US firm expands ‘hosted’ call center business in RP

By Erwin Lemuel Oliva INQ7.net

WHY work in a call center when you can do it from home or on the beach? Sounds like a tourism cliché but this is what the next Philippine call centers could be like in the next few years, according to a company hosting call center solutions.
Five9, a American provider of voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP)-based contact center solutions, told reporters on Thursday that startup firms planning to go into small-scale offshore call center business can now plug into virtual call centers, and pay only monthly license fees amounting to an average of 300 dollars a month per seat.

"There are thousands of people in the Philippines who can own their call centers operations," said Brian Silverman, Five9 president and chief executive officer. However, the barriers to entry to setting up a call center are high.

"The next call center will not be a call center but a set of people working from different places. The next-generation call centers will be virtual," added Tim Keefe, president and chief executive officer of Synergia CyberCare Inc.

Keefe is also Five9 Philippines president while Synergia is a client and reseller of Five9 call center solutions.

Keefe said that the Philippine call center industry could become major "cottage industry" for Filipino entrepreneurs. Because of the country’s attractive prospects, Five9 is setting up a Philippine subsidiary next month as part of its expansion in Southeast Asia. It currently has an existing subsidiary in India.

"We're making a serious and significant direct investment in the
Philippines through the establishment of a subsidiary," Silverman said.

While the Philippine subsidiary will be engaged mainly in the sales and marketing of the Five9 call center solutions in the country, it will also open several "incubation" facilities throughout the country, starting in Caloocan City, Metro Manila.

The incubation facility will provide startup firms with "turn-key" solutions, including access to a Web-based marketing channel, fully-equipped workstations with broadband access to the Internet, and use of Five9's virtual call center for access to the North American markets. These incubation facilities will charge on a pay-per-use scheme.

The company has also partnered with the Dagupan-based Internet service provider Bitstop Networks and the local consultancy firm TGK-Asia in the Philippines in the deployment of Five9’s hosted call center solutions.

The US firm has about 20 clients in the Philippines. One of its biggest runs a 30-seat call center facility based in Ortigas center, Pasig City, Keefe said.

Five9 has been in the Philippines since August 2004. Worldwide, it has over 4,000 agents in 400 different firms.