Showing posts with label Call Centre Business. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Call Centre Business. Show all posts

BPO staff may soon work from home too

Wednesday, September 30, 2009
A year after the department of telecommunications conditionally relaxed rules on IT-BPO employees working from home, Raman Roy, chairman & managing director of Quatrro BPO Solutions, has started pilot projects in Mumbai and Delhi to explore the possibility of scaling up the model.
Quattro is the first BPO to have secured permission for this model from DoT. "This is a provisional permission. Once the company is able to meet all our security concerns, we will grant them a license," confirmed a senior DoT official on condition of anonymity.
The license is a prerequisite for service providers to provide infrastructure and last-mile connectivity.
The $11-billion BPO sector employs over 750,000 people, and 'working from home' could add significantly to the employment numbers, said Roy. He added that he has been 'toying with the idea for nearly two years before I got help from software body Nasscom and the required permission from the DoT.'
Roy plans to launch another pilot in Chennai soon. He has also appointed a dedicated team of six senior employees -- including a lawyer and a technician -- to make these pilots successful.
"We feel this is the next-generation step for the industry. It will create jobs for people who are educated but don't have the flexibility to go to offices. Besides opening a career option for them, it will create a flexible workforce. So, housewives and others can work from home, will have flexible work timings and also earn money," said Roy.
Currently, the 30-odd employees who work from home have a computer that is connected to the company's server (using virtual private network or VPN technology). Whenever an employee logs on to the computer, the data on the screen is monitored by a supervisor sitting at the Quatrro headquarters in Gurgaon.
The supervisor sits in front of four large Plasma screens and can see each of the employees' monitors. If he wants to speak to anyone of them, or clarify any of their doubts, he accesses the webcam.
Currently, these employees are involved only in non-voice work which comprises both low-end data entry work and in some cases high-end data analytics, Roy said.
The main hurdle in this case is ensuring that a client's data is secure. "The test is all about security. So, the solution is that when the employee logs onto our server, the supervisor will be able to see him and his activities. The plasma screens ensure constant monitoring and guidance. The VPN pipe takes care of security," Roy said.
Usually there are 8 to 15 supervisors in one shift but for this virtual model one supervisor will be able to supervise 16 or 32 sessions at one go.
If the pilots are successful, Quatrro plans to expand this concept and train people by sending supervisors to tier-II and III cities and towns where it will set up training centres.
Roy said he has already spoken to some schools and received a favourable response from the principals. Quatrro will set up a computer lab with around 10 computers in schools that will be used by the schools in the morning and for training BPO 'work- from-home' aspirants in the evenings.
Going forward, employees who are selected for the work-from-home programme will be provided with computers in their homes for which Quatrro will stand guarantee with banks.
The company will deduct the monthly installment from the employee's salary.The salary structure for such employees, said Roy, will mainly be variable as the fixed salary structure will not work here. "We plan to make the pay structure transaction-based.
The higher the number of transactions, more the pay," he explained.
Another company that is experimenting with this concept is Aspect Software. "The home agent is the new wave of offshoring and is not intra-continent but intra-country. The processes demands what percentage of people can be home-based," explains Rajeev Soni, Managing Director, Aspect Software.
The company has experimented with this concept with Sparsh BPO and its own BPO for both voice- and non-voice work. However, it is yet to get a licence from the DoT to roll out the services on a commercial scale.
Soni explained that by using Microsoft's Unified Communications in the work-from-home concept, the follow-up calls went down from 18 to 20 per cent to 8 to 9 per cent, thereby reducing costs.
Analysts, however, remain sceptical about arrangements related to working from home on the ground of- data security, infrastructure, data processes, employee motivation and monitoring problems and lack of a controlled environment.
"Independent work can be done in a work-from-home arrangement but group work requires a controlled environment. Models like these work only when data masking is possible," says Sabyasachi Satpathy, partner at advisory firm Tholons.
Moreover, processing needs to be scrutinised and a faster turnaround can't take place in such models, said analysts. Few companies are interested in the work-from-home policy as infrastructure is another problem and the work will have to be verified.
"We understand and appreciate these concerns," countered Roy, adding: "After all, I have been there and seen this industry grow to its present size. But I believe that we will make this concept work."

TCS bags outsourcing contract

Thursday, September 24, 2009

Tata Consultancy Services has been selected as an IT vendor by BP for the oil and gas majors refining, manufacturing and corporate maintenance works. "Our selection as a strategic IT vendor for BP demonstrates our strong domain expertise and highlights the investments we have been making in the technology-led energy sector," TCS Chief Operating Officer and Executive Director N Chandrasekaran said in a release.When contacted a TCS official told PTI that the deal was for five years, but she did not reveal the value of the deal.BP has a rigorous procurement selection process which assessed the capability, oil and gas sector knowledge and cost.BP is one of the world`s largest energy companies, providing its customers with fuel for transportation, energy for heat and light, retail services and petrochemicals products for everyday items.TCS energy vertical serves international and domestic energy companies across the industrys value chain. It also works with oil field services companies on solutions that help increase the production and reliability of upstream operations, the release said."In awarding TCS our refining, manufacturing and corporate maintenance work, we look to benefit from their knowledge of the oil and gas sector," BP Group CIO Dana Deasy was quoted as saying in the release.The contact would help BP to reduce complexity, standardise processes and lower overall cost base, Deasy said.

Global BPO vendors poach staff from local cos

Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Global outsourcing vendors such as Accenture and Capgemini are increasingly poaching employees from Indian rivals as they tap into professionals with expertise in offshoring to compete more effectively against companies like TCS, Wipro and Infosys.
As offshore outsourcing goes mainstream, multinationals are hiring Indians to head their sales teams in key markets in Europe and the US, a shift from the practice of employing locals to win contracts.
“This is happening for several roles spanning from sales, sales support to delivery. There is in a sense, even positive discrimination towards Indians now,” an Indian executive who joined a multinational in Germany recently told ET on condition on anonymity.
Offshore outsourcing, or remote delivery of software application development, maintenance and support from countries like India, helps customers such as GE and Citibank save up to 40% in costs. Indian companies such as TCS, Wipro and Infosys started using offshore outsourcing to their advantage around a decade ago by wooing customers with significant cost-benefits.
In recent months, about a dozen or so top professionals have left an Indian company to join multinational competitors. Padmanabhan Ananthanarayanan, who headed India’s largest software exporter TCS’ sales organisation in Europe until February this year, joined Accenture in March as director of its outsourcing business based in Germany.
Shishir Kumar and Vikas Baranwal quit TCS earlier this year to join Accenture as sales directors, Nimit Chawal and Dev Sharma joined Capgemini to lead the company’s sales team. Mr Sharma headed Wipro’s business development and account management for manufacturing and automotive customers in Germany until December last year, before becoming director, business development for Central Europe at Capgemini.
Sridhar Vedala, managing director of offshoring advisory firm Quantum Step, says global service providers are hiring more Indian professionals to influence the perception of customers who are looking at India and Indian professionals as synonyms for offshore outsourcing.
“Now when offshoring is in demand, obviously customers prefer Indian providers. In order to influence the perception, global providers are hiring Indian managers,” he observed.
Among such customers is the world’s largest chemical company BASF, which is seeking offshore suppliers to support its business IT systems and looking to commence a dialogue with Indian offshore managers. “Initially, global providers did not care about the competition from Indian providers. Probably, they never thought that Indian providers will be able to compete with them for larger deals,” he added.
A top executive at an Indian tech firm says many outsourcing dialogues these days are being spearheaded by Indian offshore delivery managers, unlike in the past, when local experts would help them gain access to a potential customer. “The chief information officers are specifically asking for Indian suppliers.”
The over $40-billion Indian software outsourcing industry derives almost 70-80% of its revenues from offshore outsourcing. While established outsourcing vendors, such as IBM and Accenture, still lead the market because of their early relationships and ‘onshore intimacy’ with large customers, several new outsourcing customers are now looking at pure offshoring, which is helping the Indian vendors.
“For all large application management deals, the question is no more offshore or no offshore, but how much to offshore and in some cases ‘why should anything be onshore anymore’,” said a person involved with decision-making at a large enterprise in Germany.
“This is such a contrast. Until a few months ago, some Indian companies were trying to hire more locals in Germany and France, but now customers are becoming more comfortable with Indian managers,” said a senior Indian professional based in Munich, Germany, who recently quit one of the top ten Indian software exporters to join an MNC rival.
Hema Ravichander, who was the head of human resources at Infosys and is now an independent consultant, says Indian professionals are highly valued because of their early offshoring experience.
“Speed, adaptability, networking, deep understanding of the competitor landscape make them valuable. Also, they have been there, done that; so they enjoy high credibility,” she said.

The Future of Business Processing Outsourcing Industry

Wednesday, September 2, 2009

Outsourcing is an age old practice and the advent of business process outsourcing is clearly an example of paradigm shift. It is the way in which business operates, or can be operated. The advent of current BPO revolution has been driven by the availability of cost effective technology such as Internet broadband services, inexpensive data storage, continued business process specialization and online analytical processing tool.


The paradigm shift is that, the technology has enabled global exchange of BPO services. Today, BPO industry had matured to the extent that the costs are normalizing and becoming attractive. Over the last three decades Business Process Outsourcing has been catering to number of services like retail, insurance, mortgage, banking, finance, health care, telecommunications, travel, technology, hospitality and many more.

Today, many offshore firms are consolidating and standardizing their operations by outsourcing their business process to third parties. There are many BPO service providers in India that offer cost effective and focused management expertise. In the present scenario many UK and US based firms are looking at countries like India, Philippines, China and other South Asian territories to outsource their services.


According to a research conducted NelsonHall- a BPO analyst firm
✔ 80% of the firm claimed that, outsourcing has increased their competitiveness.✔ 87% of the companies said that, outsourcing had improved their internal processes.✔ While 77% of the companies said that, they could see a significant drop in their operational cost through outsourcing.


The offshore BPO services are expected to grow at a significant rate per year within the Asia-Pacific market. The growth rate will be about $14 billion by the year 2010. The BPO business in India will be booming despite the current economic recession. The economy will stabilize and there five fold growth of the BPO industry within the next five years.


According to a research, ‘Road map 2012 - capitalizing on the expanding BPO landscape’, conducted by Nasscom and Everest Group, the revenue of the Indian BPO industry will touch $50 billion and will add about 2.5% of the gross domestic product by the year 2012. Presently BPO sector employs about 8 lakh people and the annual revenue is about $11 billion. Over the next 5 years the BPO industry will employ nearly 2 million people.


Once again, one reason why BPO has grown over the 10 years is the availability of high end technology and infrastructure. Without the availability of Internet and broadband, this could not have been possible. The development in technology has broken down the barriers of global communication.


Considering the progress made in the outsourcing industry over the last ten years is standardizing and automation of business processes, the next five years promise similar advances. Typically, the multinational companies define market trends and the acceptance of new product and services. Keeping all these in mind, the BPO industry could take a new shape over the next five years.

BPO Industry As A Career Option

Taking a look at the current financial crisis, one may not feel too optimistic about business process outsourcing( BPO) industry in India. However Mr. P. G. Raghuraman, Lead Delivery Centers for BPO in India, Accenture, sees the positive aspects in the growth of BPO service providers and also potential for the industry to attract young professionals as their chosen career.

According to Nasscom study, the current size of BPO industry is $11 billion and it is expected to grow by five-fold in size to $50 billion by the year 2012. This growth in Indian BPO will add nearly 2.5 percent to the India's GDP from the export earnings and employment to nearly 2 million people.
There is popular belief that,there are numerous job opportunities but fewer career opportunities in BPO sector. This is not true,the Indian BPO industry has boundless career opportunities. This is evident from the fact that, over the years the BPO services have grown from just voice to other customer relationship management services like human resources,finance and accounting, learning and procurement, animation and multimedia, legal transcription, content development, as well as industry-specific services focusing on the health care,insurance, pharmaceutical and utility industries.

The companies in the life science industry are quite familiar to the process of outsourcing. They outsource some of their critical process like drug discovery, product manufacture,clinical trials and data management. Thus the mainstream BPO service providers requires special knowledge and skill set to perform the traditional life science functions such as clinical data management and monitoring of drug safety.

India happens to be one of the most attractive destination for such specialized functions due to low cost benefits and availability of high skilled work force.
Today, the Indian BPO companies are creating comprehensive roles for employees by expanding globally and providing them the opportunity to work on multiple verticals. It is indeed a fast growing industry as it provides ample opportunity for growth and entrepreneurship.

This change in the role of BPO sector from transaction-processing to high end specialized services has led to the growing demand of skilled workforce. Today the industry needs capability development. Even the professionals with degrees like M.tech,MBBS,MBA, CA, ICWA are taking up work in domain specific back office processes in advisory,analytical and consulting arena. This requires a clear relationship between IT/BPO industry and the academic world which train the workforce with industry specific jobs.
Nowadays even parents are becoming more supportive to the youngsters who want to join the BPO industry because they genuinely see it as a long term career. There is a realization that, BPO are not only about call centers but providing the right opportunities, skills and global exposure. In a nutshell the employees in the BPO industry are now getting challenging careers with tremendous job opportunities,hands-on experience,information about the culture and customs of various countries across the globe. This experience in understanding and appreciation of diversity is valuable for their personal as well professional growth.

Of late, BPO industry does get support from reputed academia. There are companies who provide training programmes specifically designed for the BPO sector in collaboration with some of the renowned institutions of India. More courses of this nature are being designed by other companies to provide outsourcing services. This one step forward towards making BPO as a long term career opportunity.
outsourcing.

What It Takes To Start A Call Centre Business

Thursday, August 27, 2009
Today, any young entrepreneur who is getting into call centre business should understand that, he is entering into a commodity- like business.

Anyone who claims to offer innovative ideas regarding starting a call centre business is clearly not in the loop of the industry. One should accept the fact that, call centre business is not based on innovation but rather on strategies.
Given this, there are some people who go ahead with the proposition of call centre business. To start a call centre business you need to arrange for a certain amount of capital. After having finalized that you want to get into call centre business, it is imperative that you need the infrastructure in place. Then plan out for a core team to propel your business and around ten trained call centre agents to start the pilot process.

If any call centre firm has to make a mark in the call centre business, the focus should be on high-end quality. Any call centre business will excel if there are experienced people in the company. Accent neutralization and training in various situations is must. The message should be very clear in terms of handling a call. This is an intense business and there is no getting back after the call has been messed up.

The next is to register under STPI so as to get maximum benefit of duty free imports for all kinds of computer hardware. In addition to this, the other important requirements are carpet area, equipment, communication and manpower. The carpet area can range from 55-155 sq feet per agent and this depends on number of seats. It also depends on the number of services rendered by the centre.

You can estimate the total carpet area by planning the space for facilities, amenities and support areas. The communication or connectivity depends on the volume of traffic and services rendered by the call centre firm.
For example a 200- seat call centre will usually invest in a 2 Mbps international private leased circuit for inbound services. This will comprise of two half circuits in India and the other two in US or UK through an international carrier.
The manpower employed in call centre falls under two broad headings. These are operations or agent and management or support staff. The ratio between the two depends on variety of parameters based on organization, services deployed and the client requirement.

Next comes the technological needs, in terms of technical resources the following things are needed like a voice witch/EPABX, modems, routers, multiplexers ( for data and voice transport), RISC/CISC servers, headsets, desktops, IVR( Interactive Voice Response), E1/T1 circuits for connectivity, CTI( Computer Telephony Integration) and ACD( Automatic Call Distributor) are needed.

One can look up to spending $10,000 per agent for setting up a call centre that includes all types of expenses. The cost of maintenance for a seat would be around $4000-$5000 per year. The industry experts say that most of the operation costs will be two- third of their billings.

One thing which has been highlighted before is the consistent delivery of value services and no BPO firm should be generalist but should have an expertise in certain vertical. In terms of getting clients, the company should have a core team who have gone through a learning process in a call centre and the essential team of HR, Finance, Trainers and Operations in place.

Speaking in terms of return on investment, if a call centre business is managed efficiently, the entrepreneur can reap profits within two or three years in business. One more important aspect of this business is the attrition level of BPO industry. One should have proper recruitment plan in mind and should try to stick to it.
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