By James A. Loyola

Business process outsourcing firm Transcom AB Holding, the largest Swedish employer in the Philippines, is continuing to expand its operations in the country as it looks for more workers for its non-voice services.

Transcom President and Chief Executive Michael Weinreich, who is visiting from Stockholm, said the BPO industry is evolving and is now expanding towards non-voice services which will require with a good command of both spoken and written English.

He said the share of non-voice services in Transcom’s revenues continue to increase versus voice services adding that these services include answering emails and making posts on social media in behalf of their clients.

Weinreich said the BPO industry has a voice and non-voice split of about 80 percent and 20 percent, respectively, adding that Transcom’s ratio of voice and non-voice is about 70-30, since it has diverse clients.

“We expect that this will further change towards non voice and this really changed the profile (of the people) that we are looking for,” Weinreich.

Transcom currently employs about 12,000 workers in the Philippines and aims to increase this to 15,000 in two years.

He noted that, “this is the skill that you require, you need to make sure that they (BPO workers) are up to it.”

“In the old days, you have a telephone conversation one-on-one conversation. So the result of training is measured in one telephone call. Now we are managing social media and Instagram post. One post that’s written by an agent can be read by hundreds of thousands if not millions of users. The result of responsibility is very much growing. That really requires us to look more carefully are we hiring the right people look more carefully,” said Weinreich.

Mark Lyndsell, the company’s CEO for the English Region, said the company will add some 6,000 people to its current work force to bring it to 15,000 in about two years.

Since he became President and CEO of Transcom last year, Weinreich has led the company in the digitalization of many of its processes, among which are the use of artificial intelligence for virtual agents, robotic process automation, and conversational analytics.

However, he said this does not mean that there will be less reliance on live human agents. Transcom’s investment in digitalization actually goes with the intent of supporting the passion and skills of its people in order to enhance customer experience.

By combining technology with human talents, Transcom looks at its people as creators of smarter people experiences.

Transcom in the Philippines, which is considered as the largest Swedish-owned BPO in the country, is also undertaking these digital changes.

Transcom’s CEO for the Global English Region Mark Lyndsell has successfully implemented digitalization projects to support talent management –– using artificial intelligence in hiring, virtual reality in training, and automated processes for employee benefits administration.