We’re excited to announce that Buko Ventures has invested in Betterteem, a new human resources analytics platform in the Philippines.

With a large and youthful labor market with high rates of literacy and English fluency, and relatively low wages compared to wealthier countries, the Philippines has grown to become one of the largest labor outsourcing markets in the world. In 2004, there were an estimated 100,000 Filipinos employed in the business process outsourcing (BPO) industry. Since then, the industry has grown 15x with an estimated 1.5m BPO workers in the country in 2021. Today, the industry accounts for approximately 10% of the entire Philippines’ annual GDP. Many of the largest multinational corporations now run much of their business operations from offices in the Philippines such as customer support, internal finance and admin operations, and software development.

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For BPO operations, one of the biggest challenges is employee retention. With competition for experienced workers leading to increasingly attractive pay packages, and with often stressful working conditions in BPO roles, especially in the customer support sector, BPO workers change jobs frequently. Annual employee turnover rates in the Philippines are shockingly high - reportedly as high as 50%. For every new employee, the company has to conduct an expensive onboarding and training program. The lower the employee turnover rate, the more profitable the BPO operation can be.

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This is where Betterteem comes in. Founded by Bo Discarga, who has extensive experience in the industry helping lead BPO & HR operations for JP Morgan’s massive outsourcing office in Manila, Betterteem is building a powerful platform to bring analytics to employee retention for the Philippines BPO sector. He’s teamed up with Betterteem Chief Psychologist Sena Salcedo, a trained psychologist with experience in the BPO industry, to craft insightful employee surveys that can be systematically analyzed and compared against baseline performance levels across the industry. As Betterteem’s business grows, they build an increasingly valuable proprietary dataset and an unique understanding of the key insights Filipino BPOs need to unlock higher employee satisfaction, lower turnover, and more efficient operations.

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With firsthand experience trying to solve these retention challenges while working in the industry, Bo and CTO Exx Navarro have a unique perspective on how to build technology that will be both valuable and accessible for HR teams around the country. With many of the largest BPO companies already on their waiting list, Betterteem plans to launch the beta version of the analytics platform in the coming months.

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We’re excited to support Bo and his team in helping to bring technology to the BPO industry for the benefit of both BPO companies and their employees. If you’re interested to learn more or to be an early user of Betterteem, please check out their website here.

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