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Cultural Advantage in Philippine Offshoring
November 30, 2006


Philippine Multi-Culture Wins Global Offshoring Industry

Much of today’s outsourcing focuses on commodity products and services, where the cost disparity can determine whether a company makes a profit or incurs a loss. When it comes to the outsourcing of higher value added services and products, the process often becomes very complex. Cultural differences can make communications difficult, which, in turn, can hinder business dealings between companies. On the other hand, certain differences can be harnessed in order to provide a more pleasant business environment. Cultural advantage in Philippine offshoring is an asset that can greatly benefit our dealings with Western companies.

A generation of Filipino workers is redefining the way the corporate world sees outsourcing. What began as a method for achieving cheap call-center and back-office work has now morphed into a global workforce that is qualified for higher-level management and strategy jobs. These Filipino standouts have raised the bar and forced their U.S. counterparts to see them in a whole new light. As these Filipinos take on more responsibilities, they are changing the corporate culture of business.

For many, the Philippines offers a better customer service mindset than most offshoring countries, and the country is more comfortable with Western culture. The Philippine culture is totally dominated by America. English is widely spoken, and everyone watches American TV, wears American sportswear, and listens to American top 40 pop music.

The Philippines was a Spanish colony for over 300 years since 1521 until the Spanish-American war of 1898. Since then, the Americans brought forth their system of government, education, language, culture, and values. The USA took the Philippines from Spain in the Spanish American war and ruled it as a colony until 1948. Japan invaded the Philippines during World War Two and the reason usually given for granting Philippine independence was the "loyalty" of the Philippine people in assisting the USA to drive out the Japanese. There was an attempt to make the Philippines a state but it was rejected by the US Senate who balked at adding so many non-whites to the USA. The main language in the Philippines is Tagalog although there are many dialects on the different islands. English is very widely spoken and most signs on the street are in English. English is more of the language of business, higher education etc. while Tagalog is spoken on the streets and at home. Compared to Japan, this made communication very easy. The Spanish thoroughly Christianized most of the country. Catholicism is very prevalent and taken really seriously, like in Poland or Italy.

With a long history of contact with the United States, including several decades of American colonial rule, Filipinos are more attuned to Western culture than most Asians are. The Filipino’s exposure to western culture is broad and deep.

The quality of education in the tertiary level is patterned after western style. Filipinos are the most westernized of all the Asian cultures. The form of government, the legal system, as well as the accounting system of the country are patterned after those of the U.S. Even Philippine television is rich with programs from America and Europe.

This gives Filipinos the capacity to empathize and understand the needs of the customers from the other side of the globe. Call center employees find it easy to relate to Westerners and are quick to adapt to a variety of accents. Most call center employees receive intensive training to acquire the accent of the customers they will be talking to.

Offshoring, Inc maintains its cultural advantage in Philippine offshoring with its unique Filipino-American compatibility that translates to high trainable employees enabling higher order services not obtainable with other offshore countries.

Offshoring, Inc, formed in 2004 by a group of American IT executives with extensive outsourcing and offshoring experience, provides staff leasing services to hundreds of satisfied businesses across the globe. The company has a large team of outstanding premium writers, graphic designers, programmers, media managers, quality assurance representatives, data entry clerks and contact center agents.

Offshoring, Inc’s trained Filipino professionals have premium education and training, which significantly set them apart from the general workforce worldwide. The education they have received from local and international IT and business schools as well as from the internship training programs in the companies where they have worked is also influenced by foreign concepts and practices. They share much of the knowledge, values, and attitudes of their foreign counterparts.

Offshoring, Inc's customer-oriented and efficient managers focus on transforming a team of professionals that is excellent and dedicated to satisfying and getting along with clients and colleagues. The company aimed to look for skilled professionals who can work in teams and understand the value of competence, cooperation, and consensus. Thus the ability to fulfill the clients’ needs is considered to be the most important passport of success for the company.

By understanding and using customer's preferences, Offshoring, Inc can assure that the type of customer service they provide and the type of products and services they offer, are in fact, the types of services the customers value.

As an end-to-end provider of service solutions, Offshoring, Inc provides a wide range of products from outsource products and/or services to ancillary services using various cost-effective customer touch points such as voice, web and e-mail. Offshoring, Inc enables their clients to adopt a "follow the sun" strategy with its 24-hour operation. Offshoring, Inc provides clients the advantage of remaining open for business, as services can be delivered from Manila 24 hours a day to any location in the world. The company uses best-in-breed technology, proven expertise, and a highly competent and motivated team.

Filipinos are entrepreneurial in terms of creating solutions to clients: they adopt culture to the clients. They did not build a solution or specific framework, they adopt. Because Filipinos are born to be survivors; with the technological, inter-communication talent that they have, and strong cultural advantage in Philippine offshoring, the industry is a new booming business receiving a promising response from the business sector.

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