Filipino-owned BPO firm to venture into UK market

Filipino-owned Prople, Inc., the country’s leading outsourcing company specializing in HR payroll, finance and non-audit accounting services, yesterday announced its ambitious global expansion to include the British market as more accounting firms and individual companies are seeking to outsource the role of chief finance officer to them.

Juan Paolo M. Araneta, Prople head business development group and project management, said during a press conference they already ventured in Singapore and will soon foray in the United Kingdom (UK) following inquiries for partnerships with British companies. Aside from Manila and Singapore, Prople had acquired two companies in the US enabling them with presence in California, Kansas and Missouri. It has also presence in Chennai, India.

Araneta said this expansion will mean hiring of at least 100 full time employees this year to augment its existing almost 300 staff, mostly with accounting and business background, in charge of providing services to its 140 domestic clients from various sectors, such as retail, fast food, and luxury consumer brands, among others.

“Because not all companies, especially the boutique firms with only 1 or 3 staff, cannot afford accounting services from the big accounting firms so they hire us and we work as their chief finance officer. Whatever they need for their accounting and HR payroll services the entire gamut, we provide it to them,” said Araneta.

“It makes business sense for these companies,” said Araneta. On the average, foreign clients can save more than 50 percent of their cost while local clients by as much as 30 percent by outsourcing their HR payroll and accounting services to Prople.

A local client with zero to 100 employees can pay only R15,000 a month. Normally, more clients outsource their HR and accounting services during peak seasons.

“We have a team of accountants, young directors who are very flexible, that we can resolve issues within the day and the client being able to decide right away,” he said.

Araneta said that 99 percent of their clients are satisfied. Satisfaction rating of clients is measured based on the SLAs (service level agreement).

Its US office is also very active in servicing tax work for start-ups and single proprietorships. “We have a team of dedicated American tax practitioners and accountants,” he said adding they have Filipino staff also assigned in their US operations.

Prople, which is chaired by Alfonso S. Yuchengco III, has also an accounting reporting system that is compatible with any ERP (enterprise resource provider) making them flexible on the needs of clients.

In addition, Araneta said that Prople also renders the same best global practices for its solutions to its foreign clients. They can custom fit their solutions and pricing model depends on the complexity of their transactions.

Source: https://goo.gl/AmhBLD