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The Business Process Association of the Philippines (BPAP) is tempering its employment target in favor of higher revenues.

The BPAP has downscaled its employment forecast for 2011, the year it will have achieved $12 billion in export revenues under an industry roadmap, to 620,000, instead of the original target of 900,000.

"Employment is the secondary objective. The main objective is export revenues," said BPAP president Oscar Sanez at the sidelines of the launch yesterday of the BPAP National Competency Test (BNCT).

Sanez said the BPO industry is attracting higher value services that do not necessarily employ more but generate substantial revenues.

He said that originally, the industry said it would need 600,000 jobs to generate $7.2 billion in revenues. But last year, the industry hit that amount with 436,000 workers.

Sanez said to reach the roadmap goal, the industry would be employing 100,000 every year between 2010 and 2011.

This year, the industry eyes to grow its employment base to 520,000 and revenues of $9.2 billion to $9.5 billion.

Last year’s revenue was a 20 percent growth from the previous year.

The $12-billion revenue goal was originally set for 2010 but this was moved back by one year due to the financial crisis that hit most client-countries in late 2008 up to 2009.

Yesterday, BPAP, in cooperation with the Commission on Information and Communication Technology launched the BNCT, an industry-initiated program that standardizes the assessment grading and qualification system for job applications in the IT and BPO sector.

Jamea Garcia, executive director of the BPAP, said the BNCT is the first level of screening of applicants, streamlining the process of recruitment for BPAP members, thus cutting these companies’ costs.

This also creates a stable supply of talent pool from which the BPAP companies can draw prospective employees.

Sanez explained that at present only 5 to 10 percent of applicants make it in the first level of screening.

Under BNCT, students are tested on basic skills such as English proficiency, computer literary, perceptual speed and accuracy and learning ability. The BNCT also has behavioral component to determine the service-orientation level of an applicants.

Applicants will still have to go through the usual tests and screening by respective companies.

Garcia said the BNCT will undergo a norm validation study from March 8 to April 5. The rollout will start April 12 in authorized testing centers in participating colleges and universities.

A P500 fee applies.

Meanwhile, William Willems, vice president for Southeast Asia of the Regus Group, said as the Philippines expects BPO revenues to surge, one area that will contribute to the expected rise in revenue would be the outsourcing of infrastructure.

Willems said while property is the second largest fixed expense for most companies, research by CORNET suggests that as much as 50 percent of corporate office space goes unused at any one time.

"Opening a new location comes with inherent start-up costs and often involves a long-term lease. There is also the possibility that the business will not do as well as planned; forcing the cancellation of the lease; or it may be so successful that larger premises would be required." Willems said.

He said companies can avoid this by using fully furnished and equipped business centers in place of traditional real estate leases.

He said not having to pay attention and time to aspects such as maintenance of property and equipment and even office staffing would ensure that an organizations primary focus would be directed to their core business.

Another benefit cited by Willems of outsourcing of infrastructure would be the concept of ‘pay-per-use’ where a business would avoid unnecessary costs such as unutilized office space offering businesses the flexibility to down-scale without having to be stuck with extra resources. - Irma Isip

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