sustain this growth momentum, the Philippine government has offered certain fiscal and non-fiscal incentives to attract direct foreign investment in the country.
Despite a general slowdown in the global outsourcing scene, from 503 outsourcing contracts posted back in third quarter of 2010 to only 472 in the same quarter this year (according to market advisory and research firm Everest Group), the Philippine outsourcing industry is seen to continue to grow through the years.
The State of Outsourcing in the Philippines