It’s a fact that Indian BPO industry is one of the biggest in the world growing at 16 -18 per cent annually. Many countries have followed suit with China and Philippines emerging as major competitors. However, firms in this se­ctor have begun to feel th­re­at from Philippines.

Th­ere are around 30 Indian BPO firms in Philippin­es over last few years. Top firms among them include Genpact, TCS BPO, Wipro, Covergys, WNS Glo­bal Der­vices, HCL, Firstso­urce Sol­utions, Infosys BPO and Hinduja Global Sloutions.

“I think it’s a serious issue for India. It’s about calibre and quality of people coming out of colleges. Earlier, Philippines was mainly into non-voice, but now it has expanded into finance and accounting. We have to review our education and skills training,” vice-chairman of Genpact, Pramod Bhasin said. He said In­dian BPOs operating out of Ph­ilippines are fine with the competition. “But, for India, we have to think in long term,” he added.

Nasscom president Som Mittal sa­id, “I do not think it’s abo­ut who is winning or losing, but it is about what are the opportunities availa­ble and who is making most of them.”

“For us, the issue is how to make it easier to do business outside India. We have to make India simplified for this sector,” he said.

Som Mittal added that India still has complexities of taxation such as service tax, maintaining safety and security, among others.

Top 20 companies such as Genpact, TCS BPO, Wip­ro, Firstsource Solutions, Infosys BPO, Hinduja Global Sloutions and others have employed 311,167 personnel in 2010, marking 12 per cent increase over previous year. IT industry has maintained that revenue productivity was about Rs 10 lakh per employee annually.

Companies such as Spa­nco BPO and Hinduja Global Solutions cautioned that Indian companies have to get ready to face competition from Philippines.

“I do not see China as a big competitor to India in lo­ng-term, but Philippines is, and that is why we have set up a centre in Manila,” global CEO, Hinduja Global Sol­utions Partha Desarkar said.

CEO of Spanco BPO, Pr­aveen Kumar said, “Custo­mer base in Inida is not gr­owing at a faster rate and co­sts are going through the ro­of. Even in domestic market, customer base is stagnant.”

D Swaminathan, MD and CEO, Infosys BPO, said, “We need to make sure that cost base continues to be logical at one level and ensure that we keep our talent pool expanding in a big way.”

A recent report by Nasscom and Crisil said the industry has grown 18 times in size to touch $ 16.9 billion including domestic business in 2011.