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BPO major ExlService Holdings said on Friday it is considering adding 500 seats to its Philippines operations this year. At present, the company employs 1,000 professionals in the Philippines and is evaluating Cebu as one of the locations for expansion of delivery capabilities.
“We have not yet finalised the location. We may look at tier-II cities such as Cebu. In Cebu, we already have a tie-up for some seats which we have taken for business continuity planning purposes with another provider… so there is an option to take over that infrastructure,” said Mr Rohit Kapoor, President and CEO of EXL.
Another option is to look at a fresh site in Manila. Its current facility is also located in Manila.
“Our Philippines business is growing nicely. The work we are doing in the Philippines is complex domain work in areas such as insurance and finance and accounting,” he said.
Mr Kapoor said that the company's decision to expand in the Philippines was driven by factors such as the five-year tax holiday as also the need for diversifying beyond India. “We have too much of our current services capability in India. We would like to diversify it out to other geographies,” he said.
Overall, the company would be adding roughly 1,600 seats this year; of which 1,000 seat additions will take place in the Noida SEZ facility. Globally, the company has 8,000 seats spread across locations such as India, the Philippines, Czech Republic and Romania.
EXL said it remains impressed with the level of customer service delivery in the Philippines, which is specifically oriented towards the requirements of the US market and clients.
“For instance, in the Philippines, we do a fair amount of work with the US-registered nurses for processes like evaluating medical claims. The Philippines also gives us access to a large pool of F&A professionals, who are CPAs,” he said.
The Certified Public Accountants or CPAs are the American equivalent of the Indian Chartered Accountant qualification.
In fiscal 2010, EXL's revenues increased about 32 per cent at $252.8 million compared with $191 million in the previous year. For 2011, it has provided revenue guidance of $295-305 million, representing an annual revenue growth of 17-21 per cent.
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