Philippines BPO Ecosystem, Simplified

An Oversimplified View of the Philippines BPO Ecosystem

BPO Expansion

The BPO industry in the Philippines is large, earning $29.5 billion in revenue in 2021 with a 10.6% revenue increase and adding 120,000 new jobs. This includes captive centers dedicated to a single client, but doesn’t include most micro-operations below 100 seats.

Philippines BPO Ecosystem

Like other BPO destinations, the core of the industry lies in large, multi-national players like TaskUs, Teleperformance, TeleTech, and so on. Yet the landscape is populated by several segments of varying influence and interest.

Business Process Outsourcers (offering voice)

Large, multinational BPOs are a definite opportunity as demonstrated by your current client roster, but the sales cycles are long and many of the technology decisions will be made at the headquarters location, and very few multinationals are headquartered in the Philippines. (Straive, formerly SPI Global is the only one that comes to mind.)

Mid-sized, Local Contact Centers

There are several operators with local ownership or foreign ownership that operate from the Philippines. These range from several hundred to a few thousand seats across multiple locations.

Captive Service Delivery Centers

Captive centers support a single company for in-house and/or customer/billing/technical support, recruiting back-office, or lead generation. These range in scale from dozens to hundreds of seats.

Outsourcers

Many companies that outsource as part of their business model have managers dedicated to vendor and program management. These organizations exercise a high degree of control over their programs and may offer an undervalued sales channel.

Service Providers

These service providers include real estate brokers and management companies, IT integrators, physical buildout, and furniture suppliers. Any or all of these can own the client relationship, although Real Estate companies tend to have the most mature professional service teams followed by IT integrators.

Dry Lease/Swing Space Providers

These providers provide temporary real estate for larger companies that want space quickly. Dry Lessors offer seats fully equipped with computer and telco access. Some may provide a dialer or inbound platform, however, most will leave this to their clients to provide.

Consultants

These organizations are usually positioned as impartial consultants (or as call centers), but really broker BPO work into mid- and small-sized centers. Consultants can act as recommenders both to outsourcers and to call centers.

Media, Organizations, Events

These offer the ability to promote and brand. Industry Associations can present a company, but usually at a price: through event sponsorship and in a crowded field of other sponsors. Media placement through intelligent marketing can help with branding.