Knowledge process outsourcing in the Philippines

Oct 9, 2014SHORE Blog

While the Philippines boasts of being at the top in call center or voice services outsourcing, it still has to overtake long-time leader India in knowledge process outsourcing (KPO). KPO now makes up 40% of the country’s business process outsourcing (BPO) industry, with 60%, therefore, for voice services. The Philippines’ leadership in voice services can be leveraged to also increase revenues in KPO.

There are huge opportunities for the country in KPO. Knowledge process outsourcing involves important business processes that require advanced skills in research, analysis and technical expertise. The Philippines has a large talent pool of university graduates with the high level of skills required in KPO. The outsourcing industry’s associations, led by the Information Technology and Business Process Association of the Philippines (IBPAP), are helping to make sure that training is available to equip employees with the expertise needed since knowledge process outsourcing may involve specific skill sets such as those requiring certifications for IT professionals or validation and coding training for healthcare outsourcing professionals.

Advanced skills are needed for knowledge process outsourcing services such as research, information gathering and analysis. This can include market and equity research, complex technical content writing for government documents, credit reports or company descriptions, and many more.

Then there are legal and medical transcription. These focus on two different sectors of the knowledge process outsourcing industry. Legal transcription involves writing down and editing a wide variety of documents from audio or video media. These documents may be court briefs, subpoenas, sworn statements, affidavits, pleadings, testimonies, summons, motions, and many more. As for healthcare information management that covers medical transcription, coding and billing of clinical abstracts and related documents, the Philippines has many professionals from the field, including nurses, whose good grasp of medical terms is a ready-made advantage.

Financial and accounting outsourcing is another major KPO sector in which the Philippines is making inroads. Still other knowledge process outsourcing markets that the country is targeting to get bigger chunks of: IT outsourcing, human resources (HR) outsourcing, creative process outsourcing, and engineering services outsourcing.

IBPAP has stressed that the country is not favoring knowledge process outsourcing over voice services outsourcing. Nor is one of higher value than the other. Instead, the industry is striving to increase market share and revenues in both by seizing all possible global opportunities.