The Philippine Online Chronicles

The New York Times recently crowned the Philippines as the new capital of call centers. The nation took the crown away from India. It isn’t really surprising given that the country has focused on the Call Center Industry for the past decade. It isn’t also surprising, given the high level of English proficiency in Manila, and high level of what it calls “Americanization.”

Recently, another call center company has taken root in the Philippines. The company is called TxVia. It is not just a call center, but a software development house. TxVia is what you would call, a financial technology company, and in the words of its Executive Vice President, Ray Iglesias, “A leader in transaction processing technology for emerging payments, and financial services. “

These guys are not slouches. In 2010, they received US$27.5 series D funding. They chose the Philippines precisely because of its people.

Emerging Payments is the next big thing. TxVia is the company that facilitates payments for the company or service like an MRT card or credits for a store. They have what you call, a Platform-as-a-service software that they custom mold for individual clients. Say one client would need to access Visa, or Paypal, they have software for that. They see themselves as a one-stop-shop, and their client base is some of the largest payments companies in the world.

Located at the 26th Floor of Piccadilly Star Building is TxVia’s Philippine operations center. It is a majestic office with Cathedral-like ceiling. It is remarkably different from any other Call Center. You’ll find row by row of iMacs that TxtVia’s team uses everyday. Status updates on what goes on is hung up on a wall of large LCD displays. That’s not even counting the network operations center they have hidden in other rooms of their loft.

This company literally exploded in growth. It started small with their first hire in Manila, and upon moving to their new loft at top Piccadilly Star, they’ve reached almost a hundred. The company plans to expand across the country, because they truly believe in Filipinos.

Going back to the whole Call Center King bit, this is a good thing. The country though needs to attract similar companies like TxVia which are not only bringing call centers into the country, but investing in infrastructure, in people and into innovative products and solutions.

Emerging Payments is the next phase that companies are jumping on. It is a way to capitalize on the growing number of people who have little or no access to credit cards, or are shying away from debit cards. In app purchases with devices are facilitated by emerging payments. Companies can theoretically be paying employees with cards loaded up with their salary, or some company perk. The Philippines is an ideal spot, and as the New York Times pointed out, got the perfect balance of being Asian, and being Americanized as compared to other nations where they have to learn to understand some bit of Americanization.

Proficiency in English of course isn’t the only thing that companies like TxVia are looking for. Technical skill is one of them. Easy to do business, and a welcoming business climate, which by the sound of how TxVia is investing, a positive experience was what pushed them over the edge to invest more in the Philippines.

It is industries and companies like TxVia that makes a good fit for Filipinos and the Philippines. It is industries and complies like this that can provide jobs for people in the Philippines, instead of having to go out of the country. And that’s the next step isn’t it?

The Philippines is an ideal spot for outsourcing even in a competitive world where countries like America want to bring jobs back home. After all, outsourcing isn’t anything new, the concept has been around for decades.

There is after all a small number of people who outsource back to America. Blogs and websites based in the Philippines choose America for example as an ideal destination for their Cloud needs. This is because the cost to build cheap data centers in the Philippines is prohibitive. Internet infrastructure is expensive and unreliable. Electricity is expensive, and unreliable.

While data centers are most ideal in cooler countries— less to spend cooling the boxes themselves, there is no reason in the world why Philippine businesses couldn’t put up their own data center, and there are people who do.

There is equal opportunity in outsourcing and one that the Philippines can capture, with the right focus, and right attention. The Philippines in spite of being Call Center king hardly captures the market in outsourcing. The opportunity also speaks to government policymakers--- both local and national--- because ultimately improving the business climate is a political act.

Given that the push of the Aquino Administration is good governance and an end to corruption doesn’t mean that there is nothing to be done to entice companies abroad to invest in the Philippines. Fighting corruption, providing for fair and equitable trade, sound policies and laws is the first step. Local governments and other government agencies can take those gains, and push towards more high tech industries.

Going forward, there should be a push in education towards an equitable balance in the sciences and humanities, as the world increasingly sets to combine creativity, and science to build, and develop new ideas. And again it is about policy choices. TxVia invested in the Philippines not only because of the people, but the positive policy choices they have encountered here. We need more of that.

At the end of the day, the point is this. There is room to grow, and it is lucrative.