It was an early Christmas present for call centers in the Philippines to have recognized as the world leader in the business process outsourcing (BPO) industry.
This title of being a BPO top leader has been a battle for many years and now that the Philippines won it, the new challenge is how to stay on top. To maintain the recently-attained global leadership, the country must sharpen its strengths and eliminate its weaknesses. According to the report, the two largest challenges that the industry faces ahead are: maintaining the talent pool supply; and increasing the visibility of the country as an outsourcing leader. It was also noted that as early as a year from now, there is a very high demand of talent but not enough supply of qualified workers. The Philippines graduates nearly half-a-million students from college yearly, but because of non-relevant background and training, less than 10 percent of them have the necessary skills to join the Philippines business process outsourcing industry. With this, education is still the issue that the government must focus on. The major concern is that if these types of jobs in the country are not filled by well trained and educated personnel, the country would lose its momentum in achieving a knowledge-based sector of the economy, creating a void in domestic growth. The Philippines educational system has to adjust to modern technology and the challenges of the new century. It has always been said that the youth is the hope of the country. Now is the time to act and to give this youth the tools they need to be able to maintain a high level of competitiveness in the global arena, by providing them quality education.