MANILA, Philippines – The Nasdaq-listed Affinion Group Holdings Incorporated has set foot in the Philippines, making the country its Asia-Pacific hub for contact center and shared services.
Affinion Group on Thursday night, June 23, officially launched its office in Bonifacio Global City, which started operations in April with a total capacity of about 200 seats. This marks its first headquarters in the Asia-Pacific region.
Although the company has no immediate plans of setting up more office in the Philippines, Rich Pitrolo, senior vice president for service delivery and contact operations at Affinion, said his firm targets doubling its manpower by end-2016.
"Right now, we would like to stay and grow in Manila," Pitrolo told reporters in a media briefing. (READ: BPO leading the push for decentralization)
Talent pool, competitive cost
Affinion Philippines country manager Nono Felipe said his company chose the Philippines as its hub for back office services because of "the vast pool of talented resources and the competitive cost of doing business."
"Our global management team has worked for different business process outsourcing companies in the Philippines, and they love the experience," Felipe told reporters.
"They like the specific skills set of Filipinos in relation to the contact center and shared services industry. Also, it’s because of lower operating cost," he added.
He added that the Philippines has robust information technology (IT) infrastructure, attracting several companies to set up back-office services here.
Affinion Group has about 3,150 employees and marketing capabilities in 19 countries worldwide.
While 15% of its contact center and shared services are operated here in the Philippines, Affinion Group said the remaining 85% are being serviced from Germany, Italy, Turkey, and the US.
The loyalty and customer engagement solutions provider saw its net income decline by 16% during the first quarter of the year.
Affinion Group registered a net revenue of $254.9 million, down from $302.3 million in the same period in 2015. – Rappler.com