The Global Association for Contact Center Best Practices & Networking

CANBERRA, June 19, 2011 -- An Australian call center firm plans to put up a second site in Quezon City this year, a development which the Trade department said was an indication of "growing interest" of Australian companies in the Philippines’ information technology (IT) and business process outsourcing (BPO) sectors.

Trade Secretary Gregory L. Domingo made the announcement at the sidelines of the Philippines-Australia Ministerial Meeting last week, following a courtesy call by officials of Stellar Global, Inc., which operates a 1,500-seat contact center in Cubao.

Stellar Global will open a new site at Eastwood City in Libis, with at least 1,200 seats, the Cabinet official said.

The Trade department said the announcement had been cleared by Stellar Global. On its Web site, the firm said it would put up a new site after three years of operations "as demand for voice based and back of house processing services continue to grow worldwide."

Philippine operations support clients in Australia, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Canada. Stellar Global has operations in all four countries.

Stellar Global’s Chief Global Strategy Officer Michael Lumsden met Mr. Domingo in Sydney and "affirmed Stellar’s commitment to continue its expansion in the [Philippines]," the Trade department said in a statement.

In the statement, the Trade department also said Telstra, Australia’s largest telecommunications company, also "confirmed it will continue to grow its outsourcing business in the Philippines."

"Telstra Group Managing Director Robert Nason also expressed interest in helping support the development of the industry through training and education initiatives," in a dialogue with Mr. Domingo.

In a dinner meeting with the Australia-Philippines Business Council last Tuesday in Sydney, Mr. Domingo invited Australian investors to look into the local BPO sector.

BPO operations have grown to 600,000 seats this year from just 5,000 a decade ago, and there will be an additional 80,000 to 100,000 seats this year, he said.

"The Philippine IT/BPO industry has certainly caught Australian interest.

Based on estimates by the Business Processing Association of the Philippines, the share of the Australian market in the total revenue generated by the industry has grown to 6% in 2010 from 1.5% in 2008. The US remains the top market with 70% share, followed by the UK and Japan," the Trade department said.

"The Philippines has moved ahead of the more traditional offshore-outsourced destination of India, with at least 18% of functionality across Customer Interaction, Back Office Processing, IT and Finance being based in the Philippines.

"This movement from India in favor of the Philippines is perhaps unsurprising given the increased customer service focus of the Filipino industry over the past few years," the statement quoted the industry report as saying.

Posted by Veronica Silva Cusi, news correspondent
Source: http://www.bworldonline.com

About Stellar:
Stellar is a global business process outsourcing provider, with over 6,000 employees across 19 contact centre sites. In addition to contact centre outsourcing, Stellar also specialises in document management, workflow automation technology and outsourcing solutions.