Article Source: May 2nd, 2012 | Nearshore Americas

By Dan Berthiaume (continued)

Everest Group says high-cost locations can supplement a BPO portfolio by fulfilling unique needs, such as niche skills, customer proximity, and time zone overlap

4. Locations experiencing tight labor conditions are always unattractive. Large cities in popular BPO locations often experience labor pool tightness due to competition for workers. However, Everest Group advises that BPO buyers can often supplement a “tight” labor pool in an urban BPO location with workers from adjoining areas, as well as the possible “additional” talent pool represented by employable high school graduates, part-time workers, and experienced professionals with similar skills from other industries. BPO buyers will need to implement the proper hiring and training models to implement and scale hiring of workers from the additional talent pool.

5. High-cost and low-cost locations are in competition with each other. BPO buyers often assume they must select either a low-cost or a high-cost location, with an obvious bias toward the cheaper destination. In actuality, Everest Group says high-cost locations can supplement a BPO portfolio by fulfilling unique needs, such as niche skills, customer proximity, and time zone overlap. BPO buyers should also assess delivery risks, including stability and predictability and business continuity, as well as consider direct financial metrics such as labor arbitrage, operational costs and taxes and incentives.

(Editorial note: Much of our research for this report resulted from a webinar, the “5 Common Myths of Location Selection,” produced by Everest Group).

Article Source: May 2nd, 2012 | Nearshore Americas

By Dan Berthiaume

When selecting a location for BPO service delivery, there are some standard metrics most BPO buyers use to determine the best location. However, “standard” does not always mean “right.” Just as in so many other areas of business, sometimes the common wisdom in the BPO realm is outdated, distorted or just plain wrong. Following is a brief review – compiled from several different expert sources- of some popular myths:

1. Rankings are helpful to understand relative attractiveness of locations.
Despite heavy reliance on various “official” rankings of BPO locations, it is prudent to digest these reports with a heavy grain of salt.  Factors such as an incrasingly large number of competing rankings, a lack of correlation between rankings and actual end outcomes, score differences that are not meaningful enough to denote relative attractiveness, and the inability of generic rankings to take company-specific considerations into account limit the usefulness of rankings.

Furthermore – as long-time followers of Nearshore Americas can recall – there are firms pretending to do analysis of markets, but when confronted to produce evidence of their findings, they are nowhere to be found. The classic example of this is the 2009 “Black Book” of Outsourcing’s unfair attack on Bogota, performed by the owners of “Black Book” which was later acquired by DataMonitor/ Ovum. The ‘authors’ never engaged with us when we requested they provide evidence of Bogota being the ‘riskiest place on earth’ to do outsourcing. (Ovum CEO’s actually wrote a letter to us about this topic – published here.)

2. Size = scalability.  
While the “size of an overall talent pool is often assumed to indicate scalability,  in reality, scalability is driven by multiple factors including quality of talent, competition, and companies’ unique requirements. The size of what appears to be an available talent pool  can be significantly reduced by issues such as lack of quality of quality and propensity and competition, resulting in a much smaller net talent pool. In addition, Everest Group – among others – cautions that statistics on available talent pools of qualified college graduates can often be misleading, and that local college graduates are not always part of the available talent pool.

3. Wage increase directly leads to an increase in overall people costs.  
Using the typical wages paid to ITO workers in India during the past few years as an example, Everest Group demonstrates that although wage inflation of 10-12% for senior programmers and 12-15% for junior programmers has often been reported, in actuality wages for these employees have actually risen 3-8%, with a net 4-6% impact on overall people costs. Everest Group attributes the disparity to lower levels of total inflation in salary bands than individual changes due to promotions and growth, as well as cost controls allowed by high rates of attrition among junior programmers.

EPIC Connections endorses the Redwage payroll card system. You can be assured that you are dealing with a quality organization that truly understands the contact center industry and the system complexities that eat away at profits.

When our EPIC Response consultants are engaged to improve operational efficiency, the distribution of wages is one of the first areas we focus on.

Significant savings can be realized while freeing HR employees from tedious and time consuming check-cutting procedures that never seem to end…until the next pay period beckons and the frustrating cycle starts all over again.

Every HR executive has a different question about this opportunity. Call Executive Vice President Tom McDermott with your most pressing concern: 201-962-3308.

EPIC Connections’ Director of Marketing Lynn Hinderaker will present “Serving the Emotile Customer in the Digital World” on May 18 at SCORE Conference 2012. Welcome to the new, kinetic era in customer relationship management! However, it is less about technology than it is about the end user who buys our products via smartphones, tablets and other mobile messaging platforms. How does all this movement affect motivation, trial and brand preference? Using data from Nielsen, EPIC Connections’ Lynn Hinderaker introduces us to the segment of the consumer universe that is driving cultural change. Hinderaker is an experienced, energetic presenter who will broaden your industry worldview while giving you actionable focus.

About EPIC EPIC Connections shortens the outsourcing partner selection process by 60% to 70%.  With the savvy of a Sherpa guide trekking the Himalayas, EPIC’s veterans steer companies through a rocky maze of selection decisions, ensuring that the chosen contact center’s core competency aligns with the requirements and culture of the client precisely and cost effectively.   EPIC Response delivers professional services that help companies deliver results.  EPIC’sconsulting practice provides innovative, cost effective solutions for those companies that want to lower costs and bolster performance.  The EPIC Response team understands how to optimize the customer experience through strategies for technology and operational optimization.

The contact center industry is fast paced and complex with many variables to organize and track. Technology has played a major role in making routine processes time-efficient, consistent and accurate. So you might think that the decision to convert from a standard payroll system to a technology-enhanced smart card would be a no-brainer.

Nevertheless, staffers and executives alike resist change. Often, they’re too busy or distracted to make a thoughtful evaluation. Besides, it’s easy to ignore the problems associated with the status quo…right?

Here’s a simple recap of the benefits associated with the Redwage payroll card conversion:

• Enhanced workflow, much like direct deposit
• Time savings: it’s far easier to ‘load’ compensation onto a card than to print and issue a check
• System integration: Redwage works with your current system so personnel department employees don’t      resist the conversion
• Employee enthusiasm: no more standing in line at the bank means more time with family and friends
• Environmentally responsible: less paper means fewer trees are being destroyed

Speak to an operations specialist who understands your industry

For the first six months of 2011, the online advertising industry increased it revenues by 23%, to $15 billion (according to the Interactive Advertising Bureau).

This represents a big change from the somber years of 2009 and 2010. Many corporations are realizing that no matter what they sell, they are a media company as well. As a result, companies are looking for new kinds of talent: “I need a CMO, an e-commerce executive, a social media expert and a content developer.” Interactive media is providing fulfilling jobs in a growth business that is just beginning to hit its stride. One association executive estimates that the number of marketing employees is way up from the 1.2 million people that it was in 2009.

All this bodes well for the contact center industry, but only if it can adjust and adapt at the same rate. As the end user becomes further empowered through interactivity, contact centers must strive to embed themselves in the middle of the action.

After choosing a contact center partner and going through the training process together, most clients sit back and let the contact center team move into a routine of customer interaction and periodic, regular reporting. The focus is cost containment and operational consistency.

But when routine and efficiency are foremost, it’s easy to miss an opportunity to maximize results, especially when the market is changing.

Here are some of the questions you must ask your contact center champion in order to ensure top performance:

• Is there the same sense of urgency about our product on the front line?
• How many of our trained agents have been reassigned to another client’s program at the same contact center?
• Are the language capabilities at our call center limiting us?
• How many of our trained agents have been reassigned to another client’s program at the same contact center?
• Is the technology of our contact center challenged? Are they using outdated technology?

Remember GE’s breakthrough advertising campaign the last six years using the word ‘eco-magination?’ That combination word demonstrates the value of joining two words into one unique concept.

That’s also the significance of the word, ‘Emotile.’ Obviously, we’re combining two words here: ‘emotion’ blends seamlessly with ‘mobile.’ And we all ‘get it’ quickly, just as we understand ‘eco-magination.’

We are not logical buyers, we’re emotional buyers. That’s why ‘behavioral economics’ is the hottest concept in academia today.

All of this becomes a concern when our front line customer agents interact with a slightly distracted customer who is involved with other people and media while making a purchase on the smartphone or via email, expecting a chat confirmation or instant message.

The contact center industry has historically focused on how to make incremental improvements – to be more efficient on a per-agent, per-call or per-hour basis. The goal was generally ‘lower costs through technology.’ But, today, mobile computing and social media are redefining our opportunity. The end user is ‘Emotile.’ Thus, the business opportunity is no longer incremental, but exponential. Customer care is becoming passé; customer engagement is becoming the Holy Grail.

This is a perfect time for contact center executives to do proactive, collaborative planning with clients. They can slice and dice the customer base for more relevant targeting, suggest ways to monitor the customer’s social media dialogue and propose more actionable metrics. Brand managers see something dramatic happening ‘in the field,’ but what, exactly? Contact center executives can create new value by helping their clients interpret new behavior patterns on the front line.

We’ve all grappled with the implications of portable computing tools for about two years. At the ATA conference on May 1, Epic Connections’ Director of Marketing will ‘introduce’ the contact center industry to the ‘Emotile’ Customer. Lynn Hinderaker will use Nielsen data to help us understand the preferences, habits, demographics, lifestyles and motivations that drive the users of smart phones, iPads and tablets. These are people on the move, kinetic multitaskers who use social media to conduct endless product research, then – POOF! – they are suddenly ready to buy and buy NOW –even if they’re shopping, walking, studying, visiting with friends, working, etc.

Will you be ready to respond and upsell when the magic moment arrives?