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Monday, February 06, 2006
Speak Out: Luring an investor
By Ernesto F. Herrera
TUCP general secretary
THE Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) should work double time in persuading the Dutch global financial services giant, ING Group NV, to establish its back office operations here.
ING’s back office, including a captive or in-house customer care call center, would easily provide direct employment and P400 million in annual wages to 2,000 Filipino college graduates.
If necessary, the DTI should send a high level mission to Amsterdam to help induce ING to locate at least a segment of its back office operations in the Philippines.
The DTI should encourage ING to locate here at least that division (of the company’s back office operations) that deals with US-based customers. After all, when it comes to handling American customers, our fluent English speaking college graduates do have the advantage over India’s.
A large US-based global business process outsourcing provider recently decided to cut the volume of work at its Bangalore, India facility, and transfer more call centers seats to the Philippines.
I’m referring to Tampa, Florida-based Sykes International Inc., which decided to route more calls to the Philippines after some clients complained that their American customers had trouble comprehending the “singsong” English of Indian customer care agents.
Sykes has four call centers in Makati City, Pasig City, Quezon City and Mandaue City.
To cut operating costs in a big way, ING earlier bared plans to put up a large back office in Asia. The company said it has narrowed down its possible location to only two low-wage, English-speaking countries—the Philippines or India.
In a recent visit to Manila, Eric Boyer de la Giroday, ING executive board member, hinted that India initially has the edge over the Philippines because the company already has a large subsidiary, ING Vishya, in the world’s second most populous country.
ING used to have an insurance business in the Philippines, but the company later sold the business to Pru Life of UK.
ING provides banking, insurance and asset management services to more than 60 million customers in over 50 countries.
About 43 percent of ING’s customers are in North America, mainly the US, where the company has 10,000 of its 113,000 employees worldwide.
A recent survey by Kelly Services Inc. and ACA Research Inc. indicated that Filipino call center employees work harder, are easier to train, have better language skills and are more devoted than their counterparts in India.
For Bisaya stories from Cebu. Click here. (February 6, 2006 issue)
Write letter to the editor.Click here.
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