Skilled graduates needed to fill BPO seats

Business process outsourcing (BPO) firms that offer high-end services are finding it hard to fill worker requirements, with only one out 10 applicants able to pass the application process, the head of WNS Philippines said.

Keshav R. Murugesh, group chief executive officer of BPO firm WNS Philippines Inc., told reporters in a briefing on Friday the employability rate in the country needs to be improved.

“In our case, we get only one out of 10 applicants,” he said.

Mr. Murugesh said his office has been closely coordinating with the Business Processing Association of the Philippines (BPAP) to conduct training and special courses.

“However, the challenge is to produce skilled graduates who are employable once they apply for the job. It should be that when there are 10 applicants, all 10 get accepted,” he said.

Martin Crisostomo, BPAP executive director for external affairs, told BusinessWorld in a telephone interview yesterday his office has been closely coordinating with BPO companies and the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA) to conduct training for employees.

“Our main problem is the scarcity of funds. The annual budget for talent development programs for BPO workers is just P350 million. We hope the current administration will give the same budget or hopefully higher to support TESDA and BPAP’s projects,” he said.

WNS Philippines has 1,200 employees in the Philippines at its work sites in Cubao and Libis in Quezon City.

“We are expanding our seat capacity by the end of the month. The expansion will have 300 more seats. We have started to recruit for the expansion. Our delivery center in Manila has expanded operations to offer a range of services including finance and accounting and analytics,” Mr. Murugesh said.

He added: “The Philippines was an obvious choice as a delivery center for WNS as it provides us access to a large pool of talent especially voice-based. There are 350,000 college graduates from various universities who graduate every year and 65,000 chartered accountants who pass the board exams.”

The company began operations in the country in 2008. It has offices in Costa Rica, Romania, Sri Lanka, India and United Kingdom. WNS said it has 22,000 employees worldwide.

“We will be spending $20 million for our capital expenditure this year for global operations. A decent part of that amount will go to the Philippines to improve facilities and enhance our talent pool,” Mr. Murugesh said.

He said the company’s clients come from the finance, telecommunications, travel and leisure, retail and shipping industries in Australia, New Zealand, China and Japan. — A. M. P. Dagcutan, BUsinessworld