INDIA-HEADQUARTERED business process outsourcing firm WNS (Holdings) Ltd. is expanding its Philippine operations by adding 300 seats and looking at the establishment of new sites.

WNS Global Services group chief executive Keshav Murugesh said the company’s first Philippine site in Cubao was its fastest growing worldwide, expanding from just 200 employees in 2008 to more than 1,000 employees today.

The country’s huge growth potential, bolstered by the abundance of skilled English-speaking talents and strong government support, prompted the firm to further expand its 1,200-strong workforce, he said.

WNS’ second site within Eastwood City in Quezon City will add another 300 to the company’s personnel base.

Over the next six months, WNS Philippines Inc. chief executive Prabhakar Bisen said the company would be “analyzing the parameters” of choosing possible new sites for further expansion.

“We’re looking at three to four cities, some of them part of the Next Wave Cities,” he said, referring to places identified by the Commission on Information and Communications Technology and the Business Processing Association of the Philippines as the most suitable locations for BPO operations.

Murugesh said the Indian firm spent a significant part of its $20-million capital expenditure budget for the year on the new Philippine site. More investments were programmed for future expansions.

He said the Philippines should eventually account for about 10 percent of WNS’ global head count. The company currently has 22,000 employees in sites located in Costa Rica, India, Romania, Sri Lanka and the United Kingdom.

In the Philippines, he said WNS planned to shift from just traditional call center services to higher-value services such as finance and accounting.

To support this growth, however, he said the government should exert more effort to boost the employability of graduates by honing skills other than just the English language.

“Of course, the government should make more English-speaking [workers] available [to the industry]. But we also want to be provided with more employable people, to have access to the right kind of people,” he said.

Bisen added that proper focus should also be given on training people outside Metro Manila.

“We have to train people who are near-hires. We have to develop people’s skills in Metro Manila and have similar programs in smaller cities [in the provinces],” he said.

Right now, he said the company’s hiring rate was around 10 percent. “I think it’s shameful,” Murugesh said. “We should be able to select all 10 candidates who come to us for employment. They should all be qualified. That’s what I mean about employability.”

Source:http://business.inquirer.net/money/topstories/view/20100917-292878/India-based-BPO-expands-RP-operations

Buoyed by the booming business process outsourcing (BPO) industry, President Macapagal-Arroyo’s economic managers are posing this challenge to her successor: beat India.

The next leader should explore the industry’s potential to grow to $100 billion in 2010 with a view of dislodging India from its top perch, the National Economic Development Authority said yesterday.

“If there’s something that the next administration should stress, I’d say it’s the wave of the present. We’re now No. 2 globally. So let’s aim for No. 1,” said Dennis Arroyo, Neda director for national planning and policy.

In her tour of the country’s “cyber corridor” this week, Ms Arroyo said the country’s BPO industry has become a “powerhouse,” challenging India for supremacy in the global BPO industry.

Its revenues skyrocketed from $0.02 billion in 2000 to $7.3 billion in 2009, behind India’s $9 billion for call centers. It now employs 446,000 people, up from 2,400 in 2000, she said.

To propel the local industry to No. 1, Arroyo advised the next administration to expand the “next wave cities” program by investing in digital infrastructure and human development.

“So far, we have BPO and ICT (information and communication technology) all centered mostly in Metro Manila, Cebu and Davao cities. We should expand the progress to other cities in the Calabarzon area, Bulacan area, the Visayas, and Dumaguete, and other cities in Mindnao,” he said.

By next-wave cities, he is referring to the 10 urban centers from Central Luzon to Mindanao that now host 750 BPO and IT companies.

For starters, the next administration should continue wiring public schools to the Internet, and promote the use of WiMAX, which functions like a wi-fi but covers a larger area, Arroyo said.

“There are now more than 5,000 high schools with computer laboratories, while almost 4,000 are connected to the Net. That should continue,” he said.

Arroyo said legislation creating a Department of Information and Communication Technology to oversee the country’s ICT development should be prioritized by the next administration.

“Any President can just dissolve the commission,” he said, referring to the Commission on Information and Communication Technology. “We should have a permanent DICT.”

Arroyo said there’s a huge potential in the BPO industry that could be explored by the next administration.

He pointed to the “huge gap” between the manpower needed and the number of jobs filled. He said for instance that only 220,000 were filled out of the 350,000 jobs available in call centers; 21,000 out of 75,000 in software; 10,000 out of 32,000 in transcription, and 10,000 out of 25,000 in animation.

“There’s still much room for growth,” Arroyo said when asked if the BPO industry has peaked. “By 2011, we’re looking at $13 billion in revenues, and by 2020, $100 billion in a global industry of $500 billion. That’s one-fifth of the market share.

Source:http://globalnation.inquirer.net/cebudailynews/news/view/20100206-251571/RP-eyes-top-BPO-ranking