HR Trends on BPO and Shared Services

The Philippines’ largest industries, Business Process Outsourcing and Shared Services, continue to grow year after year, as more BPO organisations set up in various parts of the country. In addition, The Philippines is host to one quarter of all shared services centers across the ASEAN region. As the World Bank projects, the BPO industry will generate 11% of the Philippine GDP by 2020.

Let’s take a look at the trends of the leading industries in the Philippines:

Strong hiring momentum is expected to continue to grow. 1.3M new jobs due to the country’s low cost of living. BPO companies prefer to set up shops not only in Manila but also the key cities in some provincial areas like Cebu and Davao, to name a few and also because the Philippines has an abundant supply of young, educated, English-speaking workforce – world-class service at low cost! Furthermore, work opportunities will also be provided to socioeconomically-challenged people.

Continued rise of revenue in the country. According to World Bank, $55B in revenue by 2020, accounting for 11% of the country’s GDP. BPO industry’s expected revenue for 2017 will be at 28.9B dollars.

Sourcing out solutions, handling higher skill or value-add process and data analytics. Analysing Business Continuity and Risk Management practices to swiftly see how the outsourcing company provides solutions to any problem. Integrating ‘Crowdsourcing’ to help improve client’s processes by tapping into their wisdom in sourcing out solutions. Plus, clients’ or companies are exploring increasing skill requirements of the service provider to verify their ability to handle higher skill process, front and back office work while reducing or eliminating non value added activities.

Managing attrition rates. Data tells us that as many SSCs (Shared Service Centers) suffer from high attrition as from low attrition. HR and recruiters employ different strategies to bring and retain the best talent to their companies.

Robotic Process Automation (RPA). A new technology, “software robots”, which can handle highly repetitive, tedious and clerical tasks in high volume. Though it already exists today, this developing technology is still immature.

Trends on BPO and Shared services may slightly vary annually, but, this leading industry will continue to assist the Philippines’ economy thrive by also providing benefits to other industries – IT, Finance, Real Estate and retail.

Sources: Hodge, B. 2016. The Philippines’ Shared Services Growth Led by Captive SSCs. SSON-Analytics.Retrieved from https://www.sson-analytics.com/blog-entry/philippines%E2%80%99-shared-services-growth-led-captive-sscs