SPi Global discusses Philippines’ crucial role in the outsourcing boom | Video
European CEO talks to Maulik Parekh, President and CEO at Philippines-based SPi Global - one of the world's largest and most diversified business process outsourcing services - about how the company is helping clients achieve their goals
Transcript
Outsourcing has been central to many companies’ growth plans; seen as a cost-effective solution to getting the job done. One company that has capitalised on the demand for outsourcing solutions is Philippines-based SPi Global. European CEO talks to Maulik Parekh, President and CEO of the organisation, to find out about the profile of the company’s clients, what work it has been doing in the e-book industry, and why Filipinos continue to play a leading role in the outsourcing boom.
European CEO: Maulik your company is based in the Philippines, do potential clients try to exploit this perception (that outsourcing lowers costs)?
Maulik Parekh: Well actually they do, and in the past, when the outsourcing boom started in the late 90s, early 2000. It was a cost-play, and that was the perception, that you move some of the outsourcing jobs to the Philippines or India, you save some money for the company. But now, over the last seven years or so, things have changed. People are coming to us, not for cost-play, but for revenue-play. They are coming to us to see if we can add value to their customer life cycle. If we can help them retain their customers.
European CEO: Can you give me examples?
Maulik Parekh: One of our largest customers is a leading satellite TV provider in the US, and we started partnering with them in 2001, with some 50 people. Since then, we have grown that partnership, now we have over 2,300 employees working for that particular client, and the reason why that partnership has grown over the years is because, initially, they came to us so they can reduce their cost of customer service. Now they are coming to us so they can retain their customers, so that we can sell more HBO and Cinemax, and some of the other products that they won’t sell to their clients.
Filipinos not only have the neutral accent that a person sitting in the UK can understand…they also have the natural empathy
European CEO: How are you able to attract a skilled workforce, and are they local?
Maulik Parekh: When you look at the education profile of the students coming out of our universities and colleges, they have degrees in social sciences, they have degrees in art, they have degrees in engineering, sciences, etc. that you find in other countries as well, and most importantly they come out with language skills that are very hard to find around the world. Filipinos not only have the neutral accent that a person sitting in the UK can understand, or a person sitting in the US can understand, but they also have the natural empathy. We were talking about friendly Filipinos are before this program started, it’s something that you cannot replicate anywhere else in the world, so I’m very confident that, as the outsourcing boom continues around the world, Filipinos will continue to play a leading role in providing those services form that part of the world.
European CEO: And how do you combat the perception of government corruption in the country?
Maulik Parekh: The president has taken many steps to combat corruption. Now I see government officials which are taken to the court for taking bribes or taking money from the government, which was unheard of probably 10 years ago. I think a lot of the businesses around the world are noticing the change, and you see an increased foreign direct investment coming into the country.
European CEO: So what is the profile of your clients in terms of geography, as well as industry?
Maulik Parekh: Our clients come from the US, from Europe, from Asia, as well as Australia, so we have a wide variety of clients that we are serving in terms of geography. Our company is made up of three different business units. We have a group that is in charge of providing customer life-cycle management to companies around the world. Then we also have a group providing content solutions to clients in the publishing industry, so we are talking about top 10 publishers in the scientific, technical and medical field. And then we also have clients in the healthcare industry. One third of our revenue is coming from our healthcare business unit, which is predominantly based in the US, and they support some of the largest healthcare providers in the United States.
European CEO: One of your company’s expertise is in creating e-books, can you tell me about some of the trends in that industry?
Maulik Parekh: There are two key trends taking place, and they’re impacting both the publishers, as well as consumers like us. So if you look at content itself, twenty years ago we used to consume content mainly in a static form, we used to wait for the newspaper arrive at our doorstep, we used to wait for the magazine to arrive in our mailbox, because content was static, we had to go to the content. Now the content is very dynamic, because it’s digital. So in the past we would look in the newspaper, and there is nothing else you can do with that content. Now you look at the same newspaper on your iPad or any of the mobile devices, and you’re able to actually go through various links that that content has provided. So content has become smart now, which is the biggest trend that we see on the publishing side. The other trend we see is that it used to be very location specific, and now it’s omnipresent. We had to go a library to read a certain book, or we had to go to a bookstore to buy a book. Content is where you are now, versus where you had to actually go to where the content was before. So those are two very critical trends taking place and it has created very exciting opportunities like SPi Global. Now we create multiple formats that are being sent out to various locations, to reach out to the clients and the customers of this industry.
[Y]ou see an increased foreign direct investment coming into
the country
European CEO: Will the markets for e-books ever slow down?
Maulik Parekh: Not really, in fact if you look at the revenue profile of some of the key publishers around the world, you’ll see that on an annual basis more and more revenue for those publishers is coming from their digital products, and e-books tend to be the number one product for most of these publishers, so clearly as more and more people are owning mobile devices, as more and more people are accessing content online, e-books will continue to gain momentum going forward.
European CEO: So tell me about some of the other types of products that your clients are looking for.
Maulik Parekh: On the customer relationship management side, we are seeing more and more clients are looking for how to reach out to digital natives, the youngest generation now that has not grown with calling a 1-800 toll free number. This is the generation that would like to access information online, either through social media or through blogs. We are helping many of our clients right now in creating not only a good brand for them online through social media, but also to reach out to their customers, the young customers, with their customer service needs.
European CEO: OK, well thank you so much for joining us today.
Maulik Parekh: Thank you for having me here.