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Talent2 International Limited (ASX: TWO) announced today that it had been selected by the Queensland Government, through a competitive tender, as the ICT Contractor Resource Manager. The three-year contract will see Talent2 take responsibility for the implementation and management of a Managed Service Program (MSP) across all 13 Queensland Government Agencies. This program will cover the procurement and performance management of all ICT contractors and suppliers that provide services to the Queensland Government. This program will improve the economy, effectiveness and efficiency of ICT contractor resource management for the Queensland Government.

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SonicWALL, Inc., the leading provider of intelligent network security and data protection solutions, today announced it has expanded its suite of firewall security services with the addition of Kaspersky Anti-Virus to its Enforced Client Anti-Virus and Anti-Spyware solution. SonicWALL® Firewalls ensure easy deployment, provisioning and enforcement of the client on endpoint devices through a unique policy-driven engine. SonicWALL Next-Generation and Unified Threat Management firewalls already provide gateway anti-virus through SonicWALL’s proprietary reassembly-free deep packet inspection anti-malware solution, protecting the perimeter, wireless and VPNs. But viruses can still enter the network through other entry points, including laptops, thumb drives or other unprotected systems. While protection at multiple layers is the best defense against sophisticated modern threats, deploying, maintaining and enforcing the right security software on endpoint devices can strain IT resources and budgets.

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New Release of Unisys Secure Cloud Computing Solution Gives Clients Better, More Cost-Efficient Resource Management New dashboard capability gives administrators a single, integrated view to better manage their cloud resources and control costs. Release 2.1 includes a new dashboard capability that gives administrators a single, integrated view of all cloud resources: servers, networks, storage systems and more. They can use the dashboard to determine the operational status of specific resources and take necessary actions to respond to business changes in real time, deliver performance mandated by service-level agreements (SLAs) and increase infrastructure productivity.

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Nespresso revolutionises its Business Solutions after-sales services with Machine-to-Machine solution from Orange. Nespresso Business Solutions is enhancing its B2B coffee machine after-sales service maintenance with a customised machine-to-machine (M2M) solution from Orange Business Services. Nespresso has launched two revolutionary B2B machine models – Aguila and Zenius, the industry’s first connected tabletop coffee machines. These models use embedded SIM cards from Orange that enable the machines to communicate with the Nespresso Customer Relationship Centres. This two-way communication enables remote machine diagnostic and preventative maintenance visits can be scheduled as required.

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International Recruitment Company HARVEY NASH launches new career opportunities and outsourcing services in Sydney Australia. The company has already gained several years experience in the Australian market working for international clients from its existing world-wide network of 40 offices, including Hong Kong and Vietnam. The new office marks a significant investment in the Australian market, and reflects confidence in the strength of its economy as well as the increasing demand for highly skilled talent both locally and offshore.

A report on Australia’s Channel Nine’s A Current affair last week ran a story about the outsourcing industry in the Philippines. The basic premise of their story was that Australian call centre jobs and service quality are being sacrificed for low skilled, poorly trained and inadequately paid workers in the Philippines. This has stirred a very strong response from the BPO industry both here and from overseas.

Lets face it no industry is perfect. The BPO industry is booming in the Philippines and it’s a lot broader than just call centres. And yes in any industry that is booming, cowboy operators will pop up here and there in an attempt to make a quick buck and disappear. But should an entire industry be put into question because of a few bad eggs?

Jerry Durant, Chairman Emeritus of the International Institute of Outsource Management, has observed about the Philippine industry, “The Philippines rise in BPO market status is attributable to service delivery and the level of quality satisfaction that it has received from client companies. Given that this position was acquired through work commitment (vs. first in market position) serves as testimony to their work and the confidence that is being given by clients around the globe”.

He went on to say, “All of the companies that I have dealt with in the Philippines require university degrees and often with high standing. I even saw a local laundry that required a university degree, this gives one some idea as to the importance of an education here. I have looked at the curriculums and they are on par with Western Universities. Because you are dealing with a nation who has a high level of poverty the work ethic is very strong.”

Call centres in the Philippines are far from being sweatshop operations. They tend to be situated in very modern air-conditioned buildings with ergonomically designed environments that encourage and motivate their staff to be productive. The workers are highly educated and literate, the Philippines produces 450,000 university graduates per year, and a great percentage of those students start their working careers in the call centre industry. There are a percentage of hopefuls who do not make the grade because of their business grade English language skills and are referred to as ‘near hires’. These people are placed in intensive and professional English language courses and upon graduation are placed in reputable BPO businesses. In fact the Philippines government acknowledges this challenge and recently announced a 500 million-peso grant to companies who took on near hires and improved their business grade English skills by putting them though a recognised English course.

Emily Brocoy – Manager APAC Region for a Cebu-based BPO service provider Taking You Forward (TYF) remarked, “The Philippines is doing its best to provide quality call centre agents and these agents usually have to undergo “Culture assimilation training” sessions, whether that be for our UK, American or Australian clients. Each culture has its own slang and idiomatic expressions and its not always easy getting your head around expressions like “ fair dinkum’ if you have never heard it used in every day language. We learn English at school just like English people; we all speak it fluently daily. A broad Scottish or Irish accent is just as hard for us to understand as it is for an Australian. We work hard to take language out of the communication so that we can focus our energy on the clients issues.”

The entry-level wage for a contact centre worker, according to http://www.averagesalarysurvey.com is around $AU 5,000, which is the average salary in the Philippines. Yes it is lower than an Australian salary, but we need to consider that the cost of living is substantially less in the Philippines. And that salary figure does not take into account that a substantial number of contact centre employees also receive addition benefits such as meal, shift and travel allowances as well as performance bonuses and a range of non-taxable benefits such as electronic devices i.e. mobile phones.

Experienced and successful contact centre agents, depending on the nature of the work, can earn up to PhP 1000 – 2500(AUD $20 – 50) per day. http://call-center-bpo.jobstreet.com.ph/call-center-industry/call-center-working-as-a-corporate-vampire.htm. In the Philippines that’s a very substantial wage to be earning and because of this call centre work is sought after by the brightest and the best.

It’s not just labour that is less expensive in the Philippines, office space and real estate is also substantially cheaper when compared to cities like Sydney. Comparing 15 central business districts in Asia, Manila was ranked second most economical with lease rates of $US 19.1per square foot/annum, next to Jakarta’s $16.3, according to research from CB Richard Ellis.

In Australia we are happy to buy shoes, TVs and computers that are often made in sweatshop conditions in China, but it’s somehow unacceptable to speak to a relatively well-paid, highly trained and highly motivated knowledge worker in the Philippines.

In response to the A Current Affair report on the quality of the Philippine workforce, Lachlan Maxwell, VP, Sales and Marketing for SPi Global in Australia, states, “The idea of portraying the labour pool in Asia in such an out dated manner is ridiculous. The number of companies currently enjoying the benefits of outsourcing to the Philippines is testament to the quality of the workforce there”. He went on to say “We live in a global economy – to suggest that we should only source goods and services from within Australia is insane. Australia would be the first country in trouble if everyone around the world did this, with our huge reliance on exports”.

Max Tennant a senior executive with Australian based BPO Salmat commented, “Many businesses have diverted their savings through offshoring into servicing their customers better and providing more value. Stop and think about how much cheaper a mobile phone plan has become over the last 5 years. Some Telco’s are contemplating offering a premium onshore service option for an additional fee to their customers.”
The 2011 Australian Contact Centre Industry Benchmarking Report, an annual study conducted by research house callcentres.net which tracks the call centre business in Australia, highlights that employee turnover within the industry for 2010/2011 was 40% for full-time staff, and 44% for part-time workers.

Why is there such turnover? According to the report, by Australian standards most call centre work is not viewed as a career option. Most of it is deemed to be low paid, tedious transient jobs and with no or little opportunity for advancement.

What level of quality service can you expect from an unmotivated employee who has little regard for the work they’re doing?

Less than ten percent of contact centre work generated in Australia is sent offshore. Of the work that is kept here, it’s a real struggle to find and keep people in those positions. And considering that Australia is almost at full employment (5.1%) – whose jobs are these Philippine call centre workers ‘stealing’ anyway?

By Eric Hochstein

Outsourcing bothers many Americans. You hear it when politicians talk about the loss of “American jobs” to places like India, China, and the Philippines. A lot of Americans, particularly working-class Americans who are suffering through a devastating recession, feel that outsourcing is evil and call it one of the causes of the economy’s problems.

President Barack Obama has begun to capitalize on the public’s anger by pointing towards companies that have “outsourced American jobs”. He’s promoting “insourcing”, which combines “reshoring” of jobs that had been sent offshore and “homesourcing” jobs that could have gone to another country. And he’s promoting insourcing as a trend, which is helping to put Americans back to work.

The President pits “insourcing” against the “outsourcing” evil, while the issue is not really “outsourcing” but “offshoring. The President isn’t against outsourcing – he probably doesn’t care who is doing the work as long as it is being done in the United States. And he also combines supply chain/ manufacturing offshoring and technology services/business process offshoring. It’s all about U.S. jobs moving offshore.

In January, he hosted a White House Forum on Insourcing and he talked about insourcing in his State of the Union address. Just this week, he went to America’s heartland to laud Master Lock, a world’s largest maker of padlocks, for bringing 100 manufacturing jobs back to the company’s headquarters in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. It’s a theme he’s bound to return to this year as he simultaneously tries to reboot the economy and runs for a second term in office.

It’s one of the few no-lose political issues for the President in this election year. He can applaud companies that bring back jobs that they shipped out a few years ago because they could not compete profitably. He can vilify companies that continue to send jobs overseas, promise new tax incentives for businesses that keep jobs in the U.S. instead of sending them offshore, and threaten to eliminate tax breaks for companies that send work and jobs offshore.

And political opponents can’t oppose insourcing. Jobs are returning.

It’s just that homeshoring and reshoring may be (re)creating jobs in the U.S., but are not going to be the only answer to America’s economic ills.

The once-vibrant manufacturing sector in the U.S. struggled around the millennium. Employment in manufacturing decreased by almost 6 million jobs from 1999 to 2009. Companies shifted work overseas to meet competition and take advantage of lower costs, while also meeting demands in emerging markets.

Now, it appears that manufacturing in the U.S. is bouncing back. 237,000 new jobs were added in 2011, the most in the sector since 1997. In January 2012, 50,000 jobs were added. A very small portion of these jobs appears to be from work being brought “home”, but some are.

In fact, at Master Lock, the 100 jobs that returned from China, were only a small portion of the jobs that were lost to factories in Mexico and China. In the 1990’s, the Milwaukee plant ran at capacity with about 1,300 employees. Today, the company only needs about one-third that number. The President highlighted the 100, and ignored the larger number.

Yet despite that math, President Obama’s economic fortunes may be brightening at the right time in his first term. With about 9 months left before the election, and with four Republican candidates battling desperately for their party’s nomination, the U.S. economy is slowly gaining momentum and Obama’s approval ratings have just nudged above 50% for the first time in more than eight months.

Until recently, most pundits had hypothesized that American manufacturing was doomed due to lower cost offshore production and were resigned to the “fact” that most American technology jobs could be done by people in lower cost emerging economies at one-third the hourly cost.

Now, realities have hit home –companies are finding that there are things that are better done closer to the customer in both the supply chain and information technology. Distance apart and time zones away hinder innovation, flexibility, responsiveness and time to market. Investments in productivity technology have reduced costs (and perhaps eliminated the need for assembly-line workers), making domestic production more efficient and competitive. Costs are increasing rapidly in both India and China, and the once abundant supply of qualified labor is being stretched thin. As a result, it appears that the velocity of offshoring from America is slowing.

But only a few of the jobs that were lost in the past two decades will ever be reshored. There are still many types of work that can be done cost-effectively and satisfactorily anywhere in the work. Few of these will return to the U.S. And American-based global firms are finding that their customer bases are spreading rapidly around the world and some things are better or more cost competitive when they are produced closer to the customer, who may turn out to halfway around the world from Milwaukee.

Social media is fast becoming more than just a part of the marketing and PR mix. Companies are realizing they need to integrate social engagement into employee relations, hiring, customer service, risk management and product development. This means hiring social media savvy people in many roles across the organization, or putting a dedicated social media team in place to manage the integration.

To plan and effectively implement a social media strategy would require the services of a social media strategist. Most social media strategy consultants charge between $100 and $300 an hour. If one were hired full time a company would probably have to pay between $50,000 and $100,000 a year. A community manager will cost between $50,000 and $75,000 a year. EConsultancy Social Media Salary Guide in the top 20 US markets.

Successful engagement across the organization means staff has to be trained. An in-house social media manual and online training course would be around $10,000 and hiring a trainer for on-site workshops will cost anywhere from $1500 – $10,000 a day, depending on who is hired.

Dashboard and monitoring tools could be another $30,000 – $80,000 a year. Technology costs — blogs, mini sites, video equipment, custom Facebook tabs and apps, online newsroom and mobile apps could be anywhere from as little as $5,000 to as much as $100,000.

Take it all into account and a company could be looking at a quarter of a million dollars a year! Yes, many successful programs have been done for much less, but when calculating ROI it’s wise to look at the big picture and include all the hidden time and labor costs, in order to get the real cost of investment and see the actual return.

“These figures make outsourcing some of the social media support activities an attractive proposition,” says Falkow. “Engagement and conversation has to be done by people in the company. That’s what social media is all about — conversations between the people in a company and their stakeholders. But engagement is the tip of the social media iceberg: 75% of the work is in the research, monitoring and content creation — and that can be outsourced.”

Social Ally is a group of experienced social media experts with a team of designers, developers, writers, researchers and analysts who are well-versed in social media support activities. With the right social media support team behind you it is possible to maintain successful results with a lean and mean in-house social media team and keep the costs down.

About Social Ally The Social Ally team is led by Sally Falkow and Chris Abraham, who are both Digital PR and social media veterans. Sally Falkow, named PR Trainer of the Year for her social media and Digital PR classes, was one of the first Digital PR and social media evangelists in the US. She started her Digital PR consultancy in 2000. Chris Abraham, listed as the #3 social media influencer in the US in 2011, has been active in this field even longer. Chris has both technical and marketing/PR knowledge and is known for his innovative blogger outreach and social intelligence research. The outsource team is headed up by Jamella Santos who has been operating outsourcing operations for many years and has the process and project management systems down cold. To find out more about the Social Ally team and how we can support your social media efforts visit www.social-ally.com

Download the PDF:
https://socialally.basecamphq.com/projects/8675660/file/110618189/Version%202.pdf

Image Available:
http://www2.marketwire.com/mw/frame_mw?attachid=1889679

AS ANZ Bank announced job cuts in Australia it was hosting open days in Manila to attract workers to take over many of the positions.

The five-day recruitment open house, in addition to more than 70 mid-level banking jobs advertised on its Philippines website, reveals that ANZ is heavily engaged in moving Australian jobs overseas.

The jobs range from analysts and ”collections associates” (debt collectors) to a health and wellbeing consultant.

The advertisement for the open house, which finished yesterday, says collections associates will call ANZ customers in Australia and will need to work Australian business hours.

Candidates for the roles are required to have excellent English, two years of college education and at least a year’s experience in the “business process outsourcing industry” – preferably in collections or finance.

Applicants will “need to understand and adapt to cultural differences to ensure great customer experience is maintained”, according to the advertisement.

ANZ has announced cuts of 1000 jobs to its Australian workforce, 492 roles initially and 508 in the pipeline.

“Obviously there would be a difference between what someone in a back-office role gets paid in Australia and what they would be paid for the same role in Manila,” said ANZ spokesman Stephen Ries.

Mr. Ries defended ANZ’s overseas recruitment drive when it is cutting jobs in Australia.

“We are a regional bank, we have a substantial presence in Asia so it makes sense that we advertise overseas,” he said.

“The majority of the roles cut are being made redundant so they are not being replaced but a small number of roles are going to our regional hubs.

“We have had a hub in Bangalore for over 20 years and we also have one in Manila.”

Mr. Ries said the “small number” of roles going offshore amounted to 100 of the 492 initial job cuts announced.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/national/anz-recruiting-in-philippines-as-local-jobs-axed-20120218-1tg3l.html#ixzz1mo5n9kGi

The data centre market is continuing to explode in Australia, with American company Digital Realty announcing two new projects to be built in Melbourne that are expected to add an economic benefit of more than $360 million.

The move comes after Bevan Slattery has been pushing forward with his own NextDC venture, while Dell, Amazon and HP are all working on their own projects in the country.

Yesterday, Digital Realty celebrated with Victorian IT minister Gordon Rich-Phillips the ground-breaking of the first of two new centres planned for Deer Park, which are also expected to create 200 new construction jobs.

The construction of these new centres comes during a time when businesses and individuals are using more cloud-based services than ever before, preferring to outsource their IT rather than handle it within their own headquarters.

Such a shift, experts say, has resulted in a number of different organisations believing Australia is a fertile ground for such developments – NextDC is already operating in several capital cities, with Bevan Slattery believing the thirst for data hosting has yet to be quenched.

Telsyte senior analyst Rodney Gedda told SmartCompany this morning the market is growing rapidly as companies look to increase IT outsourcing.

“There is a lot of construction right now, and the main reason for that is it that they’re catering to a market where there is a lot of demand for infrastructure as a service,” he says.

“Basically, what that means is businesses are just wanting to find ways other companies can manage their own IT infrastructure and then use that as a service.”

Gedda says he believes this is where he thinks the market is heading, where businesses lease more time on services in the form of virtual machines or other facilities, and then pay one bill instead of having to manage different pieces of infrastructure in-house.

But he also notes these data centres aren’t anywhere near the size of centres being built in countries such as the United States, where businesses like Apple and Facebook create data centres that span football field-sized areas.

“If you’re a government department you’ve got a lot of money to spend on servers and storage and so on, so it’s not a mass marketing thing like the Googles and Facebooks of the world where they provide services to consumers.”

“This market is more catering to businesses rather than consumers.”

Rich-Phillips said yesterday the project would create 200 construction jobs, and then about 450 positions once the projects are up and running.

“The investment builds in Victoria’s technology capability and adds to our state’s reputation as a natural home for data centres and a leading regional hub for ICT businesses,” he said in a statement.

Source: Smart Company

“If an organization is looking to do a large infrastructure outsourcing engagement, the best way to ensure that security is a priority is to build a comprehensive list of security requirements into outsourcing contracts, develop appropriate service level agreements and reporting mechanisms to evaluate security and budget for a review by an independent assessment organization. This will ensure that security always stays top of mind,” said panel speaker Chris Oglesby. “If, however, the decision is to outsource infrastructure and security separately, then the security operations should drive the direction and outcomes and create independence between the organizations to meet the client needs.”

In the future, companies need to employ executive IS leaders who will develop methods to adequately protect the IT infrastructure when outsourcing in-house responsibilities. Platforms, such as EC-Council’s CISO Executive Summit Series, provide a means for top-level IS executives to gather and discuss the latest industry challenges. Continuous education and knowledge sharing will provide solutions to the quandaries top-executives face on a daily basis. For more information on upcoming EC-Council CISO Executive Summits, please visit: www.eccouncil.org/cisosummit.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2012/02/13/prweb9183078.DTL&ao=2#ixzz1mxxEQyZU

Joel Mari S. Yu Cebu Investment Promotions Center (CIPC) managing director, explained that this thrust is also in line with the recommendation of international research firm Tholons for Cebu to improve its knowledge process outsourcing (KPO) capabilities and make inroads in information technology outsourcing (ITO).

IT-BPO is one of two fast-growing sectors in Cebu, with export sales increasing from barely $200 million in 2005 to $1.5 billion in 2011 based on CIPC estimate, Mr. Yu said during the 2012 Cebu Annual Economic Forum and Investment Briefing initiated by the Cebu Business Club and the University of San Carlos (USC) Economics Department.

Records from the Philippine Export Zone Authority (PEZA) said Cebu currently has 126 foreign direct locators, which employ around 65,000 workers according to CIPC.

The IT-BPO firms are distributed over the following locations: 72 in Asiatown IT Park and eight in Cebu Business Park in Cebu City, one in HVG IT Park in Mandaue City, and 45 in various other buildings.

The bulk of service providers and employees, however, are concentrated on the BPO sub-group, which is the lowest level in the sector and deals with routinary call center work, at 72%, according to Mr. Yu.

KPO has a 13.5% share while ITO has 14.5%.

He said Cebu is working hard to sustain its ranking in a Tholons global study as ninth of top 10 emerging outsourcing cities by putting in investments in infrastructure as well as developing organizations and creating policies that would support the sector’s growth.

It is also taking seriously the recommendations of Tholons to develop a constant supply of skilled workers, maximize its customer support and call center services, and improve its knowledge process and information technology outsourcing capabilities.

“Cebu is growing phenomenally but with it comes an accompanying challenge. We must cope with that growth but we are not doing very well in that direction. We have a product that sells. We are world-class service providers for English-speaking call centers and IT-enabled services,” he said.

Mr. Yu said a comparison study that they asked Tholons to conduct showed Cebu was way above India in basic and analytical abilities but miles behind in software development skills.

Recent assessment tests showed as well that the gap between the needs of the industry and the skills provided by the academe has narrowed, except in verbal ability and American LCT, he added.

Cebu’s lower minimum wage, cheaper food, and less expensive real estate are its cost advantages over Manila, which was fourth in the Tholons ranking, he added.

The five biggest call centers in Cebu ranked according to size are Convergys, Qualfon, Aegis PeopleSupport, Stream Global Services, and Sykes Asia and they employ a total of 17,700 employees.

Cebu could do better, though, Mr. Yu said, citing that Accenture in Manila has a total of 23,000 workers in eight locations.

Since Cebu’s voice locators are from the US, it would suffer if Congress passes a bill restricting offshoring by American firms. Mr. Yu pointed out, however, that there is already an increasing number of KPO and ITO companies here from other countries like Japan, Australia, India and Canada.

Source: BWorld Online

http://aca.ninemsn.com.au/article/8418768/call-centre-aussie-school

Please visit the link above and see how a major Australian TV channel presents outsourcing to the Philippines call centres. One of the reasons that we established the Australian BPO Association (ABPOA) was to rebut this type of myopic commentary. I am not an apologist for the Philippine BPO industry, I am however a champion of outsourcing be it onshore or offshore, and I defend the right of companies to see outsourcing as a legitimate part of the business landscape. My comments are below and are best viewed after watching the clip. We welcome your comments, positive or negative.

According to Wikileaks, A Current Affair (ACA) is often considered by media critics and the public at large to use sensationalist journalism – as depicted in the parody television show Frontline – and to deliberately present advertising as editorial content, as previously exposed on the ABC program Media Watch.

The future of parent company Channel Nine is uncertain as it waits for banks to decide whether to grant an extension on $3.6 billion of debt. (http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2011/s3380662.htm) Moreover, it is regularly beaten in the TV ratings by its more professional and considered rivals and after viewing the video, one can understand why.

Its young and relatively inexperienced journalist, Tom Steinfort (age 24) has been caught out a number of times recently using poor journalism as a quick web search will attest to.

At the end of the story as he and the host of the program sat there smugly congratulating themselves, I realised that the ‘PR Hacks’ and ‘Spin Doctors’ that he was glibly calling them, were in fact senior executives from some of Australia’s largest publicly owned companies, who also called me and they were very angry. They were most concerned about the damage that this kind of rubbish does to Australia’s reputation.

This outsourcing story is poor story telling, masquerading as quality journalism and I use the word ‘quality’ in the loosest possible sense. It is a meaningless and directionless load of twaddle and clearly put together by a production team that has absolutely no idea about basic research or the subject matter that they are filming. In fact, I dare say that the story is borderline racism.

The story is somehow implying that it’s ‘un-Australian’ to outsource to a country like the Philippines. Is this any different to Australians not supporting their local tourism industry by taking advantage of the value of the Australian dollar and going on overseas holidays in droves? Our currency is the highest it has been for at least the past 20 years. “We have to face it. Australia is now a high-cost destination,” the former Qantas chief executive, Geoff Dixon told the Australian Financial Review a few weeks ago. “We can talk about it, we can wring our hands, but to spend too much time complaining about the currency is self-defeating.”

The value of the Australian dollar to the Philippine peso has almost doubled in the last 10 years, amplifying the commercial benefits to Australian companies who outsource there. However, by lowering the prices of imports i.e. BPO services purchased in the Philippines or India, it spreads the love to these countries. In effect, it transfers and distributes income to all those Asian businesses that supply BPO services. In terms of social justice, that’s a good thing as it makes these countries less dependent on foreign aid as they learn to support Australian businesses and the multiplier effect, as the money ripples through their economies and reaches into all corners of their economy, means that everybody gets a taste. There is no doubt that it helps to float the economy boat in the countries that have BPO service providers.

It is worth noting that Australia does not have a people shortage problem, what we have is a skills shortage problem. The mining and construction boom, mainly in Western Australia and Queensland has acted like a giant vacuum cleaner, sucking up all available labour resources to fuel the insatiable demand.

Not only do we have a skills problem, but our young people also have an adversity to working in the service industry – somehow it’s beneath them. So even if there was no mining boom gobbling up all of our human resources, we still cannot get people to work in call centres and local outsourcing shops.

So what choice do Australian businesses have? They cannot get people and they cannot get people with the right skill sets and the right motivation, and if they can get them they will not stay and they have to pay twice as much for them. Yet, we as customers still expect first class customer service, telephone calls answered in less than 3 rings by a happy, chirpy operator. Furthermore, it is worth mentioning that over 80% of all customer transactions in Australia go via call centres. They are an integral and important component in the way our society works.

So let’s start with where the ‘story’ fails its viewers.

The nub of the story is that somehow people who are starting a new job should not be receiving induction and skills training to better master their job.

What ACA has done is they have found a small private ‘school’ that is providing some form of basic language training. With selective editing they have managed to make the viewer believe that this is the ‘normal’ training. Anybody in the BPO business knows that the training conducted by BPO service providers – be it product, customer service, Australian idiomatic expressions and languages, including pronunciation syntax, etc. – is very comprehensive and conducted to international standards as mandated by their western clients. Therefore, what ACA has presented is in no way shape or form representative of what actually goes on.

Every company in Australia is made up of as many different nationalities and accents as there are nations on earth. Everybody in Australia, except the Aboriginal people, came from somewhere else. In fact, we pride ourselves on our multicultural make-up.

Being ‘Australian’ is a not a function of being somehow a white Anglo Saxon, as implied by the program, which is a major ethnic group of our population. However, according to the 2006 census, they only represent about 32 percent of our demographic make-up. As a matter of fact, the 140,000 Filipino Australians might be surprised to learn that somehow they were less Australian than Australians whose origins are in the UK. Being ‘Australian’ is an idea that is under pinned by the notion of a fair go for all, not one group at the expense of another. We live in a global, totally interconnected world and what we should be doing is exporting our sense of fair play, not pandering to some pathetic, outdated notion that unless you were white and British to your bootstraps, you are somehow inferior. It’s worth noting that there are more English speakers in the Philippines, than there are people in Australia. The Philippines is the third largest English speaking country in the world. Granted not everybody speaks business grade English; however, the Philippine government is investing heavily in programs to address this. English is the international language of business, and all countries are investing and improving those skills in their own communities to be internationally competitive.

Last week, I attended a BPO seminar and I listened as a spokesman for a major Telco in Australia, who outsource some of their BPO work to the Philippines, stressed that complaints about ‘accents’ in their call centres, irrespective of their geographic locations were more or less at the same levels be they in Australia or the Philippines. This is a function of the fact that their staff reflects the demographic makeup of Australia. Time and time again, respected studies show that what consumers want is ‘First Call Resolution’, and so long as they can be understood and understand the call centre agent they are satisfied. Portraying calls being answered in a foreign country as a ‘pet hate’ of Australian is most duplicitous.

Steinfort, (presumably of non – UK origin) was trying to sensationalise the story by saying that the call centres he was investigating were ‘top secret’ – the names of the companies on top of the buildings must have been a bit tricky for him. Like any business in any country in the world, they have a right to go about their daily routines and there are no sinister secrets hidden inside.

A quick call to BPA/P (The Business Process Outsourcing Association of the Philippines) would have helped him get his facts straight, and they would have been proud to tell him that there are in fact about ½ a million people working in the Philippine BPO sector and 17,000 of those are serving Australia. He would also have been informed that the hourly rate is a range between A$2.50 and A$4.50 an hour, depending upon skill level, etc. While this does seem low by Australian standards, it’s relative to what is known as parity pricing, in that, the cost of living is very low in the Philippines compared to Australia.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Mac_Index

Anybody who works in a call centre or in the Philippine BPO sector has a university education, and that is not always the case in Australia. I am not sure where Steinfort did his journalism training, but I can almost guarantee that his tutors would have frowned upon unethical sneaky tactics, like hidden cameras and lying to get inside a commercial building. Also, button-holing unsuspecting employees outside of their workplace and exploiting their vulnerability, was devious and underhanded in the extreme. I am confident that Channel Nine would not tolerate a rival TV crew who showed up unannounced at Willoughby, using such devious methods to get a story. Had he actually managed to gain access, he would have seen an orderly and businesslike environment that is identical to any facility in Australia. There are no secrets, just workers going about their day-to-day activities. This type of story gathering goes someway to explaining why Channel 9 is lagging badly in the ratings.

The angle about relatives phoning someone inside a Manila-based call centre is about as relevant as an Australian Guinness drinker in Melbourne phoning his relative inside the Guinness brewery in Dublin – not sure where he was going with that.

Ridiculous and tedious questions about who is the ‘prime minister of Australia’ and what is ‘vegemite’ are about as relevant as the journalist knowing that Benigno Aquino is the President of the Philippines and that Balut is a Philippines delicacy that also is an acquired taste. I am amazed that he did not throw in the question about “Who is Don Bradman?” That would have really shown them up for the ignorant fools that he was trying to make them appear. This is very low-grade, schoolboy rubbish. We live in a multi-polar world and we need to engage with Asia and show them respect, and this type of nonsense reporting feeds into racial hatred and cultural misunderstanding and panders to the very basest emotions in our community. Dare we forget the Cronulla riots and the disgraceful way that some sections of our community treated Indian students who were actually bringing their hard-earned money and spending it in Australia to buy themselves an education? We actually want people like that.

The simple fact of the matter is that global labour markets have restructured and highly skilled and less expensive Asian knowledge workers can and will do the work required of them. Gone are the days when Asia was a place where low value business processes were sent as a labour arbitrage play.

There are enormous markets up there and the last thing we need is Asian countries marking us down for the crass ignorant swill that the ACA program makes us out to be.

We must get rid of this jingoistic mindset that somehow coolies populate Asia. The intellectual horsepower in Asia is immense, and it’s understandable that in an age of cloud-based technologies coming into their own, companies would want to tap into these highly skilled workforces.

Vested interests in first world nations can complain about it all they want, but the drivers of BPO are very well-known and have been well-ventilated over the last couple of years. The world is governed by self-interest, and that is the nub of the issue.

So it follows with BPO, if companies can access talented and less expensive labour in somewhere like the Philippines, why would a business pay more for the same thing in their own country?

The shareholders of businesses expect to pay the least amount that they can to operate their business and have a duty to employ the least amount of people necessary to make their business work.

The security risks posed by the official representing the Australian Services Union showed that she had absolutely no idea about security in BPO environments. In fact, I would even hazard a guess that she has never been inside a call centre. The fact that the journalist and his camera crew were stopped by the very first levels of security outside one of the buildings is testament to how serious BPO companies take their security measures. Moreover, most if not all, have the following procedures in place as standard:

o No CSR access to external USB drives or floppy disks
o No personal use of internet in CSR’s stations
o Clean Desk Policy – no unauthorized writing instruments and paper inside or outside Operations Floor
o No access to external email
o No mobile phones on the operations floor
o Provide access to shredders for disposal of documents with customer information
o Regular 100% physical security checks

She would also know that most data or databases do not leave the country of origin and are accessed by very strict password protocols via cloud-based technologies or VPNs and the like.

If she has bothered to do a cursory examination of the Internet, she would have found that identity theft has more to do with Russian crime gangs than it does with Philippine call centres.

The section about phone etiquette was only useful in that it displayed the complete unfamiliarity of the reporter to standard business practices. It was like ‘Angry Customer 101’ and he still did not get it. To try and explain phone technique as some form of trickery and a ‘distraction mechanism’ shows that he has no idea or understanding of even the most basic business communication skills irrespective of location.
As I intimated earlier, in case you missed it they, ACA, sent a child on a grown-up’s job.

On the positive side, the footage did show nice, clean, work environments that are equivalent to anywhere in Australia or anywhere else in the world for that matter.

So why do firms send jobs offshore?

Although such decisions may be variously explained in terms of enterprises trying to focus on their core business and to increase efficiency, the conventional thinking is that the prime motive is usually to cut costs.

It may seem to be counter-intuitive, however our own research, which we will be launching early next month, tells us that reducing costs (79%) is the least important driver influencing a company’s outsourcing policy. When we recently canvassed the opinions of Australia’s major corporations, 71% of respondents told us that global expansion is the most important driver influencing their company’s outsourcing policy.

This is a major turnaround to conventional thinking and puts to rest the furphy about BPO 1.0 lift and shift and that cost is the major driver for outsourcing. What the research is telling us is that our business community has matured and moved beyond a pure cost approach to outsourcing. As we have argued all along, outsourcing and offshoring are a legitimate part of the business landscape. It also tells us that major Australian corporations are becoming less myopic and looking at the opportunities being presented by an emerging and fast growing Asia. An example that comes to mind is the insurance market in Vietnam. So mark this day down as the shift in thinking moves us along the journey to BPO 2.0 and beyond.

The main reasons for the growth of outsourcing in Australia are:

1. It’s too hard for companies to find suitable staff even if they want to – so what choice do they have if they want their phones answered. I did see a study years ago that said that of any given western population, only 2 % would be interested and suitable to work in a call centre.

2. There is tremendous pressure on companies from shareholders to reposition their capital in their business and change the make-up of their balance sheets and move to an operating expense environment with all of its attendant tax benefits. This means that they will look to outsourcing as a way of releasing capital, by off-balance sheet funding.

3. The surge in the value (spending power) of the Australian dollar against all other countries, has only amplified how inexpensive it is to assess highly skilled, well-educated, motivated and willing labour in Asia. 



4. There are tremendous opportunities for call centre / customer service knowledge transfer / consulting in Asia especially in China.

Interestingly, we are seeing different types of outsourcing opportunities being requested by our Australian clients, with requests for non-voice back office projects. By and large our clients are telling us that what they want is access to skills not readily available in Australia, and this allows them to focus on their core competencies and support their specialist higher-level employees in Australia.
These are the facts. These are indisputable, and please feel free to quote them to rebut all of the ill-informed nonsense that is currently doing the rounds!

Also we would be obliged if you would circulate this to all of your contacts so that we may balance the debate.

Time: Arrive at 3.00pm for registration and 3.30pm start (sharp)


Finish: around 5.30pm (then networking and drinks)

Venue: The Big Room (above Big Music shop)
85 Alexander Street, Crows Nest NSW 2065
There are Board positions available and we are looking for fresh talent.

Contact: To register your attendance or to find out further information
, please contact Peter Springett – Public Officer 
at pspringett@abpoa.com.au or 0416 21 21 99.

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We have some exciting events coming up in the next couple of weeks. Next week is the Monash University Outsourcing Business Breakfast on Feb 23rd in Melbourne. If you are interested you should visit http://www.monash.edu/industry/breakfast-seminar – There might be a few spots left.

Then on the 29th Jan also in Melbourne the Law Institute of Victoria are running a session on Legal Process Outsourcing – for tickets contact Joe Jeney at jjeney@liv.asn.au

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Datacom a regional player in the IT Outsourcing and Business Process Outsourcing arena and Shanghai Wicresoft a ITO/BPO service provider in China, have announced that they have entered into a strategic partnership aimed at enhancing their respective customer offerings, by leveraging each other’s complimentary service delivery capabilities.

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Blue Coat, the technology leader in web security and WAN optimisation solutions, today issued its Blue Coat 2012 Web Security Report that identifies and analyses trends in malicious attacks over the past year and makes recommendations on strategies to keep companies safe. In 2011, the most significant evolution in the threat landscape was the use of malware networks, or malnets, to launch highly dynamic web-based attacks. These complex infrastructures, which outlast any one attack, drove a 240% increase in the number of malicious sites during the year. They are expected to launch as many as two-thirds of all new attacks in 2012. The Blue Coat Security Labs team first discovered the existence of these malicious networks early in 2011 and presently is the only company to specifically identify, track and block them.

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INDIAN business process outsourcing firm HCL Technologies Ltd. (HCL) is set to open a 500-seat facility in the Philippines that will initially employ 1,000 agents within the year.

“The Philippines’ capable and varied talent pool, close cultural affinity to North America and proximity to Australia and New Zealand, state-of-the-art infrastructure and government support make it an increasingly ideal delivery location option for our customers,” said a spokesman. The company’s facility will be set up in Quezon City and will operate in at least two shifts.

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The MACH5 solution includes a combination of stream-splitting, pre-population and advanced video caching technologies to scale the use of live or on-demand internal company video, as well as external web video, with minimal network impact. This prevents video from saturating a company’s Wide Area Network (WAN) or internet gateway while making video available to employees throughout the company – without crippling the performance of other business critical applications. Blue Coat announced that it has added the ability to scale and optimise encrypted Adobe Flash video, in addition to the video delivery capabilities already integrated with Blue Coat® MACH5 WAN optimisation appliances.