RP eyes Europe's Call Center market

The European Chamber of Commerce of the Philippines has launched "Team Europe" in a bid to attract the bulk of the European off-shoring and out-sourcing market.

Henry Schumacher, executive vice president of the European Chamber of Commerce of the Philippines, said more and more European companies were outsourcing some of their processes in cheaper destinations abroad to lower costs and focus on core businesses.

Stephanie Weber, business development manager of Team Europe, said that although the country has able to invade the U-S BPO needs, Europe has remained untapped and unaware about the Philippines' ability to cater to the out-sourcing and off-shoring needs there.

He said Team Europe aims to educate the European companies about what is in store for them in the Philippines, since there are only a few Europe-based BPO companies in the country.

"Europe do not [really] know about the Philippines' outstanding performance in terms of handling clients and customers' needs," Weber said. "Indeed, there is a huge gap, but that should not be considered as a problem but an untapped opportunity for the Philippines," he added.

He said Europe is a huge market, and the Philippines could vie for this market more competitively than India.

Citing a research study done by TPI, the largest sourcing advisory firm in the world, Weber said the annual revenue in Europe, Middle East and Africa available to service providers stands at $40 billion.

On the other hand, the European market share of the country's $4.9-billion off-shoring and out-sourcing business stood at only 10 percent, while Philippines' market share in Europe is only 1.2 percent.

"A lot of Europeans become shock when [they] go to the Philippines, since they only know about a few of this country, [they] only know about the coups attempts and Abu Sayaff group to name a few," Weber said.

Some of the European companies that have decided to locate their off-shoring needs in the Philippines are Alitalia, Atkins, Deutche Bank, Ericsson, Henkel, HSBC, Locia GoIndustry, Nestlé, Shell, SGS and Rivereo. These companies mainly operate their knowledge process outsourcing offices here.