Grooming the Philippines as a professional services hub

MANILA, Philippines — With the global professional service market projected to have grown nearly 10 percent in 2023, professional services firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) opened another office in the country recently to take advantage of the opportunity and the deep pool of local talent.

Last Feb. 12, the company unveiled its 2,500-square-meter Acceleration Center at the heart of the Bonifacio Global City in Taguig City.

PwC invested around P1 billion for this new facility in the Philippines, eyeing high-demand services which require the latest software solutions such as Guidewire, SAP, and Oracle.

READ: Filipino CEOs trust AI, fear skills gap

Roderick Danao, chair and senior partner at PwC Philippines, says they plan to hire 2,000 Filipinos over the next two to three years, which would boost the number of their employees from around 6,400 currently.

“We strongly believe in the capability of the Filipino talents,” Danao says, adding that they provide high-value and high-skill jobs.

Nilesh Sharma, general manager of PwC Acceleration Center Manila, says that Filipinos’ have a strong customer-centric approach, citing this as the basis and foundation on which they want to build their future business.

“Nothing is too hard for them. The resilience they exhibit every single day is why we’ve been so successful in the last 15 or so years here and in 100 years beyond that,” he says.

Growing demand

According to the company’s 2024 edition of their Global Business Services Index Annual Report, business services represent one of the largest global industries today.

The firm said it alone has over 45,000 clients in more than 50 countries, estimating that the industry is growing at an average of about 8 percent each year.

“The economic and social impact of this industry is staggering. It employs more than one billion people worldwide and many of its constituents are the glue which binds broader industrial ecosystems and societies together,” the company says.

“From legal advice to logistics, catering to security, harnessing artificial intelligence to supporting education, delivering sustainability to testing for health and safety, business services firms fulfill a vital role in all our economic futures,” it adds.

Amid the growing demand, PWC says there are several megatrends that have led to a series of disruptions, from a global pandemic to outbreaks of conflict, to extreme weather and to the sudden rise of AI.

“Supply chain disruptions, new technology that threatens to make entire categories of jobs obsolete and rapidly evolving government regulations are creating an imperative for businesses of all types to reinvent their delivery models to enable long-term growth,” PWC says.

“Aside from disrupting business plans and operations, they have also led to increased cost and inflationary pressures,” the company adds.

Modern-day solutions

To be successful in the current industry landscape, PWC said that professional services leaders should embrace innovation and develop expertise.

“As clients seek transformational guidance in making a post pandemic recovery, professional service companies offer specialized services in the fields of technology and ESG that allow for greater profitability,” it says.

“Additional drivers behind profitability growth are asset footprint reductions and increased human capital utilization resulting from flexible working arrangements during the COVID-19 pandemic that have revolutionized ways of working within the sector,” it says further.

Other key priorities to ensure resilient growth, includes using technology to create new growth avenues and more sophisticated service offerings, as well as enhancing operational efficiency to reallocate human capital towards high value-added activities.

Recruiting and cultivating a future-proof workforce to develop advanced technological capabilities and meet evolving organizational needs is also a major consideration according to the PWC.

(2025/02/21-02:10)