Last November 25, The New York Times published an article which refers to the Philippines as the New Capital of Call Centers. According to the early reports of Everest Group and IBM, the Philippines had beaten India as the world’s largest provider of call center services. But the Times report echoed the article more profoundly with legality. The significance of the said article helps to elevate a great myth about IT-BPO in the Philippines. Some people believe in the myth that the Philippines is a low-cost voice services provider. But the lengthy report had provided information on the high-value, non-voice services being offered by Filipinos. The Times had proclaimed the Philippines as a global leader. Industry executives wasted no time sharing the link to the article with other executives, government officials, and their families. An industry executive had received 19 emails with the link. When companies had read the article, they will no longer consider outsourcing high-value, non-voice services in the Philippines, and Filipinos will not get the job.

The CEO briefings entitled Best in Class: Towards Operational Excellence, organized by the Business Processing Association of the Philippines (BPAP) and Outsource2Philippines was attended by about 100 IT-BPO executives. A Quality Road Map specially made by BPAP and developed by ECC International shows that the Philippines trails Brunei, China, India, Malaysia, and Vietnam in quality certifications. A reasonable question, Can the Philippines emerge as a global outsourcing leader without demonstrating that it adheres to globally accepted best practices? The obvious answer is that the Phils. had so far with India, China, and Vietnam. They mainly provide IT infrastructure and software services to their clients. This means that they lend themselves to best practice certification which also covered accounting, health management, and legal research. Will this case be continued? Although losing competing centers, the Philippine IT-BPO industry currently employ about 20 quality frameworks and standards. Client needs force implementation of quality frameworks and standards all over the world. [via mb.com.ph]