PRICING ONE'S SELF OUT OF THE MARKET

Yesterday's article in PE.com illustrated what most of the BPO insiders know but are not talking about. Read the article here.

Technology has made it possible for some tasks to be done from distant locations. As a result, offshore companies who are into customer services, information technology, transcription, animation, architectural & engineering design, medical research, etc. has successfully penetrated the US and European markets.

As the demand for outsourced work continuous to grow, the existing service providers are observed to be increasing their prices. This is mostly due to sharp increases in their factors of production (loss of government incentives and rising cost of wages, office spaces, etc.).

Unfortunately for them, customers are not complacent. After a while, the same creative minds that made them resort to outsourcing will tell them to continue and look for new places to send their outsourcing requirements. For example, the garments industry which left the US years ago, has started departing from the Philippines towards China. In addition, the call center and transcription businesses which used to be synonymous with India are now known to be successfully being hosted by other Asian countries like the Philippines, China, Pakistan and Indonesia.

In the Philippines, BPO firms which used to be predominantly located within Metro Manila have started to expand to the provinces in order to lower their costs (land, labor, taxes, electricity, etc.). At this point, the call centers can still afford the cost of doing business in the country. However, the industry should take heed.

Be careful not price yourselves out of the market. When you keep on increasing the cost of servicing a client, the customer will be forced to move on to the next provider.

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.

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.

Phil BPO rams through despite natural calamities

Backed up, Redundant, Mirrored, Fail Safe, etc... These words are now proving that Asian BPO firms can deliver despite catastrophes.

Last month, it was the super typhoon "Milenyo". This December, the country was struck by a much stronger storm "Reming". Overall, close to a couple of hundreds of houses were destroyed and thousands of lives were lost . If you are familiar with the famed Cagsawa ruins near the world famous Mayon Volcano, let me inform you that only the roof of the bell tower is left after mudslides rampaged through the place.

The other night, internet access, which made the Asian BPO Industry possible, was suddenly cut off when a series of strong quakes hit Taiwan, a couple of days ago. While most BPO companies took the interruption in stride, hardest hit was the Call Center sub sector which relies on good real time connection, in order to make person to person communication possible. Despite that, industry insiders reported that most contact centers were able to quickly recover and are now back on operation. The Makati Business District which houses a big number of contact centers is back to its normal activities, unlike a couple of nights ago, when an unusually big number of call center agents were seen hanging around their offices, unable to work.

Despite some difficulty in sending and retrieving important files to and from their partners across the globe, other BPO firms, at this point, continue to operate at full capacity.