Outsourcing to the Philippines is no longer a business strategy that is exclusively for large, multinational companies. Over the past decade, the Philippine BPO industry has become a hugely attractive and accessible option for Australian and New Zealand SMEs and Startups looking to expand.

One prevailing idea that I constantly seem to face, is the notion that the larger BPO firms provide better service and support, compared to smaller ones. However, in the BPO industry, the reality is that smaller firms are often a far better option than their larger counterparts.

When a company decides to outsource to the Philippines, there is definitely no shortage of options available. When we first started, the market had a handful of players and the choice was fairly limited. Now the Manila market is highly competitive, with multiple options available.

I have found that as companies do their due diligence, surveying the market to find a firm that is right for them, they often get sucked in by a flashy sales pitch and track record of the larger firms. These sales pitches promise the world and paint a picture of a strong relationship, excellent support services and modern facilities. But, the reality is unless you are a large account, the outcome varies greatly.

Unfortunately, we have found a number of times that companies are left extremely underwhelmed by the outcome. Often finding that candidate options are poor, support services are nil and the complete absence of any form of relationship.

The issue I see with this is outsourcing is not a thing that can be turned on and left alone. In order for outsourcing to be a success, I believe two things need to occur. Firstly, as a company, you need to actively build and grow a relationship with your remote staff. Secondly, you need to find an outsourcing firm that is active in helping to create a remote team that has the capabilities to achieve the results you desire.

Obviously, a massive part of this is the candidates that are presented to you. The Filipino workforce is an amazing one. The talent and level of expertise rival any other market I have worked with. However, if your outsourcing firm doesn’t take their time to source and recruit high-quality candidates, this is of no benefit to your business.

Generally, it is numbers game for a lot of firms. Essentially, they find themselves seeking to fill a similar role for several different clients. This wouldn’t be a problem if a different campaign was run for each client. However, in a lot of cases, they roll everything into one and are mostly concerned with filling the positions as fast as possible. Resulting in low-quality candidates that may not fit the requirements of the individual clients.

Outsourcing is meant to help your business grow but that is hard if your provider is only concerned with filling seats.

At Deployed, we are not simply a ‘bums on seats’ firm, we take the time to understand your business’ needs, both present day and future plans. We take this approach because we believe that the more we know about your business, what you want to achieve and the purpose for outsourcing, the better partner we will be.

This understanding allows us to source high-quality candidates that we are confident will be able to not just meet but exceed your expectations. Our process may take longer than a larger firm, but this is so we can carry out a complete and thorough campaign ensuring we present you with several viable options, instead of throwing mass amounts of profiles at you and hoping for the best.

While, the allure of a big outsourcing firm can be quite powerful, from experience, I have found that they are not always the best option. Partnering with a smaller firm, such as Deployed, guarantees that you’ll be afforded the support systems you require to succeed.

I’m constantly letting our clients know that no matter what, our team are on hand whenever they need. We understand that in order for Deployed to succeed, our clients need to succeed. So we are constantly striving to build remote teams that are able of producing real, tangible results.

If you are looking at tapping into Filipino workforce make sure you shop around, don’t simply run to the first big name you find. Bigger is not always better.

To discover the Deployed difference, where you are not just a client, you are our partner, give myself or one of our exceptional account managers a call today.