BPO boom continues, 2010 investments total $8.9 billion

The business process outsourcing (BPO) industry boom continued last year as the Business Processing Association of the Philippines (BPAP) and its partner associations, together with the Contact Center Association of the Philippines (CCAP), reported a 26 percent growth in the sector last year with new investments of $8.9 billion.

The industry employed a total of 525,000 skilled workers and professionals by the end of 2010, recording 24 percent employment growth from end-2009.

BPAP chairman Alfredo Ayala cited data showing that the industry not only grew but also diversified.

“We achieved robust growth in all major sectors of the industry: voice-based BPO, non-voice business support and complex services, and information technology. Our contact-center sector grew over 20 percent in 2010, overtaking India and establishing itself as the largest in the world on the back of the Philippines being recognized as the most-preferred destination in the world for these services,” he said.

“The numbers also show that our non-voice BPO sector, including back- and mid-office business support and high-value knowledge process outsourcing (KPO), grew fastest at an impressive rate of 30 percent in 2010. We now employ more than 100,000 professionals in this sub-sector — with many of these BPO employees coming from financial and accounting, legal, and medical sciences backgrounds,” he added.

Data on the relatively smaller outsourcing sectors of IT, such as transcription, animation, and game development, revealed that these sectors have recovered from the global financial crisis as markets in buyer countries placed orders and started implementing stalled contracts in 2010. All sectors, except engineering services outsourcing, reported positive growth figures for employment and revenues. –Ayen Infante, Daily Tribune