Are outsourcing fears misplaced?

More articles supporting this site’s several pronouncements are coming out. In the linked article, the CEO of Infosys talks about the need to cope with the times. Details Here

With the upcoming US presidential elections, people paranoid with offshore outsourcing are increasing their call for the candidates to go against the trend. This is despite proofs supporting the argument that outsourcing actually brings about an increased demand for higher value jobs (onshore), resulting to higher productivity and stronger American companies.

The IT industry shows that more than 147,000 new US jobs were created. The problem with the American manpower pool is that it cannot fulfill the quantity of demand. Please read the complete article here.

I’ve read a few years ago, that despite the growing need for IT graduates and the increasing salaries of IT professionals, the number of Americans enrolling in IT courses continues to go down.

This scenario is very similar to the transcription sector where the supply of onshore transcribers is a lot less than the actual demand. A relative in the US tells me that daily newspapers always include advertisements of companies “Looking for transcriptionists”.

“But there is so much global demand for employees proficient in programming languages, engineering, and other skills demanding higher level technology knowledge that outsourcing can't meet all U.S. needs. "There would have been a lot more than 147,000 jobs created here, but our companies are having difficulty finding Americans with the background," says William Archey, president and chief executive of the AeA.

One culprit is the dearth of U.S. engineering and computer science college graduates. Second, immigration caps have made it difficult for highly skilled foreign-born employees to obtain work visas. Congress has been debating whether to increase the numbers of foreign skilled workers allowed into the country under the H-1B visa program (see BusinessWeek.com, 3/27/07, "Immigration Reform: Americans First?").

BPO Industry Hires 25% of Bagiuo's New Grads

The Philippine's summer capital now has another reason to smile. Aside from it's brisk tourism trade, a big portion of its new graduates were recently hired by the BPO sector.

"Only 2 to 3 percent of Manila's labor pool land jobs in business outsourcing firms, he said. But the BPO industry has been hiring 25 percent of Baguio's fresh graduates, he added."

In contrast to the pronouncement of an article posted in another site (read here), this column wishes to thank the foreign clients who entrusted some of their business processes to the Filipinos. As I have always maintained, the companies who outsourced properly, are bound to end with better productivity and emerge as a much better organizations. Furthermore, the offshore companies that benefited from outsourcing are called local heroes for having provided jobs. However, they should always be on their toes and stay competitive. Otherwise, the contracts might leave, faster than the rate the it came in.

As the new battlecry goes; "let's move towards KPO"

FAIL SAFE SERVICES

The string of calamities that hit Asia, Australia and most recently, the US once again emphasized the need for companies that has backed up, redundant and fail safe systems. In BPO, several end clients distribute their requirements to a number of service providers in order protect themselves in the event of unforeseen incidences.

Further to that, outsourcing companies are also known to purposely operate while utilizing less than 100% of their individual capacities. The reason for such an operating policy includes being able to accommodate a sudden surge of client requirements and a drop in their own capacities. A drop in an outsourcing firm's capacity includes a sudden low employee turnout due to typhoons and bog downs in company equipments such as the recent Asian internet failure, caused by the earthquake in Taiwan. please refer to a related post.

Not a single country is safe from calamities. The mighty United States, itself, regularly deals with its own share. However, since business dealings of most companies reaches far across state boundaries, it is imperative that business services continue uninterrupted.

That is the challenge of every BPO company. To be able to deliver its services, without fail.

WORKPLACE SAFETY + BPO NEWS AND COMMENTS FOR TODAY

Last week, different newspapers articles reported the shutting down of several call centers in the US. This week however, there are reports of new ones rising. To cite a couple, there is one in Colorado and another in Pleasanton.

Call Centers in the Philippines continue to expand. On 2006, companies led by DELL hired thousands of new call center employees. This year, People Support and several other existing BPO’s are contracting new buildings that will house their expansions. Today, another call center expands its operation.

The voice of the customer management profession points out that outsourcing is inevitable. However, there are some perils associated with it and discussed ways to avoid it.

In Dubai, a center called the Financial Technologies Centre for Straight Through Processing Services (FT-CSS) was created to act as a “Technology platform for brokers of stocks and commodities to outsource their complete trading and back-office transaction processing.”

Emirates, the Dubai based airline company will will inaugurate a big call and data center at the Dubai Outsource Zone in order to augment its existing facilities.

A call center incident in Portland has highlighted the need to establish steps to protect contact center employees from infectious diseases. Hopefully, all those affected will recover properly. What happened in that call center should serve as a lesson to all other BPO and non BPO firms all over the world.

The workplace conditions should be planned, taking into careful consideration the outmost safety of the people working in it. Despite the cut throat competition, it will always be a good business practice to institute measures that will protect the employees.

Clients should also take such matters into consideration whenever they choose new vendors. It is not simply the low figures that they should rely upon. Clients and vendors alike, should compete and take pride for the distinction of having and supporting the best working environments in the industry. Calling the Safety Organizations in the world...

Apartheid in the BPO Industry? + Other BPO Updates

A US Congressman filed a bill requiring foreign call center workers to disclose their location. Read the complete news this page:

"The congressman, a Democrat, has filed legislation called the Call Center Consumer's Right to Know Act that would require call center employees to state their physical location when called by consumers. supporters believe location disclosure would inform consumers that many of their calls have been redirected to foreign countries and will focus attention on the degree to which U.S. call center jobs have moved overseas."

Hmmn.. Does the congressman want to encourage the practice discrimination based on location, race and color? Isn't this bill leading to a new variant of Apartheid and Racial Profiling? Let's see what the American Civil Liberties Union have to say regarding this.

Andolini, an economist, will probably have a different take on this. Let's wait for his comments.

Cops Outsource the maintenance of their crime database. Click here.

"Police officers are entering crime incident reports, arrest records and other important data into the CrimeCog integrated criminal justice system using personal computers and a common Internet browser. The information is encrypted as it is sent to a secure data center, where it can be accessed by other authorized users, including other police departments."

In Jerusalem, large tourists arrivals are forcing hotel owners to do what others may think as "Unthinkable". Hotels are currently outsourcing rooms to competitors. I hope Asian hotels will have a way of transporting the tourists to their hotels for the evening and return them to the streets of Jerusalem in the morning. Hmmn.. "Beam me up, Scottie!" Read the news here

IF YOU BUILD IT, WILL THEY COME?

One client chairs a group of companies that successfully developed several real properties during the past few decades. Not long ago, he consulted me regarding the BPO prospects of his company. He mentioned having noticed the boom in the office leasing business due to the upsurge of BPO firms. Call Centers have taken over a number of previously empty office buildings and numerous projects that are yet to break ground have already been fully committed.

I was given a preview of their inventory that can possibly be converted into BPO facilities and asked of my opinion and help, being an industry insider. The following day, I wrote a few Call Centers and made a preliminary presentation of my client. Several replies came but I find a particular response worth sharing in this space.


A consultant to a giant call center company, called and asked to meet with me in their office. I agreed while asking if their client has a requirement that matches our inventory. The reply was positive. Arriving on time for my meeting, I was made to wait for half an hour while the person I was to meet, rummaged through her things. During the meeting, I described the properties available for BPO use and asked for its prospects (with her client). She then enumerated a number of projects that my client should put into effect. In summary, my client was being asked to build an expensive BPO facility, with a minimum size of 5,000 square meters, among other things.

Very politely, I asked if their call center will lease our building, should my client spend for the infrastructure that they ask for. The reply blunt was "First, build your facility, then we will offer it (to clients)." A bit surprised, I explained that my client is willing to invest, but no businessman will spend (that much) without any indication that money will be made from it.

The reply was "You have to show to your prospective lessee/s that you have the confidence in your company and the capability to spend & maintain the facility, before you even talk to them."

She added; “Look at this particular building at _ _ _ _ _ _. It was built without any lessee on the list, but now it is filled to capacity.”

Geesh!!!! TO BE CONTINUED....

New jobs posted

The other blog posted a couple of new job opportunities.

Please click the BPO Job Opportunities at the sidebar of this page.

You may also opt to go direct by clicking here.

Online BPO and Work at Home Opportunities

Browsing through the internet, several work at home ads can be found. A few require do not require a membership fee in order to gain access to (online jobs) but a big majority does. Some membership fees may be as low as US$5.00 but there are those that can go to as much as US$199.00 or even more.

Through the years, a lot of news articles claim that fraudulent advertisments are all over and that unsuspecting viewers have easily fallen victims of unscrupulous sites.

I created a new site that will publish vacancies that are personally known to the author/s to be in actual existence. The blog will also post advertisements found through the net but all of it will be accompanied with short notes/ reviews. The authors of this site will also browse through, but not limited to Google advertisements and will try conduct verifications and authenticate some ads.

Ads that are personally found to be truly reliable and those that were verified and authenticated by reliable sources, will be accompanied by this site's "Seal of Approval".

Check the site regularly and tell your friends about it.

Everybody, take heed! The leader speaks!

This is very much worthy of commendation. Let's hope that all other players will immediately follow.

Despite a 31% growth in revenues (US$ 31B), Indian BPO companies are getting their acts together in order to maintain their leadership.

In the annual meeting of the country's industry group, experts emphasized the need to innovate and not simply rely on the low labor cost and large talent pool of their country. The inventory of qualified talents is diminishing, wages are increasing and other low cost BPO centers like Eastern Europe, China, the Philippines and Vietnam are also fighting for their share of contracts from their biggest client-- The United States.

Please click here for the rest of the story.

Philippines hosts the 7th e-services expo

Foreign companies thinking of outsourcing some of their business processes will be attending the e-Services Expo: 7th global conference on outsourcing and exhibition at the Shangri-La Plaza, along the Ortigas Business District, Philippines. Most of the conference exhibitors are companies specializing in Contact Centers, Transcription, Software Development, Animation, Back Office Operations, and various IT solutions.

New Submarine Cable system for RP

Good News for Asian BPO!

The Philippine Daily Inquirer reports that the Hongkong based company- Asia Netcom will be installing a 23,500 kilometer submarine cable system that will augment the existing telecoms infrastructure connecting the Philippines with the rest of the world. The project which is estimated to cost $636 Million, is expected to be completed by July 2008 .