The Philippine contact center industry is looking forward to new investments from two Japanese firms and a Filipino conglomerate this year.
“We’re on track to hitting our figures in 2023. The possible entry of new investments will push forward our vision of hitting the targets in Roadmap 2028,”Contact Center Association of the Philippines president Mickey Ocampo said in a pre-event briefing for the upcoming annual Contact Islands Conference on July 26 to 28, 2023 in Dusit Thani Mactan in Lapu-Lapu City, Cebu.
He said the group met with the first Japanese firm which has existing stakes in diverse industries in the Philippines.
The firm revealed plans to set-up in-house business process operations and create an integrated communications infrastructure to connect its various revenues streams from mining to automotive and food.
The second Japanese firm is eyeing to expand its existing BPO operations from servicing in-house processes to providing outsourcing services to third party clients.
“Both are looking at expanding their footprint in the Philippines. The third firm is a Filipino BPO company, a member of CCAP, looking for acquisition or merger opportunities,” Ocampo said.
A group of Colombian BPO firms under the ProColombia trade mission is also seeking business partnerships with Filipinos wiling to invest in the Colombian BPO industry while India’s National Association of Software and Service Companies is also seeking to collaborate with CCAP on cross-border cooperation.
ProColombia is the trade promotion arm of the Colombian government that brings out non-traditional exports, international tourism and foreign investments to Colombia.
CCAP managing director Rosario Cajucom-Bradbury said apart from hitting targets the the industry is in the thick of preparations to adopt more generative artificial intelligence tools to increase productivity and efficiency of Filipino talents and keep the Philippines abreast with the emerging technologies in voice, non-voice and IT services.
She said the use of Generative AI Assist working alongside agents when handling calls increases their efficiency, productivity, and resolution in handling customer service.
“Thus, the call agent is provided with the opportunity to have more focused active listening and genuine empathy rather than being preoccupied in navigating the system for resolution. Filipinos’ innate trait on service orientation combined with the power of Generative AI enhances the employees experience at work that translates to an even more satisfying customer experience—therefore, helping the Philippines retain being the ‘heart of customer experience’ and at the same time, meeting or even exceeding growth targets,” she said.
CCAP noted that generative AI is actually creating more high-complex jobs and do no render other tasks as obsolete, but instead, it reinforces the need for upskilling and re-skilling of talents.
The country’s contact center sector has set an annual revenue target of $59 billion by 2028, about $49 billion of which is expected from CCAP-member companies.
The sector has posted an actual revenue of $27 billion in 2022, which accounts for 85 percent of total revenue of the IT-BPM industry of $32.5 billion.
The IT-Business Process Management Roadmap, launched in 2022, sets a target of 2.5 million full-time employees, of which 2.3 million is expected to be accounted for by CCAP-members and a 40 percent countryside expansion.
In 2022, the contact center sector employed 1.4 million individuals, 87 percent of the 1.6 million total employment of the local IT-BPM industry.
Ocampo said the impact of generative AI could reflect in the sector’s figures in two to four years.
He said technology was not factored in when the IT-BPM Roadmap was set because it surfaced just about seven months ago although AI has already been widely used across the industry.”
