New markets for BPO firms named

MANILA – As the global economic crisis forced most companies to cut down on costs by moving their businesses offshore, the country’s business process outsourcing (BPO) sector is looking at new areas for expansion.

According to Business Processing Association of the Philippines (BPAP) chairman Alfredo Ayala, the industry is currently targeting law firms, newspaper companies, consulting firms, and financial service companies that have opted to outsource their non-core businesses to lower their expenses.

“The global recession has created a more pronounced change in mindset as you would otherwise anticipate. We’re targeting those companies that have changed their mindsets (in operations),” Ayala, who is also the who is also president and CEO of the Ayala group’s BPO unit, LiveIt Solutions, said at the International Outsourcing Summit on Tuesday.

At present, Ayala said some consulting firms tend to focus on high-end work, leaving other responsibilities to BPOs. On the other hand, he said a number of law firms abroad are now beginning to outsource legal secretaries and researchers to reduce costs.

This may be the reason why leading data provider Thomson Reuters announced plans to put up a facility in the Philippines for its legal content business.

Company executives earlier said that the type of work planned for the facility in McKinley Hill would involve analyzing, coding, proofreading, editing, merging, rendering, and validating data.

Specifically, Thomson Reuters Legal Vice President for Litigation Content Center Tom Leighton earlier said some basic tasks include document receipt, copy preparation, conversion of source documents, application of coding to documents, and data load support.

Since the start of the year, a number of BPO firms have expanded their operations in the Philippines amid the economic crunch. This has greatly benefitted the country as the BPO industry served as the sponge for the surplus of graduates that other sectors could no longer absorb.

According to Dr. Ganesh Natarajan, vice chairman and chief executive officer of Zensar Technologies, now is a good time for the Philippines to step up in the global BPO sector.

“This is a big opportunity for the Philippines to come up,” he said.

Still, Natarajan stressed that companies should always rebalance their services to mitigate risks caused by the ongoing economic crisis.

“Watch out for opportunities. Always identify areas to expand. Rebalance existing portfolios and new services,” he said. –Karen Flores, abs-cbnNEWS.com