Showing posts with label Telus call centre. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Telus call centre. Show all posts

Obama attacks insurance premiums

Monday, August 17, 2009
Speaking in Colorado, Mr Obama said that under his plan companies would not be allowed to charge exorbitant fees nor place arbitrary limits on coverage. Mr Obama is making a series of "town-hall" speeches to back his campaign. Extending coverage to the millions of Americans who lack health insurance is Mr Obama’s top priority for 2009. His reform plan is currently under debate in the US Congress. Some 46 million people in America currently do not have health insurance, and rising healthcare costs are a major contributing factor to America’s spiralling budget deficit.

‘No silver bullet’

Mr Obama said insurance companies had to be held accountable for practices that had led to premiums nearly doubling for the average American family over the past few years. HEALTHCARE IN THE US

46 million uninsured, 25 million under-insured
Healthcare costs represent 16% of GDP, almost twice OECD average
Reform plans would require all Americans to get insurance
Some propose public insurance option to compete with private insurers
Q&A: US healthcare reform

Anger clouds US healthcare debate

He said: "We’re going to ban arbitrary caps on benefits. We’ll place limits on how much you can charge on out-of-pocket expenses. No-one in America should go broke because they get sick."

Mr Obama admitted there was "no perfect painless silver bullet out there that solves every problem, gives everybody health care for free". But he said he had "a lot of really smart people around me who’ve been working on this for months now". Mr Obama also accused his political opponents of using scare tactics in their campaign against the reform. He added: "I need you to stand for hope. I need you to knock on doors. I need you to spread the word. Because we are going to get this done this year."

There remains serious disagreement in the US about how to go about reforming the healthcare system. Democrats in the House of Representatives have reportedly reached a deal on a bill that would mandate all Americans to take out health insurance, with subsidies for the less well-off paid for by a tax on families earning over $350,000 a year. But in the Senate negotiations have stalled, with moderate senators expressing opposition to both the tax and the public plan proposed by the House. Both chambers need to agree on a bill before it can become law.

Telus opens fourth call centre in Manila

Sunday, August 9, 2009

There are not many bright spots in the Philippine economy these days. Exports are tanking. Remittances are tumbling; and some of the country’s legion of so-called overseas workers are returning home from the hardest-hit of world markets. Amidst this, one B.C. company, Telus, is deepening its reach into the Philippines’ BPO or business processing outsourcing industry, which is expected to post stellar growth of 20 to 30 per cent in 2009. This month, Telus International opened its fourth call centre in Manila, one that currently employs 900 workers, but will ramp up to include at least 3,000, possibly by the end of the year. To fill these new positions, Telus spokesman Shawn Hall said the company would “absolutely” look to hiring from a growing pool of returning workers to the Philippines.

“Because of its history as a U.S. colony, the Philippines is a great place to run these kinds of businesses,” Hall said. “People there have very good educational levels, speak English well and have an affinity to North American culture, as well as lots of family.”

In recent months, a slew of other mid-sized and large BPO centres like the one opened by Telus have announced their own expansion plans, according to Manila-based consultant Michael Hamlin. His clients, including Convergys, TeleTech, eTelecare, Sitel and StarTek, have been keeping him busy with one inauguration ceremony to another. “BPO really is the only bright spot,” he said in an interview. “Everyone I know is hiring.” A new survey published jointly by Hamlin’s company, Team Asia, and the Business Processing Association of the Philippines found that more than 80 per cent of respondents said they will increase their workforces this year and almost 50 per cent cited a growth of between 10 and 200 per cent. The BPAP is projecting 30-per-cent growth for the industry overall.

For an increasing number of clients, Hamlin said, the Philippines is one of many BPO centres in an international string. “For risk mitigation, they don’t just want a presence in India or just in Eastern Europe or North America,” he said. Indeed, while the bulk of Telus International’s employees are already in the Philippines, the company recently announced plans to open a 1,000-seat centre in Las Vegas and three others in Central America.

Speaking to reporters at the opening of the new facility in Manila, Telus International president Jeffrey Puritt emphasized that the expansion is focused on getting beyond basic call centre capabilities into more complex tasks such as network troubleshooting, risk analysis, human resources and finance. He said: “As the contact centre industry evolves, it’s more than just voice. The trend is definitely up the value chain.” However, how exactly to move up is a big issue for the industry, said Hamlin. “Finding people with supervisory and managerial skills is key,” he said. There definitely was a more sobering side to the survey’s results, which suggests that it will not just be a matter of plugging in casualties of the global economic slowdown, that is, would-be or returning overseas workers into the Philippine BPO industry. Almost 70 per cent of BPOs said that they hire only 10 per cent or fewer of the applicants that apply for work, indicating that a significant skills mismatch continues to exist, according to Hamlin. Survey respondents cited oral and written communication skills as the biggest gap, followed by analytical thinking and problem solving. In Vancouver, Maria Javier, a program manager at Multicultural Helping House, which is helping foreign workers from the Philippines cope with the economic downturn, added that while it might seem encouraging to hear that BPO facilities are faring well, most workers from the Philippines who lose their jobs here and face being forced to return will find little comfort in such news.

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