SMCC Companies Urge Government for Additional Incentives

Small and Medium Call Center companies urged the government for additional tax incentives

to help them compete with the large companies amid the talent war and higher power rates. Among the challenges that small call center companies cited were talent recruitment, high attrition rate, government incentives and rising cost of power and utilities.

New facets of the business process outsourcing sectors are still emerging, such as small to medium sized call centers. Small and medium scale call centers (SMCCs) are flourishing and they can prove to be as strong support sector as the big operators we are seeing today. SMCCs are those operated with a capacity of 200 seats or less, and preferably at least 10 seats to ensure viability. The Commission on Information and Communication Technology (CICT), refer to these as Smites or small-and-medium-scale information technology enterprises. These call centers are becoming are becoming a strong presence in the Philippine call center industry for the up coming years. In fact, they are dispersed in the regions unlike the big call centers, and the average SMCC has 10 seats.

But despite the evident of a strong potentials of SMCCs, they face their share of challenges and greater odds compared with big call centers. Many struggle with the basic issues on how to get a better understanding on managing few agents and the dynamics of scheduling. With less resources, it is hard to launch campaigns and promote business to clients because most rely on brokers who may turn out to be unreliable. For this reason, small centers firms in the Philippines formed the Philippine Call Center Alliance Incorporated or PhilCall. So far PhilCall has 25 members, with an average of 40 seats each. PhilCall has been able to undertake initial efforts in representing members when making their campaigns. This move saves our members from the prospect of not getting paid by clients because of unreliable brokers.

There are over 300 small and medium enterprises call center firms in the BPO industry. Small companies have 1,000 and below employees, medium has 1,000 to 5,000 and large with 5,000 and above. Beaver Lopez Jr., chief executive officer (CEO) of Pacific Hub, said that the incentives to SME should be different from that of the large companies to help them to cope with the challenges. Lopez said the government gives tax and holiday incentives in the first five years of operations whether large or small companies.

Edith Reilly, president of TrecPacific Corp., said the government incentives for the SMEs are not enough as the cost of doing business in the Philippines has been going up. She said the lower foreign exchange rate has also impacted the small companies because when they started, the forex was at P50 but is now down to P 43. Majority of their clients are SMEs in the United States. Aside from the incentives, Reilly also said that the government also needs to step up the quality of education in the Philippines as the English speaking skills of the graduates in the past years have been deteriorating.

SMCC Companies Urge Government for Additional Incentives

By: Ervin Kleitz Gonzales

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