Manila Ranks Top 2 Outsourcing Destination in the World

2014 is a great year for the Philippine Outsourcing industry.  Tholons, a US-based strategic advisory firm for global outsourcing and investments, ranked Manila as the second-best outsourcing destination in the world, with Bangalore still in the top spot for another year. Manila, the only non-Indian city in the Top 5, dislodged Mumbai which was last year’s top 2.

Aside from Manila, Tholons’ Top 100 Outsourcing Destinations for 2014 included 6 other major cities in the Philippines, namely Cebu at 8th place, Davao at 69th, Laguna at 82nd, Bacolod at 93rd, Baguio at 99th, and Iloilo, in spite of being hit by Typhoon Yolanda, remains in the list at 95th place.

Overall, 7 Philippine destinations made it to the Top 100 ranking, while India remains the dominant country with 13 cities in the top 100, 6 of which are in the top 10.

It’s interesting to note that Manila has steadily increased in rank from top 4 in 2012, top 3 in 2013, and now, top 2 this 2014. Will this consistent growth persist until 2015, making Manila as the top outsourcing destination the world? We’ll see.

Reports show that revenues of the BPO sector last year have approximately increased by 15% to $13.34 billion, employing over a million Filipinos, plus a projected number of 100,000 more employments this year.

What does this mean for the Philippine outsourcing industry?

This news significantly answers the questions we raised last week, “Is your call center job secured?” Many have raised concerns about the security of their call center jobs when a certain call center in Cebu abruptly stopped its operations at the start of the year. Over a thousand Filipino employees lost their jobs without prior notice, benefits, or not even a hint that the company is shutting down.

An “isolated case” as we called it, this unfortunate incident in Cebu does not change the fact that the industry of BPO companies in the Philippines is still in an uphill climb this year. Ironically, Cebu City still remains to be the Top 8 outsourcing destination in the world in spite of this Cebu-based call center closing down.

This recognition means several significant things. For the Philippines, this means more jobs and increased national revenues. For enterprises around the world, this means greater reasons to outsource to the Philippines. For BPO companies such as ours, this means we have a lot of work to do—to continuously enhance our outsourcing services and to prove that our country is truly a world-class outsourcing service provider.