A new research by the Everest Research Institute reveals that the Philippines has slowly but surely established itself as the second largest destination for non-voice business process outsourcing market. This, the country has been able to achieve on the back of successful offshore delivery of voice-based customer service support.

“As the BPO market evolves, 90% of future BPO opportunity will derive from non-voice BPO functions,“ says the report. “Given this significant market potential, non-voice BPO represents an attractive opportunity segment, and will be key to the future growth of the Philippines’ BPO market.”

While there is a well-understood value proposition for voice-based BPO services from the Philippines, there is currently limited awareness of the capability and potential for non-voice BPO. However, even today, BPO delivery from the Philippines is no longer limited to voice-based services, and a number of companies are already leveraging the Philippines for delivery of a wide array of non-voice BPO functions.

Some of the key findings if the report are:

-- BPO has a significant growth potential with an addressable market opportunity of US$220-280 billion. While voice-based services constitute a bulk of the BPO market currently, non-voice and back-office processes contribute 90% to the future market opportunity

-- Success in voice-based BPO services has made the Philippines the second largest low-cost BPO destination after India

-- A number of companies are already leveraging the Philippines for a wide array of non-voice functions though the scale of operations is low

-- Most current activity and scale in non-voice BPO is concentrated on transactional services (e.g., Finance & Accounting, medical transcription)

-- Given the nascent stage of the market and the prevailing talent issues, the Philippines is unlikely to replace India as the nerve-center for non-voice BPO, but has the potential to emerge as an important satellite delivery location