Panoramic View of Virtual Call Centers

There has been an increase in the popularity of virtual call centers, making it the most talked about topic over the internet. And because of this popularity, many things have been written about the business, some are true; some are not which paved the way for wrong notions and ideas. The way you understand the call center industry all depends on which side of the fence you are standing. Whether you are company that is looking for a call center to outsource your services or someone looking for a new job, your perspectives is different. There are only 3 truths when we talk about virtual call centers; one is that it is a multi-million industry, it is growing and expanding and is an advantage both to the company and its workers.

In economics, companies are known to exist to gain profit. And hiring a call center ensures that you do. Virtual call centers are “off-campus” call center that allows you to outsource to home based agents abroad. You won’t need to worry about additional expenses for the construction of a new office or prate about the costs of new equipment. Another advantage is that it allows the company to allocate work like customer service, product sighting and other services to the call center and they could concentrate on expanding their businesses. A company would greatly benefit from an innovative call center, helping them on developing further marketing strategies and to help them reach their goals.

For a call center agent, a virtual call center job is an opportunity to get away from constricting and sometimes demanding call center environment. The virtual call center also gives you the choice of working at home. Another bonus, especially for new job seekers, is an opportunity to make money while sitting down comfortably in your own home. These is the perfect opportunity for many housewives, single and stay at home mothers, those who want to take a career change and is still yet undecided, for those with disabilities and cannot leave home, to find work and fend for themselves. It is not rocket science as well; all you need is a reliable internet connection, a landline and a computer. Of course a good set of communication skills will be beneficial as well.

Marketing your company would be a difficult undertaking because of the stiff competition in the call center industry. The key to building your reputation in a competitive industry like call centers is to raise and maintain your standards, an often disregarded process. Many businesses would hawk and gawk at the competition, that they forget to think of ways to further develop and expand their own companies. It is good to know what the competition is doing but it is even better to surpass them without trying to.

What are BPO Services?

Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) is the process of hiring another company to handle business activities for you. It is a subset of outsourcing that involves the operations and responsibilities of specific businesses processes to another service provider. BPO that is contracted based in another country is called Offshore Outsourcing, and BPO on nearby country is called Nearshore Outsourcing. BPO is also categorized as IT-enabled services. Some sub-segments of business process outsourcing industry are KPO (Knowledge Process Outsourcing) and LPO (Legal Process Outsourcing).

BPO is a type of outsourcing that focuses on hiring a third-party service provider to do IT-related operations, typically categorized into back office outsourcing – such as application management and development, data center operations, and also includes internal business functions like human resources, accounting and finance, and customer related services.

In the beginning, Business Process Outsourcing generally consisted of outsourcing processes like payroll, and then it grew to include employee management. Now it covers more functions that are considered ‘non-core businesses’ to the primary business strategy. Now it is common for organizations to outsource financial and administration processes, human resources, call center and customer service activities, accounting and payroll.

BPO is also frequently referred to as ITES (Information Technology-Enabled Services). Since mostly it includes business processes on some form of automation, which performed services are enabled by IT. The derivative of BPO is KPO (Knowledge Process Outsourcing), which is considered by some to be a subset of BPO, KPO includes those activities that require greater skill, knowledge, education and expertise to handle. For example, whereas an insurance company might outsource data entry of its claims forms as part of a BPO initiative, it may also choose to use a KPO service provider to evaluate new insurance applications based on a set of criteria or business rules; this work would require the efforts of a more knowledgeable set of workers than the data entry would. The current definition of KPO encompasses R&D, product development and legal e-discovery, as well as a number of other business functions.

Also coming into use is the term BTO (Business Transformation Outsourcing). This refers to the idea of having service providers contribute to the effort of transforming a business into a leaner, more dynamic, agile and flexible operation.

Philippines: The Best Place to Outsource Your Business

Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) growth in the Philippines is extremely fast due to the demand of offshore call center in the country. Many companies are outsourcing to the Philippines because dealing with Filipinos are really great. With English as their second language, they have excellent speaking abilities and considered the best customer service representative, making it easier for Filipinos to compete with global standards.

High Literacy Rate

Filipino considered English as their secondary language, and even a widely spoken language in the country, especially to the people who live in the cities. Along with the help of mass media, English are becoming widely spoken by Filipinos.

Extremely Hardworking

Filipinos are known as a hardworking people in Asia, they like it more if you can offer them more jobs as long as you give them the benefits they deserve. Filipinos can work nightshifts and even extra hours. They don’t leave their tasks undone unlike other workers when they hear the bell rung they just leave the work immediately.

Multi-talented

Filipinos are used to work in different tasks, multi-tasking is nothing new to them, and in fact they are able to work in a fast changing environment even with less supervision – thus save a lot of man-power requirements, money and time. Filipinos are talented people, they are known for their talents even on other country.

Can easily adapt

Filipinos can easily adapt to the changes and making its name on the business industry especially in BPO. There is no doubt that they can extremely learn fast and can be easily trained. The country has a high level of education, which makes Filipinos capable on outsourcing jobs.

Up-to-date

Filipinos are up-to-date with the newest technology and to the latest BPO trends. Filipinos like the exposure they can get in outsourcing, and mostly like to have professional experience from multinational companies. This makes Filipinos challenged and able to compete with other professionals there is.

Educational System

Philippine education is based on American educational system, being under the American regime made it easy for Filipinos get used to American culture. Filipinos are introduced to western concepts making it easier for them to understand, this is essential characteristic can help your business work on the same track with success.

Outsourcing in the Philippines is a smart move for businesses looking for an advance improvement on their business. The Philippines consists of over 7,000 islands and the Filipinos’ Primary Language is quickly evolving from Filipino to English. Unlike other country India and China, the accents of Filipinos are much more rounded due to their previous Spanish occupation and can sometimes be mistaken for Latin-American.

CCAP’s Expo Takes on Global Dimension

The Contact Center of the Philippines (CCAP), will organize the International Contact Center Conference & Expo, which sets its sights on the global horizon by creating an avenue that will share best practices and case studies from other countries as well as the Philippines. This is the sixth conference and expo to be organized by CCAP. This year’s event promises to be larger and more exciting as it draws more delegates from all over the world. With guest speakers from different continents to share their insights and experiences from a more global perspective. The International Contact Center Conference & Expo will be held on Sept. 28-29 at the SMX Convention Center in Pasay City.

The International Contact Center Conference & Expo will also mix speakers from diverse backgrounds and various sectors — operations, marketing, human resource management, training, academe, technology, research, real estate, and consultancy — ensuring a rich learning experience. The plenary sessions will highlight special panel discussions, including a Global CEO Forum, which will discuss issues in the global outsourcing market; an Analyst Panel Discussion, which will share international trends; and an SME Panel Discussion, which will tackle how smaller players can build homegrown global BPO brands.

The two-day event also opens up possibilities for international networking for operators and vendors. The exposition is an avenue by which exhibitors and sponsors can target international, or at least regional, markets. There is also a two-day job fair with dozens of call centers looking for new hires. They will accept and process job applications and conduct on-the-spot interviews. In addition, call centers and training companies will conduct free workshops and career orientation seminars for job seekers. It is the official job fair for the call center industry, represented by the some of the biggest call centers in the country, including the 65 CCAP member call centers. This conference is expected to raise the industry to a whole new level, and showcase Philippine depth and range in contact center capabilities. At the same time, building the country as the prime destination for global conferences and promote the Philippines as a world-class business-leisure destination. It will give the international market a compelling reason to come here to learn. And being the number one player in outsourced contact center services with a solid track record and a rich knowledge base is a very good reason.

Outsourcing Packaging of Spices!

Often people associate the idea of outsourcing only with the large scale industries. However even the small scale companies can benefit in their own way by outsourcing the operation of a specific department.

The small companies which process the spices starting from the plucking of spices and then their grinding etc can actually benefit a lot by outsourcing the packaging of their spices. While these companies are known for providing some of the best quality spices they tend to miss out on getting their due as far as sales are concerned because somehow their packaging standards are lower than that of the high end companies and people tend to purchase more of the products which are well packed. By outsourcing their packaging to a company which can provide them with high quality packaging, the small scale spice companies can actually benefit a lot in terms of attracting customers.

Moreover, since all the employees of the small scale spice company would be focused on their core job of selecting the spices and getting them powdered, the company would be able to further improvise the standard of the spices they retail. By outsourcing their packaging department they would be able to avoid the requirements of having a packaging department. This way they would not have to hire employees who would be solely dedicated to the packing of spices. The company would have the option of either reducing the number of employees or they could even look forward to increasing their production by utilizing the services of those employees in the production section.

While the concept of outsourcing had been introduced by large scale companies, these days even the small scale companies are benefiting by outsourcing specific segments of their company to other companies which provide specialized services in that specific segment.

Advantages of Outsourcing the Packaging of Goods by Small Scale Industries

Most of the small scale companies which manufacture products such as candles and incense sticks etc have to set up an extra department in order to handle the packaging of the candles which are manufactured by their company. While this helps the company in releasing a finished product to the market, the fact is that they can gain a lot by outsourcing their packaging department needs.

Once a candle making company decides to outsource the packaging segment of their company, they can concentrate on their core competency of candle making and can utilize their resources in increasing their productivity. The fact that they do not need to hire extra employees would save them a lot of money annually. Moreover packaging requires the presence of trained professionals who are trained in the art of packaging. Once a company decides to outsource its packaging needs the company does not have to invest any time or money on hiring and training employees to be a part of the packaging team.

The fact that the company decides to outsource their packaging needs to another company helps the main company in avoiding the necessity of investing in machinery related to packaging. Moreover when a company outsources the packing of its candles they increase the productivity by devising best practices that help all the departments in maximizing their efficiency levels.

After outsourcing the packaging segment of the company, the management can focus on picking bigger orders of manufacturing candles because they would have the manpower and space to increase their production. So while a different company is handling the packaging for them they can concentrate on increasing the production in their company. Small scale companies which have been operating for a long time need a business analysis done in order to see what their company can do in order to increase their productivity. Outsourcing will definitely be an option!

Outsourcing and its Benefits for Telecom Industry

Outsourcing is the new key in the present world to expand your business. According to the latest trends, most of the businesses have now started depending on the outsourcing phenomenon in order to succeed in their business.

Amongst all the businesses profiting from the services provided by outsourcing, telecom industry is one. According to estimates, almost 75% of the telecom business companies have already taken to outsourcing. Most of the telecom executives admit to the fact that in the process of making any major financial or technological policy, outsourcing is a major player. Apart from the fact that outsourcing certain business processes is convenient to the company, it is also true that telecom companies save a lot of money by following this suit. For example, about half of the finances within a telecom industry is spent on network management. Other segments that require a lot of time and finances include customer care, billing, recruitments etc. With the advent of Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) though, the telecom industries can easily outsource the above mentioned services and processes.

Especially for telecom industries based in the first world nations or developed nations, where work force is extremely costly, outsourcing their business processes to BPOs based in third world nations like China, India or the Philippines makes for a major cost-saver. With the major processes outsourced, the telecom companies are then better able to utilize their time and management by focusing into expansion and other company policies aiming at expanding their customer base. Apart from this, outsourcing processes like customer care to BPOs also ensure that all their customers get complete and proper attention, hence assuring a loyal customer base. Then again, outsourcing also ensures that these companies get the latest of technological aid, which would have come extremely costly if the company had decided to do it themselves.

The telecom industry finds itself gaining from outsourcing and the trend is only going to dig further into the industry.

Cyber Corridor and its Impact on the Philippines Call Center Industry

As in recent news, the President of the Philippines, President Arroyo has been on a tour of the cyber Corridor. For those uninitiated, the cyber corridor is the site where most of the IT firms and BPO offices are housed. According to the president, the industry needs to bring in more vigor in order to give more candidates jobs and a consecutive boost to the Philippine economy.

The BPO industry was first launched in the Philippines in the year 2001, with a mere 2000 workers population. Today, however, the BPO sector alone contributes to around 5 to 6% of the total GDP of the Philippines. The year 2009 saw incoming revenue of US$7.3 billion alone from the BPO industry. According to projected estimates, it is further expected that the figure will rise to $13 billion by the year 2011, and by the end of year 2020, the figure is expected to cross the $100 billion mark! This will amount to almost 20% of the total business that is generated universally in this sector.

With TESDA’s developmental plans and the P500 million fund by the Arroyo administration out there to bring out more trained professionals in the field of business outsourcing, the future of the BPO industry in Philippines looks extremely bright. Though it is presently just a notch behind India in rankings, with a number of people joining the outsourcing business, it is soon expected to overtake its competitors and become the first choice for those looking for outsourcing services. Apart from the trained staff and multi-skilled labor, the Philippines is also a strategically located geographically, offering it an edge that no other nation in the business has. Then again, as more high-end outsourcing units opening up catering to legal services, design, web, software, medicine and lots of other fields, the BPO industry only stands to gain further ground amongst the entire business outsourcing market. Overall, the future of the BPO industry in Philippines looks good and is bound to give the nation a strong economic boost.

Astute Solutions

Philippines is known to be a world leader in the outsourcing industry. The number of call centers coming up in the country bears testimony to this fact. However, in order to move forward, these BPO units need to employ the latest technologies. Today, old contact center softwares are being replaced by new, dynamic products. One such product is the RealDialog e-service application made by Astute solutions.

Effective communication is the key for any business to function properly and this principle holds strong for the call center industry. This new software claims to take a giant step forward in the world of virtual call centers. This will happen with more efficient responses to customer queries. RealDialog analyzes customer inquiries word by word and is an intelligent system which learns from every user conversation. It enables customer interaction through a wide range of channels, which include voice contact center systems and websites. It can deliver messages to the customer in a variety of forms. Astute claims that this technology will enrich the whole customer experience by responding to their inquiries with 99% accuracy!

This new application is definitely going to take the market by storm and major call centers in the Philippines are bound to deploy this software on their systems. By doing so, they will be able to facilitate better interaction with their clients and will be a step ahead of their competitors. Technologies such as these will affect the call center industry in Philippines tremendously by reducing IT costs and improving productivity.

The future holds a lot for call centers in the Philippines if they are able to deliver the goods required of them. Employing newer technologies will help these upcoming firms to be up to date with the latest market trends. The RealDialog application is one such technology which will take them towards their goal faster and more efficiently!

$100 Billion by 2020: The Filipino BPO Industry is on its Way

Indian outsourcing officials recently stated that the BPO industry in Philippines is poised to become a $100 Billion industry by 2020. This is a big compliment coming from a country which has proved itself as a top BPO destination of the world.

Philippines has become a favored outsourcing destination in a very short span of time. The call center industry here has also flourished due to the majority of English speaking population. Outsourcing experts in India feel that Philippines has great potential and that their small population is not a drawback. However, for outsourcing to grow here, emphasis should be made to explore the KPO industry which deals with logical and analytical products. Along with this, the Filipino organizations should train their workforce to be able to deal with such products. Frankly speaking, this applies to every line of work. One needs to keep re inventing himself to stay ahead in the race!

Partnering with countries such as India and China will also be very beneficial for BPO units in Philipinnes. This is mainly because they are established players in the field along with having a huge, experienced workforce. Business Processing Association of the Philippines (BPAP) officials have stated that they are on course to make such dealings and that they are working towards developing a strong workforce to meet future challenges. They are also hosting the first International Outsourcing Summit in October this year.

With the amount of business expected from outsourcing, the call center industry in the country will grow exponentially in the years to come. With great developments in “next wave” cities like Cebu, Iloilo and Davao City, a great number of call center jobs will be created. Philippines is on its way up to become a leading hub for established contact centers and the time is just right for investors to make profitable investments in the country.

Philippines - 7th Most Favorable Outsourcing Destination

A.T. Kearney’s Global Services Location Index (GSLI) is a respected index that ranks attractive outsourcing destinations around the world. Its latest edition explicitly states that destinations in Asia, Middle East and North Africa are beating traditional Central European countries in the highly competitive BPO industry. More and more companies are looking to ship their jobs to these locations as they provide good quality and cost effective solutions. Philippines is also a key member of the outsourcing world and it has been ranked the 7th most favorable outsourcing destination by the index. This is great news for the Filipinos as the outsourcing industry in the country is growing at an alarming rate!

Philippines is slowly becoming one of the most favored destinations for outsourced jobs. GSLI’s latest edition is a good indicator of the changing market trends and news such as this will provide a great boost to the already flourishing BPO units here. With more and more call centers being set up in the country, it won’t be long before this archipelago makes its way into the top 5!

India, China and Malaysia have maintained their top three spots, a clear indicator of the dominance Asia has in the outsourcing world. Western European countries such as Poland, Hungary and Slovakia, which were once top outsourcing destinations, have dropped several places in the latest rankings. The index is a good indicator of the business trends as a lot of research goes into it. Each country’s score is made up of a weighted combination on 43 different measurements! Hence, there should not be too much debate on the ability of the index!

GSLI has been an efficient index since its inception in 2004. They have keenly followed market trends and have provided accurate results! Their latest edition has surely given much needed motivation to upcoming call centers in the Philippines. The future looks bright and it is the right time to capitalize on the opportunity!