With the business process outsourcing (BPO) industry projected to grow 25 percent in 2010, training is becoming more crucial in sustaining the industry’s growth and momentum, according to Jon Kaplan, president of TeleDevelopment Services Inc. (TDS).

“The industry is growing to the tune of 2,000 new hires every week,” Kaplan said. “It’s going to grow in ways we’ve seen over the last few years in terms of more sophisticated BPO and knowledge process outsourcing (KPO) services.”

President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo recently announced that the country is already closing in on India’s US$9-billion outsourcing industry when the BPO sector earned US$7.3 billion last year. In 2001, Philippines’ outsourcing industry generated US$24 million with a workforce of 2,000. Today, the sector has 500,000 workers nationwide.

“The future for the next decade is bright,” said Kaplan, who is an industry pioneer. “The biggest challenge is the political and educational infrastructure.” He also noted that the lack of a strong development program for frontline leaders is one of the major areas for improvement.

“What happens is that these companies grow so fast. Once you get talent in the door, how do you keep them? If a company says that it wants to grow by 4,000 or 6,000 people, how do they build the infrastructure to do that?” Kaplan added that support for supervisor training is vital because frontline leaders can drive productivity and bottom-line profitability. “They can have a major impact on minimizing turnover and increasing performance,” he said.

Industry leaders from aligned sectors will discuss these issues during the 4th Annual Call Center and BPO Training Convention, which will be held on March 11 and 12, 2010, at the Makati Shangri-La.

The event is supported by Versant and inContact, and is organized in partnership with the Commission of Information and Communications Technology, Business Processing Association of the Philippines (BPA/P), Contact Center Association of the Philippines, People Management  Association of the Philippines, and Philippine Society for Training and Development (PSTD).

BPA/P president and chief executive officer Oscar Sañez will give a keynote address on the opportunities, roadblocks, and bridges to a global BPO industry, while IBM Philippines president and general manager James Velasquez will share insights on gaining competitive advantage through knowledge creation and continuous innovation.