Benefits of Home Sourcing

Home sourcing, in basic terms, it is outsourcing to people's homes. Many businesses - chiefly, call centers - are jumping on the home sourcing bandwagon to cut costs and reap many other benefits. Home sourcing is a win-win prospect, as these positions allow workers to obtain stable employment while enjoying the advantages of working at home. As stated, both employers and employees can benefit from home sourcing positions. Employers are well aware that many customers and clients prefer to speak with someone whom they can easily understand and vice versa. Outsourcing overseas can result in language and dialect barriers that leave callers frustrated and unhappy. Home sourcing is a solution for this problem that pleases customers while keeping overhead costs lower for the companies they are calling. Employers may even be able to benefit from special tax credits by home sourcing jobs. Many home sourcing employers hire representatives on a contract basis, which cuts the costs of benefits such as health insurance and paid time off.

Since employees enjoy the plusses of telecommuting, such as saving money on gas and no stressful commute, they can pay a lower wage than they would to full-time, on-site staff. Don't write home sourcing jobs off as not worth your time, though. These jobs are still subject to minimum wage laws and most pay substantially more than that. In addition, read Benefits of Working from Home and Environmental and Cost Benefits of Telecommuting to Work to learn more about how you might benefit from a home sourcing position.

Outsourcing has become more attractive in recent years due to improved technology and wage arbitrage opportunities. Expanded broadband access, improved call-routing networks, and cheaper computer technology have allowed outsourcing to accelerate. Wage arbitrage opportunities, buying labor where it is relatively inexpensive, have arisen in industrialized countries with significant labor costs. An American computer programmer is paid between $75-$100 an hour while a similarly skilled Indian programmer is paid only $20 an hour. The same developments that have encouraged outsourcing have also benefited the growth of home sourcing. Improvements in technology can just as easily move work to a call center in Bangalore as to an employee’s home in Salt Lake City. Similarly, the sorts of wage differences that allow labor arbitrage between countries exist within the U.S. as well. U.S. computer programmers in metro areas earn between $75-$100 an hour while similarly skilled programmers in rural areas earn only $35-$40 an hour.

Cost Cutting in the Outsourcing Business

Companies nowadays keep on searching for possible ways to cut costs. Amidst the economic turmoil, outsourcing business became popular and viable to help businesses continue their services while decreasing operational costs. As a result, cost centers, like IT departments, are prime targets for outsourcing and off-shore maintenance. The typical business script is that as the IT organization moves into maintenance mode that cost center with high overhead becomes a prime target for reducing costs. Companies have reduced their spend on IT services and business transformation by almost one fifth by turning to outsourcers, according to a survey.

Michael DeSalles, Frost & Sullivan Research Analyst, said While the U.K. outsourcing market is fully grown and nearly reached dispersion and there are important opportunities in other European countries. Central and Eastern Netherlands proposed new outsourcing contracts that deal with financial services, communications, and information technology. The cost differential in BPO operations is not adequate. The organization must certify the availability of the resources which includes infrastructure and pool of individuals. The service levels can be maintained while deducting the costs. Last year Europe became the world's highest spender on outsourcing, with companies based in Europe spending more on IT outsourcing than those based in any other region of the world. In 2010 UK companies are expected to increase the amount they spend on outsourcing back-office functions, such as HR and finance.

Call centers desire to accomplish their work efficiently in low cost. If a company wants to compete, it must deal with business operations that will be beneficial and less costly. Inbound and outbound services in call centers maintain all types of tensions. Personnel with expertise are hired to have the work done as required by their clients. Customers will be grateful if they are attended with full respect and attention. BPO services are important to make better infrastructure provide good service to the customers. Call Center activities are tedious, cumbersome, time-consuming, extra-strenuous, and demanding. Extra budget is needed in other BPO activities. The workforce handling is another task which involves setting up of individual customer care unit. Outsourcing call center activities will benefit the Company's performance.

Philippines Urged to Tap Europe Outsourcing Market

Philippine outsourcing companies have been urged to turn their attention to European customers to expand their markets. Now that the country is fast capitalizing on being among the world’s destinations for global outsourcing and off-shoring business, industry stakeholders here are encouraged to continue to taking advantage of the vast European market.

European Chamber of Commerce and Industry in the Philippines executive VP Henry Schumacher said the Philippines is still unable to fully maximize the outsourcing market, which is currently being enjoyed by India. "India is doing well in marketing itself as a growth location for European investors. But the Philippines has a huge potential to even grab a bigger share," he said. "Since Europe is also aggressively looking at opportunities from emerging countries in the east, now is the time for the entire Philippines to explore Europe since it is also the largest business process outsourcing market," Schumacher said. While several European companies have already come to invest in the Philippines, the lack of knowledge in understanding the European culture requires need for waging a more aggressive campaign when penetrating the foreign market. The European culture is not hard to grasp and the European Chamber of Commerce of the Philippines (ECCP) is willing to assist stakeholders here in that aspect, the association can do initial training for employees to businesses like call center.

Schumacher advised that more visibility in the market should be emphasize, including the need for a European or someone with influence speaking for the Philippines and the business environment in the country. Branding, he stressed, is also necessary when capitalizing on the highly elusive European market. The brand should professionalize Filipinos. We believe that everybody in the world has in one way or another been touched by a Filipino. The Filipinos’ individuality is important to market the Philippines to Europe, we just have to focus on the Filipinos’ capabilities.

The ECCP is currently conducting talks with the Business Process Association of the Philippines (BPAP) to pioneer a committee called “Team Europe” to spearhead an aggressive marketing campaign for the country’s O&O industry. The team will also involve other institutions like the Commission on Information and Communication Technology (CICT), CITEM and a number of individual companies.