Reading the Indian mainstream news yesterday about India Inc.’s strategy to expand operations in Eastern Europe and hire multilinguals to serve the European finance and accounting sector does not surprise me anymore. In my April article, I talked about how Europe is becoming more comfortable with outsourcing not just to its neighboring countries but also to Asia particularly to the Philippines. The following month, I wrote an article on Philippine Outsourcing re-focusing its efforts to the European market instead in anticipation of US political and trade condition changes.

Today, the Business Process Association of the Philippines (BPAP) asked for the government’s support to promote the country as an offshore destination. According to BPAP president Oscar Sanez “This year will be a busy year for us in terms of attracting new investors.”

The U.S. financial environment still appears to be bleak especially with more sectors coming out in need of bailout. From the banking sector, the world has now witnessed it spread to other industries. Those remaining companies which are merely surviving or will be receiving government aid will naturally restructure themselves to be leaner by selling off their non-core businesses, shutting down non-profitable divisions or transferring operations elsewhere to lower costs. The latter is seen as a good business opportunity for the Philippines to boost its outsourcing industry.

Despite pessimism in the global financial market, the Philippines is still set to have a double digit growth at a projected rate of 25.6% , previously at 31.2% by 2010 said XMG Canada. This new estimated growth is even higher than the 22.25% growth forecast for India. Even if 90% of its contracts are coming from United States; the Philippine outsourcing industry continues to be aggressive, targeting a 10 percent share of the US$130 billion global business process outsourcing market and 1.5 million jobs in 2 years.

This is the new branding slogan of the Business Process Association of the Philippines (BPAP). Local BPO firms launched this marketing campaign as it seeks to attract more companies to outsource in the Philippines not just for the quality of services, but also for everything else the Philippines has to offer.

The global economic meltdown forced Asian outsourcing firms to rethink their investment and company strategies, as their respective government and financial institutions try to shield them from any adverse impact. Asian countries like the Philippines had all made the necessary precautions to help markets stay afloat in these uncertain times.

Business process outsourcing is regarded as one of the fastest growing industries in the world, and is an emerging industry in the Philippines. The Philippine BPO industry is growing primarily because of high demand for offshore call centers. Clients who chose to set-up BPO operations, as well as those considering to start BPO operations in the Philippines consider the large volume of English-speaking workforce, high literacy rates, good work ethic, low labor costs, good educational infrastructure producing a steady flow of high qualified individuals, and good communications with North America and Europe as the main reasons for offhoring their back-office and customer-related needs to Manila, the capital of the Philippines. These advantages set the Philippines apart from India.