Competitive talent and language skills are helping the Philippines, Canada and Poland catch up with India in terms of global business process outsourcing (BPO) market share.

According to a report published in financialexpress.com, the $13.3-billion Philippine outsourcing sector posted 15.6% growth in 2013; which is significantly bigger than the 8.9% growth posted by India’s $20-billion outsourcing industry.

Industry body Nascomm said in the same report that for the past five years, India has lost about 10 % share of the global BPO market, mostly in voice contract subsector, to other outsourcing destinations. 

The challenge for India, according to industry experts, is in language skills because aside from English, the country does not have a sizable talent pool to support contact services in German, Portuguese, Spanish, French, and Nordic languages.

The Philippines, on the other hand, remains the second largest outsourcing destination and is emerging as a serious competitor that has managed to remain relevant for both non-voice and voice services. 

“In fact, the Philippines’ voice industry overtook India’s last year in terms of revenue and full-time equivalent (FTE). Not only does it support English, but the quality of service is better than that of India,” said Salil Dani, practice director, Global Sourcing at global management consulting company Everest Group. 

The Philippines’ voice services subsector is at $8.5 billion, easily topping India’s voice services industry which is at around $7.5 billion. Other countries such as Latin America’s Brazil, Chile, and Mexico; Asia’s China and Malaysia; Europe’s Ireland and Poland; and North Africa’s Morocco and Egypt are also emerging as attractive voice services destinations.

Dani explained in the financialexpress.com report, “European countries working in multi-lingual processes find Poland a good option for their medium-term operations involving up to 500 employees. However, not much work has moved away from India to Poland as these countries have a small talent pool. Moreover, India and the Philippines have scale, which no European location can provide.” 

Industry analysts said that clients are now choosing offshore delivery locations based on the kind of services.