Contact PersonCall Centers India Inc,
Contact Person
Call Centers India Inc,
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Polite CSR (Customer Service Representative)
You can see the difference: the agents are more mature, better educated, and more experienced than the average Call Centresagent. As independent contractors, Mostly agents enjoy the self-directed entrepreneurial nature of their work, and as a result less than 25% of the agents stop providing services during a given time.Call Centres
Agents have their different nature with customer, but this is must to be polite for a Call Centres Agent.
The screening process must be reliable and exhaustive for a Call Centresto find the better and stable customer. Now one discussion topic for a Good Call Centres is :
Handling Abusive Callers in the Call Centres
That article commented on a trend in Indian Call Centress toward giving agents more options in dealing with abusive callers. One Indian software industry expert who said, “Indians are by nature courteous towards foreigners, but there can be too much of a good thing and companies increasingly provide assertiveness training. If people felt in the past they had to be polite in the face of brazen rudeness, now they say, ‘I don’t think I do.’”
At Call Centres how to handle abusive BPO customers, 10 tips from Call Centres trainer / Team Leaders.
- Speak calmly.
- Learn to count to 10.
- Politely ask the caller to speak slowly and clearly and to lower his voice.
- Put the caller on hold for a few seconds if you need to recover your composure.
- Keep a picture that helps you to stay calm in front of you – a peaceful scene or a photo of a loved one.
- “Press the mute button and swear back,” while using “your sweetest tone” when actually speaking with the caller.
- Ask the caller to refrain from using abusive language, if that’s permitted.
- De-stress after a rough phone call – Fitter suggests yoga or breathing techniques.
- If a call continues to get worse, escalate it to your supervisor.
- Talk with your supervisor or group leader after a stressful day with difficult callers.
Most Call Centres face the ongoing problem of agent turnover and not having a qualified pool of talented agents available.
A Good Call Centres helps alleviate these problems enabling our customers to hire talented semi-retirees, home-bound, long-distance individuals as well as those that simply prefer to work from home versus a Call Centres environment.
Customers trying to get through to call centres are getting impatient and quicker to hang up, a survey suggests.
For More Informations
Call Centress India Inc.
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Legal BPO
Legal BPO :
Post By : Call Centres
The term LPO is an acronym for “Legal Process Outsourcing” The definition of Legal Process Outsourcing (LPO)? A kind of high end BPO industry that has been growing rapidly in the recent years.
In Legal Process Outsorucing vendors or in-house departments of organisations outsource legal work from off-shore areas where it is costly to perform, say like United States of America, Europe, UK, Germany, Australia to cheaper destinations like India, Pakistan etc.
Even if the legal BPO market in India is negligible at the moment, the few services providers that have made the start have managed to provide good service and this can benefit new entrants who will have the confidence of their clients. In the near future, the legal BPO market in India can multiply rapidly and emerge as a strong segment in the overall BPO services in India . According to an estimate, the potential for legal outsourcing from the
US alone is $3-4 billion. siliconindia.com quotes the latest Nasscom report on Legal BPO.
IN TODAY’S aggressive world of business, gaining effectiveness and staying profitable have become the corporate mantras. Most international law firms based in the US and Europe are taking the Legal Process Outsourcing (LPO) route to be lucrative. Several international law firms, legal departments of large corporations and also state and federal government agencies are increasingly outsourcing their legal work to India to reduce cost and increase efficiency.
Similar to other BPO (Business Process Outsourcing) activities, India ’s legal services are affordable and efficient. Preparation of pleadings, docketing, proof-reading, transcription of recorded documents, litigation support and research, case studies and law firm marketing are various avenues of work that are being outsourced to India .
Outsourcing legal work to India costs up to 80 per cent less than the cost of using the services of American law firms. The benefit of the time zone, availability of English speaking attorneys and familiarity with common law doctrines attract foreign firms. Indian attorneys with US/UK qualifications are sought after. International attorneys are impressed not only by the labour cost differential, but also by the quality and speed of work done. Most LPO outfits in
India are reported to be staffed 24/7. Legal outsourcing is one of the most risk-prone sectors given issues of confidentiality and attorney-client privilege. However, research analysts have concluded that its overall .
However, given the advantages of Indian lawyers, experts believe that it is unlikely that other Asian countries will compete in this sector, as has been the case with Call Centres.
Indian companies also provide legal transcription services, which involve providing accurate tape and digital voice transcriptions. They transcribe audio files into wav, vox, dss and mp3 forms in less than 12 hours.
The LPO business will soon become a mainstream practice for many attorneys in India . Professionals with Indian law degrees, including paralegals, are assets to multinational law firms.
Outsourcing Call Centres helps the in-house counsel to concentrate on core legal issues while outsourcing research and managerial tasks at effective costs.
Conversely, the job is said to be repetitive and routine. Practising professionals and corporate attorneys refrain from undertaking tasks of research and case studies, as they do not add value and are not professionally challenging.
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Shift bidding
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Shift Bidding is an Internet-based staffing program that centralizes the posting of open shifts system-wide .Shift Bidding is a system that is very helpful to the employees as well as for Call Centresand other organizations.
All qualified fulltime, part time and PRN employees who have been scheduled for their minimum scheduling commitment on their home unit are eligible to request additional shifts on their home unit as well as other units. Eligible employees include:
To use Shift Bidding, you must register. This involves completing a profile questionnaire with some personal demographic information and skill competencies. Once you submit your profile, it is sent to your unit manager for approval. After your profile is approved and your manager has activated you, your sign on codes (user name and password) will give you access to requesting available shifts. If your home unit does not currently utilize Shift Bidding, contact the manager of the unit where you would like to request shifts
Correspondence to provide your agents with input and greater control over their schedules. With Shift Bidding,your organization can build morale while reducing costly absenteeism and attrition. What’s more, your managers will spend less time developing schedules and more time on high-value activities, such as coaching your agents.
EMPOWER YOUR EMPLOYEES TO BID ON THE SHIFTS THEY DESIRE
Shift Bidding goes beyond regular shift preference functionality. It empowers your agents to bid directly on the specific shifts they desire through online “auctions” using
an innovative bonus point system in addition to agent seniority and rank.
How does it work?
First, before starting a shift bidding auction, you create a phantom schedule – or schedule template – for a particular campaign week. Then, you name the shift period(s) available for bidding, create a deadline for the bids, set the rules that will be used to process the bids automatically, and define the scoring system for the auction.The bids can be open, serial,or a hybrid of the two. You also can award discretionary bonus points to agents based on criteria you select, such as their performance, completion of previous undesirable shifts, failure to have obtained requested shifts in the past, or just for participating in the auction. It’s all up to you.
Now we can say that Shift Bidding is a good system for managing the efforts and revenue for the organization as well as beneficial for employees.
Post by:Call Centres
Project Management Software – Project management software including project management, online calendar, and data backup software.
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Call Centre India
Call Centers India
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The one stop shop for call center needs. For telemarketing needs B2B or B2C. Want us to identify and evaluate suppliers for your company. Technology application service Providers. Directories of call centers in India. Call center Training Providers.
Friday, February 02, 2007
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CCI partnership with CISCO |
|
| Call centers India Inc. is a Washington based corporation. Headquarters are in Seattle, Sales and U.S. Operations are in this city of Seattle near Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. Operations are in Noida India, a suburb of New Delhi India. The Indian corporation Vcare Care Call Centers India (p) Ltd is a wholly owned subsidiary of the US Corporation. | |
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Call logging systems
Posted by callcenterinindia on April 12th, 2007
As soon as you start looking at any call logging product you are immediately dragged into their literature. Their literature immediately starts shooting out questions such as:
- Which departments make the most calls?
- On average, how long do staff spend on a telephone call?
- Which supplier is cheapest?
Whatever you do, security should be an important consideration. The data emanating from the switchboard can reveal all sorts of detail. What call logging data is available to who is an important, and sometimes neglected, consideration.
Before you start you need some sort of perspective before you get dragged in.
Most suppliers Call Centres of call loggers concentrate on the economics of the operation and presume that this will be the overriding interest for everybody. This is not always the case. Even a small break of service for organization has the potential of losing his organization thousands of pounds while his traders sit idle.
For commercial organizations Call Centres , which areas you focus on will depend on the circumstances you find yourself in. It could be that you are involved in a cost cutting exercise and the economics are vital to you. On the other hand if business is booming you may be less interested in costs and need to focus on questions such as “Do I have enough capacity to deal with the current level of traffic the business is generating?” “Are we missing potentially valuable calls?”
The essence of Call Centrescall logging is simple. It is made complicated by the constructs that are placed on it by the user and the carrier.
The following animated graphic depicts call logging and how the various parties contrive to complicate it.
Step. 1 The PABX collects data on the elements depicted in this diagram. When a call is made it records which extension is connected to which trunk line. The PABX also records the digits that were dialed and the date and the time of the call and the duration.
Step. 2 Not many organizations describe themselves solely in terms of extensions. Most organizations describe themselves in terms of the people that work for it and to to an organizational structure as simplistically depicted here.
Step. 3 Extensions are then related to the people.
Step. 4 – Step. 8 The carrier uses the dialled digits to interpret the nature of the call. These digits are used as one parameter to cost the call. Calls can be broadly classified into Local, National, International, Special Rate and Mobile calls
Step. 9 The Carrier further complicates the call costing by varying charges depending on time.
The PABX (or switchboard in common parlance) has some processing capabilities. It is able to switch traffic and keeps track of time. It is essentially on the labelled elements in Step. 1 that that the PABX generates Call Detail Records (CDR’s) also known as SMDR’s (Station Message Detail Records). It captures the dialled digits and may, depending on the make of the PABX, be able to capture the Calling Line Identifier (CLI) for incoming calls. The telecommunications company can pass these details to it. The routing of calls in the above diagram is not always from extension to trunk or vice versa. There is also the possibility of extension to extension, an internal call. Some PABX’s also allow trunk to trunk calls – this is the mechanism used to perpetrate large-scale frauds. Calls can also be transferred either by the originator or the receiver. Add to this the possibility of conference calls and even the definition of what a telephone call is becomes elusive.
The PABX normally generates records as calls are made and received. It sends the details out on, usually, a serial port. This data is then captured by the call logging system.
This is the simple single site model.
The million and one details that we spoke of earlier derive from the constructs that are put on the end of the lines and complexities that have been imposed by telecommunications companies on the passage of time.
The majority of extensions, in most organisations or Call Centres, relate to people. The people in turn are related to an organisational structure. Most call loggers require you to import this detail, thereby giving them the capability to generate reports relating to people or organisational entities. Some extensions are fax machines, while others may be modems – yet more detail that you may choose to report on. Internet access is also an issue; it will depend on the nature of your network whether your PABX generates call records corresponding to your internet access.
The cost of a call is determined by a number of factors. The destination of the call, be it local, regional, national, international, mobile, pagers, personal numbers, special rate services or premium rate services is one factor. The carrier and the service chosen within a carrier are others. The day of the week and the time of the day at which the call is made are yet others. It may be a particular number that attracts a special discount. It could be that with this carrier you have exceeded a certain threshold value for the charge period and all calls are now subject to some discounted rate.
Within each of the factors that affect a call charge that we have identified above there is yet more detail. To illustrate, consider international calls – there are 43 different rates in one carriers service.
If you’re going to run a call logging system the description of your organisational or Call Centres structure, together with employees and their extensions are going to have to be input to the system. Furthermore your external network needs to be described, what trunk lines are connected to which carrier. The system will also need costing tables. You should also recognise that this data needs to be maintained or it will get out of date.
Not All Call Loggers Are The Same!
1. To collect raw data from the PABX
2. To cost the call and add missing details such as destination or origin
3. To provide some sort of reporting capability.
Call logging has been around for a long time – over 20 years. In those days it wasn’t just the 2 bytes of the date that they thought about making savings on; processors were a lot slower as well, and this meant they weren’t as adept at multi-tasking.
The result was that the 3 functions above were often separated, and extra hardware was sometimes added – such as buffer boxes.
The whole ethos of traditional call logging systems has been for the system to sit there and collect data, and then wait for someone to dream up some questions to ask it. This is too passive a role for such systems.
The e-logging philosophy as embodied by Telecost is to act, not as a passive agent in monitoring your telephone system, but to act as an active agent. It monitors the performance of your telephone system in real time and actively informs you, via e-mail or other mechanisms, rather than waiting to be quizzed the much sought after but so rarely attained shift in the paradigm! They’ll all be trying to copy it soon, but we’re not worried we have a significant lead and we’ll be building on it for at least a year
For More Informations Contact Us
Call Centers India Inc.
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center Training Providers.
Friday, February 02, 2007
 |
|
| Call centers India Inc. is a Washington based corporation. Headquarters are in Seattle, Sales and U.S. Operations are in this city of Seattle near Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. Operations are in Noida India, a suburb of New Delhi India. The Indian corporation Vcare Care Call Centers India (p) Ltd is a wholly owned subsidiary of the US Corporation. |
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Tuesday, December 20, 2005
Security beefed up for call centre staff
The gruesome rape and murder of a Bangalore call centre employee has spurred police in Delhi and the call-centre hubs
of Gurgaon and Noida to chalk out strategies for beefing security for the thousands of women working night shifts in
the satellite towns. With the background of 500 rape cases in Delhi this year, the police of Delhi, Gurgaon and Noida have decided to take
the identity proof of call centre drivers, including their photographs and finger prints, in a move to instil a sense
of confidence in the women.
“There is certainly a sense of fear among the women employees and our primary aim now is to ensure absolute
safety of these workers. From Monday we are starting a special security drive in Gurgaon for call centre
vehicles,” said Hanif Quereshi, senior superintendent of police (SSP), Gurgaon.
“We are also holding a meeting with the call centre authorities to strategise about the security. We will take
the identity proof of all the drivers, cab owners and even travel agents who are providing cabs to these
multinationals,” Quereshi said.
“Besides, photographs of cab drivers and their finger prints would be collected with immediate effect for our
records and it will certainly help both the BPO industry and the city police,” the SSP added.
He said a couple of call centres have begun the identification process on their own earlier.
Bangalore call centre employee, Pratibha Srikant, 24, was on Wednesday night raped and brutally murdered by a cab
driver who picked her up at around 2.30 am for her early morning shift.
Women constitute around 60 per cent of the 20,000 people employed in different call centres of Delhi, Gurgaon and
Noida. With a large number of call centres located in Delhi, especially in the south, Delhi Police is keen on
increasing the security.
“It’s a concern for any police department where business process outsourcing is happening in a big way.
Sometimes next week all our top officials will sit together to discus the issue and provide a clear directive on
security measures,” said Praveer Ranjan, deputy commissioner of police, south Delhi.
In Noida, the police are equally concerned. S Yadav, superintendent of police, Gautam Budh Nagar, Noida, said that
though the security of call centre employees is a private matter, the police was “not satisfied with the
security arrangement of these organisations”.
“As a responsible institution, we are holding a special meeting with all those firms. First we will take the
feedback from them and depending on that we will give our directives,” he said.
“We hope every precautionary measure would be put into place by the end of next week.”
“The first thing that we are going to do is advise them to keep a guard in the cab and never allow drivers to
pick or drop a single woman worker. The women employee should not be picked first or dropped last,” he said.
Some call centres in the region have decided to increase the security for women workers.
“We are concerned about the safety of our employees and have directed the transport and facility department to
make sure that no woman employee is picked first or dropped last. We are ready to cooperate with the police and do
what ever is necessary,” said Gaurav Jain, manager facilities of IBM Daksh, a leading BPO network of the
country.
However, women workers are scared and want their organisations to tighten the security.
“Though there is a provision for sending a guard in the cab, sometimes one finds the guard missing. More
importantly, the call centres should ensure that there is not a regular change of driver,” said a woman employee
of GE.
“Every day you find a new driver and cab coming to pick you up and it’s very natural to be apprehensive
while with a stranger,” she said.
Thursday, March 31, 2005
What employees expect
A RECENT study by Hill and Associates, security and risk management consultants, on the attrition rate in the BPO
sector, threw up some interesting insight.The study was conducted on targeted respondents that included the young
population employed in the outsourcing business and with undergraduate, graduate and post-graduate education and who
had changed their job at least once in the past three years. Key findings
The survey revealed that most people join a BPO to gain exposure to an international level work environment and the
infrastructure that BPOs provided.
Not for `quick money’, a `luxurious lifestyle’ at a young age and a `career’ that requires no particular
educational background.
Exits from BPO happen because of reasons like lack of growth avenues, expectation mismatch, dissatisfaction with
organisational policies, and the quest for a better job profile.
Not night shifts, monotony of work and lack of salary hikes. Where the HR department took steps to deter exits such
as giving salary hikes, promotions, shift changes and other incentives, it did not succeed completely.
The survey revealed that respondents were overwhelmingly in favour of better career growth opportunities and improved
company policies.
The survey indicated that more than 60 per cent of the employees join a BPO after seeing job advertisements in
newspapers or through manpower consultant references. The study found that the communication pattern of
advertisements positioned the BPO job at a level much higher than its real delivery.
An overwhelming 75 per cent of the respondents were financially independent of their families.
Yet, a sizeable section among them turned to their families for support if they felt the need to quit their jobs.
This cushion provided by the social support system often drove the respondents to quit their jobs at the first hint
of any inconvenience on the job.
The study says that the steps to manage attrition are not yielding the desired results because of the mismatch
between the aspirations/expectations of the employees and the very nature of a BPO job.
It concludes that there is need for a higher degree of due diligence at the hiring stage.
At the hiring stage itself, companies need to make the prospective employee aware of what the job exactly entails and
make an assessment of the potential response of the candidate in such job settings.
Wednesday, March 23, 2005
US to have upper hand in outsourcing by 2009
The contact centre market in India is expected to see a major change in the next two years with third party service
providers expected to dominate, according to a study by independent analyst firm Datamonitor. “Just 36% of agent positions in India were offshore outsourced at the end of 2004 with the remainder located
mainly in offshore in-house operations of big multinationals. However, by 2007, the tables will have turned in the
outsourcers’ favour,” says Datamonitor.
“By 2007, new outsourced seats will outnumber captive ones by a factor of 10:1 in India and the outsourcers will
continue to hold sway going forward. Just 12,000 net new captive seats will be added between now and 2009,” the
study predicted.
According to Datamonitor, more firms are set to follow the likes of British Airways, Citibank, General Electric and
HSBC and spin-off a part or all of their captive operations in India.
Firms that have chosen to lock in shareholder value by tapping into the offshore labour arbitrage model by
establishing in-house offshore centres, will look to deliver further returns, either by selling off their captive
offshore operations or by outsourcing the processes to third parties, the study said.
According to Datamonitor, over a quarter of a million new call centre agent positions will be added in India and the
Philippines through 2009.
Both countries will see substantial growth in call centres now that the US presidential elections are out of the way
allowing US and UK businesses to ramp up their offshore operations. While India continues to dominate the global
offshore call centre outsourcing landscape, the Philippines threatens to poach some activity as its own market grows
in strength.
Besides the attractions that India and the Philippines offer western firms in terms of low cost access to highly
skilled call centre and back-office staff, the two markets will also demonstrate substantial growth in their domestic
call centre markets.
By 2009, close to 1,00,000 agent positions will be serving the Indian domestic market while the Philippines will have
21,600 positions.
Thursday, March 17, 2005
Why Indian BPO guys are losing out to Filipinos
A recent survey by the Singapore-based ACA Research and Michigan-based Fortune 500 staffing firm Kelly Services,
seems to says that the Filipinos are steadily progressing in the BPO business and may outsmart the Indians soon. While an Indian BPO agent is likely to remain sick for 15 days every year, Filipinos manage with only 8 sick leaves
per annum. They are also more loyal. While your next door BPO guy spends less than a year (11 months) at a BPO, his
Filipino counterpart spends 19 months on an average in a company.
But Indians take heart. When it comes to conversion of calls into actual sales, Indian BPO agents are clear winners.
35 per cent of calls routed to India get converted into actual business as compared to the Filipino rate of 25 per
cent. So, Indians beat Filipinos beat when it means business, i.e. selling skills!
When it comes to training a Filipino agent, you have to invest less. Very few call centres spend time on voice and
accent neutralisation. So automatically the duration of training period gets reduced.
While an Indian BPO guy takes 24 days to get trained, his Filipino friend spends only 19 days as a trainee.
When it comes to multi-lingual skills, Filipinos are much verbose. 64 per cent of Filipino agents can speak more than
two languages as compared to India where only 40 per cent multi lingual skills.
Due to superior English language skills, the Philippines is the only country where BPO exports exceed IT exports. In
2003, BPO exports were double of IT exports at $600 mn.
Why Phillipines is emerging as a Global BPO hub?
The Philippines is an emerging BPO hub because of cultural compatibility with the west, especially the US. The
Philippines was under the US rule for almost 50 years. It led to the Americanisation of the Filipino culture. 80 per
cent of the population is Catholic. 15 per cent are Muslims.
The Philippines is the third largest English-speaking country in the world. About 72 per cent of the population is
fluent in English.
The Philippines has one of the highest literacy rates (94%) in the world.
The US military rule had also laid a strong base to the country’s telecom infrastructure. The country was under
the US rule from 1898 until 1935.
It’s interesting that in the case of India also the British rule had helped in giving a huge popularity to the
English language.
Canada and Ireland are also benefiting from their language skills to advance their outsourcing business.
Mexico, which was under Spanish rule from 1521 to 1810, has bagged a huge chunk of Spanish voice processes from US.
According to the US Census Bureau, there were about 28 million Spanish speakers in the US in 2000.
In the Philippines, similarity in legal and tax framework with the US has eased the administrative bottlenecks for
the American firms setting captive BPOs there.
Chevron Texaco, AOL, P&G, Accenture and Dell have set up centres there. Major BPO hubs in the Philippines are
Manila and Cebu City.
So can Philipines beat India at the BPO battle?
The answer is a clear and big No.
Scaling up of operations is a major challenge which call centres in Philippines face. The country has a small
population. Universities churn out only 70,000 IT graduates each year as compared to India where the figure runs into
lakhs. India churns out more than 4.5 lakh IT graduates every year.
So, outsourcing your high-end work to the Philippines can be a real challenge.
Attrition rates in Filipino call centres are lower at 20 per cent as compared to India’s – 31 per cent.
Currently, there are about 100 call centres in the country.
Companies such as HSBC, Dell, AIG and UPS have all outsourced their business to the Philippines.
But our Desi BPO executive is willing to work at much lower than that of his Filipino equivalent. The hourly cost per
seat in India is $3.18 as compared to Philippines’ $3.82.
So, do Filipinos make better BPO agents than our Desi BPO guys? The answer that emerges from the facts and figures
from the survey by ACA Research and Kelly Services is yes.
But these findings are only for the call centre domain. When it comes to high-end BPOs work such as teleradiology,
engineering design or software development, India leads the way.
Long way to go way, Phillipines!
Linked by: www.callcentersindia.com
Tuesday, March 08, 2005
Outsourcing firms battle to retain their employees
Indian back-office firms face a growing challenge holding on to employees, even as they hire tens of thousands every
quarter. Indian back-office firms face a growing challenge holding on to employees, even as they hire tens of thousands every
quarter.
Staff tend to account for half of a back-office operation’s costs, according to research firm Evalueserve, and
the battle for talent has led to a 10-15% rise in employee salaries.
Recruitment and training makes up 3% of the overall per-employee cost of about $13,000 per year, including
administration and telecoms costs, according to Evalueserve.
But the really damaging cost is the lost business for companies which cannot fill key jobs quickly enough. Many face
a shortage of mid-level manpower to manage their rapid growth as they lure clients with promises of 40% to 50% cost
savings.
As the industry clocks up 50%-plus growth, demand for quality personnel is outstripping supply. Employees often hop
to new jobs for slightly more money, and many do not view back-office work as a career.
Companies provide free transport, subsidised meals and housing to retain staff, and try to enliven the environment
with musical entertainment, yoga classes and costume contests.
What is cooking in the BPO kitchen?
Is the Indian BPO industry beginning to move into a mainstream position from being in the non core, call centre
dominated fringes of global BPO? If so, the stakes are that much higher because there is much more to lose by not paying heed to roadblocks.
We have seen the Indian BPO industry grow, mature and consolidate. While it certainly deserves all the attention it
is getting, has the industry moved beyond simple call centre or tech support work that it started out with? Is it
ready to take on large chunks of back office operations that will make a dramatic impact on client organisations?
Emerging trends – leading indicators?
I believe that the last 6 months have seen some very important shifts in the BPO landscape. Some of these changes are
subtle but nonetheless, directionally significant.
More than non-core processes
I recently saw a half page advertisement in the Times of India from a leading Indian BPO, for MBAs, economists,
financial analysts, accountants, PhDs, mathematicians etc. for quantitative research and analysis.
Even without knowing further details, this highlights some important facts – firstly, this is truly high end work;
secondly, this is a big win for the company (justifying the cost of such a large advertisement); thirdly, this
represents core processes – activities like financial research are the heart of any trading business.
The inescapable conclusion is that something has certainly changed from the supply side. And if the client is willing
to move this type of work into India, then something has also changed from the demand side. Cynics might point to a
number of boutique research companies who have been around for the last two years.
However, all these companies are tiny, niche operators who get by on small pilot contracts. This is the first public
evidence of scale that I have seen in mainstream high end work like financial research.
Captives – no longer the obvious solution
The recent sale of GECIS, following earlier deals done by Swissair and BA (i.e. sale of captive units) are causing
clients to seriously question the captive model for large outsourcing deals.
In part, this is due to the emergence of credible third party BPOs who have moved beyond call centres and
demonstrated their ability to handle complex, end to end processes. It is also partly due to the realisation that
cost centre mindset in a captive will never achieve the operational efficiency of a focussed, well managed, profit
driven third party supplier.
India – integral to a global organisation
Linked by: www.callcentersindia.com
It’s hard to beat India in BPO biz
Despite challenges from China, the Philippines and Eastern Europe, India still has an overwhelming advantage in IT
offshoring, according to Wipro chairman Azim Premji. “Areas such as China, Eastern Europe and the Philippines
are becoming major players in IT offshoring but India still has an overwhelming advantage because of the support of
the government and the country’s huge talent pool,” Premji said in an interview published in The Independent
on Sunday. Wipro benefits from being able to recruit from the top 50,000 engineering graduates turned out from Indian
universities and colleges each year, he said. “In a land of so much poverty, IT jobs are very sought after.
Software has so much credibility and visibility that the first choice of a village parent is for their child to be an
engineer. We get the choice of the best of the best.” With clients as diverse as Prudential, Friends Provident,
National Grid Transco, Nokia, Microsoft and the Scottish Parliament, Wipro is in the business of installing, running
and sorting out organisations’ IT systems. Referring to increasingly tough stance being taken by the US
Department of Homeland Security on visas for IT workers, Premji said “It is unfortunate, because you can’t
have one-way traffic in liberalisation. “The Western world is looking for the developing world to liberalise all the time, to stop restrictive
practices, and then it wants to put its own restrictions on business coming out of the developing world. If the West
wants emerging markets to open up they have to be open,” he said. In mid-2003, Premji said he wanted to
transform Wipro into a global leader in IT services, breaking out of being simply an Indian business selling to the
West. Since then, it has made a series of acquisitions, but mostly small ones. Premji said the group is not yet ready
for any big leaps. “At this point, we are looking at a string-of-pearls acquisition strategy, not an Accenture
or IBM.” Wipro’s evolution has also led to the development of what is called “near-shoring” -
setting up relatively small local centres for clients that are not ready to hand all their IT business to a company
thousands of kilometres away in Bangalore. In the UK, Wipro has opened one such centre in Reading. It also has five
offices in the US, with others in Kiel and Munich in Germany and Tampere in Finland, as well as in Stockholm and
Yokohama. “They are basically a bridge park, where the customer is conservative and is not willing to take the
leap to the global delivery model,” said Premji. “Typically they will work with the near-shore centre,
where we can work closely with them.”
Thursday, February 24, 2005
GenY logs out of BPO honeymoon
There is little doubt that Anup Kamath will return to Goa. The Mudgaon-based mechanical engineer has been lured to
join one of the country’s largest third-party offshore BPO operations . Attraction for him is a
four-fold jump in this net salary from the current level of Rs 4,500. His only regret is being late in joining his
peer group at the BPO centre. The case of
Sarika Arora of Andheri is just opposite. The young school teacher had joined the same BPO company a year ago. She
gave up teaching for an attractive salary. Recently, while returning home from the call centre she fainted in the
vehicle provided by the company. Now she is being treated in a hospital for ailments ranging from hypertension,
asthma to spondylitis. Head hunters find a co-relation between the two events. “Availability of manpower in
metros is becoming a major problem because those who have worked for about a year, find the job boring and taxing,
inspite of lucrative remuneration. “Emerging job opportunities in other fields with better salaries is
dissuading young generation from joining call centres or BPO companies. Textiles and retail sector has become both
remunerative and attractive in post-MFA regime,” Ms Shefali Tripathi, director of Career Genii. “Finding
it difficult to lure lads in metros, head hunters are recruiting students from smaller cities. Smaller, cities like
Mundgaon and Panjim are the fertile ground for recruitment for BPOs based in Mumbai, a Goa-based job consultant
said.
The shortage of manpower for BPO operations in metros is becoming a major problem. According to National
Association of Software and Services Companies (Nasscom), BPO sector is experiencing job attrition at 50%. About
half of the staff employed by an offshore BPO company leave within one year. This is happening despite a 10-20%
salary hike in the sector in last one year. Alarm bell is ringing for BPO operators. They need to find a solution.
They can neither afford the knowledge loss (due to high training cost), nor can they continue to increase salary
(as basic premise of offshoring is low-cost operations). “In this scenario, de-urbanisation is the only
solution. BPO operations are shifting from metros to smaller cities like Jaipur, Coimbatore, Nasik and
Mangalore,” says Mr K Sudarshan, managing director of EMA Partners International. According to him, BPO
operations will shift to those towns which will have better educational infrastructure to ensure supply of
workforce. “This is the reason why, Coimbatore and Jaipur have been able to attract companies like Wipro,
Infosys and GE,” he adds. According to Mr Sudarshan, de-urbanisation is the only effective means to manage
attrition problem and it will have far reaching impact.
Bharti to outsource its call centers
NEW DELHI: Bharti Televentures, the No 1 private telecom service provider in India, and the poster boy of Indian
domestic outsourcing market, is about to go for yet another outsourcing deal. And this time it is a business
process-customer service.
The company has decided to outsource most of its front-end customer service call centers and has invited RFPs from
potential vendors. The company plans to finalize the deal in the next couple of months, according to sources.
Post-deal, only the high value customers will be served directly by Bharti’s call centers. The company today has
close to 2,000 people in its call centers.
It is learnt that many offshoring service providers will be competing for the deal. Unlike the typical offshore
contact center outsourcing deals, Bharti plans to work out a price based on per minutes and not based on a fixed per
FTE. Also, the company is looking at a small number of outsourcing service providers for the entire piece of work,
which will make the deals quite sizeable.
When finalized, this will be a benchmark deal in more ways than one. For the offshoring service providers, it will be
a benchmark in terms of pricing, cost, and the entire business economics. The fact that Bharti is looking at a per
minute pricing and not a typical per FTE per hour pricing, will also be a challenge for many, not so familiar with
this pricing model.
On the user side, it will be the first such big deal in call center outsourcing. Though Bharti has been a pioneer in
outsourcing, both its other deals-network outsourcing to Ericsson and billing application outsourcing to IBM-are
telecom specific and has no major learning f or companies in other verticals. On the contrary, the call center deal,
if successful could be a benchmark for all companies in general, and all consumer service companies in particular.
Linked By: www.callcentersindia.com
Stop step-motherly treatment to BPOs
At a time when the Government of India is striving hard to balance its books, it may seem blasphemous to make out a
case for an extended tax holiday. As it is there is a strong argument – very well reasoned and appropriate for our
times – to progressively dismantle the complex web of exemptions and pave the way for a larger tax base but with
moderate marginal rates of tax. The proponents of this school of thought frown at the continued tax exemption given to the Indian software industry,
though the current dispensation will run out in 2009. But surely there is still the need for a closer look at some
obvious aberrations. The issue here is one of internal consistency especially since the current scheme under Section
10A provides for an exemption from income tax for a period of 10 years from the commencement of business in an
approved software undertaking or 31 March, 2009 whichever is earlier. Notwithstanding such a stated position, the
department seems to be taking a view that is different in certain circumstances. For example, where the new software
undertakings have been set up under an earlier STP license, the tax holiday period in some cases have been held to
cease at the end of the expiry of 10 years from the date of the original license, even though such software
undertakings have not completed their ten-year run. Our belief is that this is not in the spirit of Section 10A and
is an unintended consequence. If we set the context to what was intended by the legislature, which is undeniably
giving the IT Sector the fiscal relief till 2009, a mere technical shortcoming cannot and should not cause the denial
of such an intended benefit. Apart from the above technical issue which can get clarified very easily, there are
other opportunities to make it easier for tax administration and facilitate efficiencies through restructuring. Once
such opportunity is available in Section 72A as it stands on the statute book today.
While the tax credits for carried forward losses of companies taken over through a scheme of amalgamation has been
envisaged under Section 72A, it seems odd that BPO/ITES units are excluded in the list of eligible undertaking. It is
more of a drafting oversight I think. The authorities are well aware that there has been a mushrooming of several
small size BPO ventures in the heady days of year 2000, which are today faced with lack of traction and have become
attractive candidates for M&A opportunities. It would be in the larger interest of both the ITES industry and
CBDT if Section 72A is amended to provide for the necessary tax relief becoming available with respect to an
amalgamating BPO entity. Allow transfer pricing regime to stabilise There is an urgent need to facilitate the
creation of an extensive database required to benchmark the arm’s length pricing across industries. Both the
Assessee and the department are at a disadvantage for want of any robust database which will give rise to some
vexations litigation. The present safe harbour limit of ± 5% is very marginal, keeping in mind the evolutionary stage
of the Transfer Pricing legislation in India. It is strongly recommended that the said limit should be increased or
aligned to international level of about ± 15%. The current provision stipulates a penalty of 2% on the value of the
International Transaction which by all means is very stringent and harsh given that all the double taxation avoidance
agreements contain adequate provisions to check possible abuse through related treaties. Further, such penalties are
unwarranted at this nascent stage of Transfer Pricing legislation which was intended to be a tool for anti-avoidance.
While the tax credits for carried forward losses of companies taken over through a scheme of amalgamation has been
envisaged under Section 72A, it seems odd that BPO/ITES units are excluded in the list of eligible undertaking. It is
more of a drafting oversight I think. The authorities are well aware that there has been a mushrooming of several
small size BPO ventures in the heady days of year 2000, which are today faced with lack of traction and have become
attractive candidates for M&A opportunities. It would be in the larger interest of both the ITES industry and
CBDT if Section 72A is amended to provide for the necessary tax relief becoming available with respect to an
amalgamating BPO entity. Allow transfer pricing regime to stabilise There is an urgent need to facilitate the
creation of an extensive database required to benchmark the arm’s length pricing across industries. Both the
Assessee and the department are at a disadvantage for want of any robust database which will give rise to some
vexations litigation. The present safe harbour limit of ± 5% is very marginal, keeping in mind the evolutionary stage
of the Transfer Pricing legislation in India. It is strongly recommended that the said limit should be increased or
aligned to international level of about ± 15%. The current provision stipulates a penalty of 2% on the value of the
International Transaction which by all means is very stringent and harsh given that all the double taxation avoidance
agreements contain adequate provisions to check possible abuse through related treaties. Further, such penalties are
unwarranted at this nascent stage of Transfer Pricing legislation which was intended to be a tool for anti-avoidance.
Linked By: www.callcentersindia.com
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Friday, February 02, 2007
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Tuesday, December 20, 2005
Security beefed up for call centre staff
With the background of 500 rape cases in Delhi this year, the police of Delhi, Gurgaon and Noida have decided to take the identity proof of call centre drivers, including their photographs and finger prints, in a move to instil a sense of confidence in the women.
“There is certainly a sense of fear among the women employees and our primary aim now is to ensure absolute safety of these workers. From Monday we are starting a special security drive in Gurgaon for call centre vehicles,” said Hanif Quereshi, senior superintendent of police (SSP), Gurgaon.
“We are also holding a meeting with the call centre authorities to strategise about the security. We will take the identity proof of all the drivers, cab owners and even travel agents who are providing cabs to these multinationals,” Quereshi said.
“Besides, photographs of cab drivers and their finger prints would be collected with immediate effect for our records and it will certainly help both the BPO industry and the city police,” the SSP added.
He said a couple of call centres have begun the identification process on their own earlier.
Bangalore call centre employee, Pratibha Srikant, 24, was on Wednesday night raped and brutally murdered by a cab driver who picked her up at around 2.30 am for her early morning shift.
Women constitute around 60 per cent of the 20,000 people employed in different call centres of Delhi, Gurgaon and Noida. With a large number of call centres located in Delhi, especially in the south, Delhi Police is keen on increasing the security.
“It’s a concern for any police department where business process outsourcing is happening in a big way. Sometimes next week all our top officials will sit together to discus the issue and provide a clear directive on security measures,” said Praveer Ranjan, deputy commissioner of police, south Delhi.
In Noida, the police are equally concerned. S Yadav, superintendent of police, Gautam Budh Nagar, Noida, said that though the security of call centre employees is a private matter, the police was “not satisfied with the security arrangement of these organisations”.
“As a responsible institution, we are holding a special meeting with all those firms. First we will take the feedback from them and depending on that we will give our directives,” he said.
“We hope every precautionary measure would be put into place by the end of next week.”
“The first thing that we are going to do is advise them to keep a guard in the cab and never allow drivers to pick or drop a single woman worker. The women employee should not be picked first or dropped last,” he said.
Some call centres in the region have decided to increase the security for women workers.
“We are concerned about the safety of our employees and have directed the transport and facility department to make sure that no woman employee is picked first or dropped last. We are ready to cooperate with the police and do what ever is necessary,” said Gaurav Jain, manager facilities of IBM Daksh, a leading BPO network of the country.
However, women workers are scared and want their organisations to tighten the security.
“Though there is a provision for sending a guard in the cab, sometimes one finds the guard missing. More importantly, the call centres should ensure that there is not a regular change of driver,” said a woman employee of GE.
“Every day you find a new driver and cab coming to pick you up and it’s very natural to be apprehensive while with a stranger,” she said.
Thursday, March 31, 2005
What employees expect
Key findings
The survey revealed that most people join a BPO to gain exposure to an international level work environment and the infrastructure that BPOs provided.
Not for `quick money’, a `luxurious lifestyle’ at a young age and a `career’ that requires no particular educational background.
Exits from BPO happen because of reasons like lack of growth avenues, expectation mismatch, dissatisfaction with organisational policies, and the quest for a better job profile.
Not night shifts, monotony of work and lack of salary hikes. Where the HR department took steps to deter exits such as giving salary hikes, promotions, shift changes and other incentives, it did not succeed completely.
The survey revealed that respondents were overwhelmingly in favour of better career growth opportunities and improved company policies.
The survey indicated that more than 60 per cent of the employees join a BPO after seeing job advertisements in newspapers or through manpower consultant references. The study found that the communication pattern of advertisements positioned the BPO job at a level much higher than its real delivery.
An overwhelming 75 per cent of the respondents were financially independent of their families.
Yet, a sizeable section among them turned to their families for support if they felt the need to quit their jobs. This cushion provided by the social support system often drove the respondents to quit their jobs at the first hint of any inconvenience on the job.
The study says that the steps to manage attrition are not yielding the desired results because of the mismatch between the aspirations/expectations of the employees and the very nature of a BPO job.
It concludes that there is need for a higher degree of due diligence at the hiring stage.
At the hiring stage itself, companies need to make the prospective employee aware of what the job exactly entails and make an assessment of the potential response of the candidate in such job settings.
Wednesday, March 23, 2005
US to have upper hand in outsourcing by 2009
“Just 36% of agent positions in India were offshore outsourced at the end of 2004 with the remainder located mainly in offshore in-house operations of big multinationals. However, by 2007, the tables will have turned in the outsourcers’ favour,” says Datamonitor.
“By 2007, new outsourced seats will outnumber captive ones by a factor of 10:1 in India and the outsourcers will continue to hold sway going forward. Just 12,000 net new captive seats will be added between now and 2009,” the study predicted.
According to Datamonitor, more firms are set to follow the likes of British Airways, Citibank, General Electric and HSBC and spin-off a part or all of their captive operations in India.
Firms that have chosen to lock in shareholder value by tapping into the offshore labour arbitrage model by establishing in-house offshore centres, will look to deliver further returns, either by selling off their captive offshore operations or by outsourcing the processes to third parties, the study said.
According to Datamonitor, over a quarter of a million new call centre agent positions will be added in India and the Philippines through 2009.
Both countries will see substantial growth in call centres now that the US presidential elections are out of the way allowing US and UK businesses to ramp up their offshore operations. While India continues to dominate the global offshore call centre outsourcing landscape, the Philippines threatens to poach some activity as its own market grows in strength.
Besides the attractions that India and the Philippines offer western firms in terms of low cost access to highly skilled call centre and back-office staff, the two markets will also demonstrate substantial growth in their domestic call centre markets.
By 2009, close to 1,00,000 agent positions will be serving the Indian domestic market while the Philippines will have 21,600 positions.
Thursday, March 17, 2005
Why Indian BPO guys are losing out to Filipinos
While an Indian BPO agent is likely to remain sick for 15 days every year, Filipinos manage with only 8 sick leaves per annum. They are also more loyal. While your next door BPO guy spends less than a year (11 months) at a BPO, his Filipino counterpart spends 19 months on an average in a company.
But Indians take heart. When it comes to conversion of calls into actual sales, Indian BPO agents are clear winners. 35 per cent of calls routed to India get converted into actual business as compared to the Filipino rate of 25 per cent. So, Indians beat Filipinos beat when it means business, i.e. selling skills!
When it comes to training a Filipino agent, you have to invest less. Very few call centres spend time on voice and accent neutralisation. So automatically the duration of training period gets reduced.
While an Indian BPO guy takes 24 days to get trained, his Filipino friend spends only 19 days as a trainee.
When it comes to multi-lingual skills, Filipinos are much verbose. 64 per cent of Filipino agents can speak more than two languages as compared to India where only 40 per cent multi lingual skills.
Due to superior English language skills, the Philippines is the only country where BPO exports exceed IT exports. In 2003, BPO exports were double of IT exports at $600 mn.
Why Phillipines is emerging as a Global BPO hub?
The Philippines is an emerging BPO hub because of cultural compatibility with the west, especially the US. The Philippines was under the US rule for almost 50 years. It led to the Americanisation of the Filipino culture. 80 per cent of the population is Catholic. 15 per cent are Muslims.
The Philippines is the third largest English-speaking country in the world. About 72 per cent of the population is fluent in English.
The Philippines has one of the highest literacy rates (94%) in the world.
The US military rule had also laid a strong base to the country’s telecom infrastructure. The country was under the US rule from 1898 until 1935.
It’s interesting that in the case of India also the British rule had helped in giving a huge popularity to the English language.
Canada and Ireland are also benefiting from their language skills to advance their outsourcing business.
Mexico, which was under Spanish rule from 1521 to 1810, has bagged a huge chunk of Spanish voice processes from US. According to the US Census Bureau, there were about 28 million Spanish speakers in the US in 2000.
In the Philippines, similarity in legal and tax framework with the US has eased the administrative bottlenecks for the American firms setting captive BPOs there.
Chevron Texaco, AOL, P&G, Accenture and Dell have set up centres there. Major BPO hubs in the Philippines are Manila and Cebu City.
So can Philipines beat India at the BPO battle?
The answer is a clear and big No.
Scaling up of operations is a major challenge which call centres in Philippines face. The country has a small population. Universities churn out only 70,000 IT graduates each year as compared to India where the figure runs into lakhs. India churns out more than 4.5 lakh IT graduates every year.
So, outsourcing your high-end work to the Philippines can be a real challenge.
Attrition rates in Filipino call centres are lower at 20 per cent as compared to India’s – 31 per cent. Currently, there are about 100 call centres in the country.
Companies such as HSBC, Dell, AIG and UPS have all outsourced their business to the Philippines.
But our Desi BPO executive is willing to work at much lower than that of his Filipino equivalent. The hourly cost per seat in India is $3.18 as compared to Philippines’ $3.82.
So, do Filipinos make better BPO agents than our Desi BPO guys? The answer that emerges from the facts and figures from the survey by ACA Research and Kelly Services is yes.
But these findings are only for the call centre domain. When it comes to high-end BPOs work such as teleradiology, engineering design or software development, India leads the way.
Long way to go way, Phillipines!
Linked by: www.callcentersindia.com
Tuesday, March 08, 2005
Outsourcing firms battle to retain their employees
Indian back-office firms face a growing challenge holding on to employees, even as they hire tens of thousands every quarter.
Staff tend to account for half of a back-office operation’s costs, according to research firm Evalueserve, and the battle for talent has led to a 10-15% rise in employee salaries.
Recruitment and training makes up 3% of the overall per-employee cost of about $13,000 per year, including administration and telecoms costs, according to Evalueserve.
But the really damaging cost is the lost business for companies which cannot fill key jobs quickly enough. Many face a shortage of mid-level manpower to manage their rapid growth as they lure clients with promises of 40% to 50% cost savings.
As the industry clocks up 50%-plus growth, demand for quality personnel is outstripping supply. Employees often hop to new jobs for slightly more money, and many do not view back-office work as a career.
Companies provide free transport, subsidised meals and housing to retain staff, and try to enliven the environment with musical entertainment, yoga classes and costume contests.
What is cooking in the BPO kitchen?
If so, the stakes are that much higher because there is much more to lose by not paying heed to roadblocks.
We have seen the Indian BPO industry grow, mature and consolidate. While it certainly deserves all the attention it is getting, has the industry moved beyond simple call centre or tech support work that it started out with? Is it ready to take on large chunks of back office operations that will make a dramatic impact on client organisations?
Emerging trends – leading indicators?
I believe that the last 6 months have seen some very important shifts in the BPO landscape. Some of these changes are subtle but nonetheless, directionally significant.
More than non-core processes
I recently saw a half page advertisement in the Times of India from a leading Indian BPO, for MBAs, economists, financial analysts, accountants, PhDs, mathematicians etc. for quantitative research and analysis.
Even without knowing further details, this highlights some important facts – firstly, this is truly high end work; secondly, this is a big win for the company (justifying the cost of such a large advertisement); thirdly, this represents core processes – activities like financial research are the heart of any trading business.
The inescapable conclusion is that something has certainly changed from the supply side. And if the client is willing to move this type of work into India, then something has also changed from the demand side. Cynics might point to a number of boutique research companies who have been around for the last two years.
However, all these companies are tiny, niche operators who get by on small pilot contracts. This is the first public evidence of scale that I have seen in mainstream high end work like financial research.
Captives – no longer the obvious solution
The recent sale of GECIS, following earlier deals done by Swissair and BA (i.e. sale of captive units) are causing clients to seriously question the captive model for large outsourcing deals.
In part, this is due to the emergence of credible third party BPOs who have moved beyond call centres and demonstrated their ability to handle complex, end to end processes. It is also partly due to the realisation that cost centre mindset in a captive will never achieve the operational efficiency of a focussed, well managed, profit driven third party supplier.
India – integral to a global organisation
Linked by: www.callcentersindia.com
It’s hard to beat India in BPO biz
“The Western world is looking for the developing world to liberalise all the time, to stop restrictive practices, and then it wants to put its own restrictions on business coming out of the developing world. If the West wants emerging markets to open up they have to be open,” he said. In mid-2003, Premji said he wanted to transform Wipro into a global leader in IT services, breaking out of being simply an Indian business selling to the West. Since then, it has made a series of acquisitions, but mostly small ones. Premji said the group is not yet ready for any big leaps. “At this point, we are looking at a string-of-pearls acquisition strategy, not an Accenture or IBM.” Wipro’s evolution has also led to the development of what is called “near-shoring” – setting up relatively small local centres for clients that are not ready to hand all their IT business to a company thousands of kilometres away in Bangalore. In the UK, Wipro has opened one such centre in Reading. It also has five offices in the US, with others in Kiel and Munich in Germany and Tampere in Finland, as well as in Stockholm and Yokohama. “They are basically a bridge park, where the customer is conservative and is not willing to take the leap to the global delivery model,” said Premji. “Typically they will work with the near-shore centre, where we can work closely with them.”
Thursday, February 24, 2005
GenY logs out of BPO honeymoon
There is little doubt that Anup Kamath will return to Goa. The Mudgaon-based mechanical engineer has been lured to join one of the country’s largest third-party offshore BPO operations . Attraction for him is a four-fold jump in this net salary from the current level of Rs 4,500. His only regret is being late in joining his peer group at the BPO centre. The case of Sarika Arora of Andheri is just opposite. The young school teacher had joined the same BPO company a year ago. She gave up teaching for an attractive salary. Recently, while returning home from the call centre she fainted in the vehicle provided by the company. Now she is being treated in a hospital for ailments ranging from hypertension, asthma to spondylitis. Head hunters find a co-relation between the two events. “Availability of manpower in metros is becoming a major problem because those who have worked for about a year, find the job boring and taxing, inspite of lucrative remuneration. “Emerging job opportunities in other fields with better salaries is dissuading young generation from joining call centres or BPO companies. Textiles and retail sector has become both remunerative and attractive in post-MFA regime,” Ms Shefali Tripathi, director of Career Genii. “Finding it difficult to lure lads in metros, head hunters are recruiting students from smaller cities. Smaller, cities like Mundgaon and Panjim are the fertile ground for recruitment for BPOs based in Mumbai, a Goa-based job consultant said.
The shortage of manpower for BPO operations in metros is becoming a major problem. According to National Association of Software and Services Companies (Nasscom), BPO sector is experiencing job attrition at 50%. About half of the staff employed by an offshore BPO company leave within one year. This is happening despite a 10-20% salary hike in the sector in last one year. Alarm bell is ringing for BPO operators. They need to find a solution. They can neither afford the knowledge loss (due to high training cost), nor can they continue to increase salary (as basic premise of offshoring is low-cost operations). “In this scenario, de-urbanisation is the only solution. BPO operations are shifting from metros to smaller cities like Jaipur, Coimbatore, Nasik and Mangalore,” says Mr K Sudarshan, managing director of EMA Partners International. According to him, BPO operations will shift to those towns which will have better educational infrastructure to ensure supply of workforce. “This is the reason why, Coimbatore and Jaipur have been able to attract companies like Wipro, Infosys and GE,” he adds. According to Mr Sudarshan, de-urbanisation is the only effective means to manage attrition problem and it will have far reaching impact.
Bharti to outsource its call centers
The company has decided to outsource most of its front-end customer service call centers and has invited RFPs from potential vendors. The company plans to finalize the deal in the next couple of months, according to sources. Post-deal, only the high value customers will be served directly by Bharti’s call centers. The company today has close to 2,000 people in its call centers.
It is learnt that many offshoring service providers will be competing for the deal. Unlike the typical offshore contact center outsourcing deals, Bharti plans to work out a price based on per minutes and not based on a fixed per FTE. Also, the company is looking at a small number of outsourcing service providers for the entire piece of work, which will make the deals quite sizeable.
When finalized, this will be a benchmark deal in more ways than one. For the offshoring service providers, it will be a benchmark in terms of pricing, cost, and the entire business economics. The fact that Bharti is looking at a per minute pricing and not a typical per FTE per hour pricing, will also be a challenge for many, not so familiar with this pricing model.
On the user side, it will be the first such big deal in call center outsourcing. Though Bharti has been a pioneer in outsourcing, both its other deals-network outsourcing to Ericsson and billing application outsourcing to IBM-are telecom specific and has no major learning f or companies in other verticals. On the contrary, the call center deal, if successful could be a benchmark for all companies in general, and all consumer service companies in particular.
Linked By: www.callcentersindia.com
Stop step-motherly treatment to BPOs
The proponents of this school of thought frown at the continued tax exemption given to the Indian software industry, though the current dispensation will run out in 2009. But surely there is still the need for a closer look at some obvious aberrations. The issue here is one of internal consistency especially since the current scheme under Section 10A provides for an exemption from income tax for a period of 10 years from the commencement of business in an approved software undertaking or 31 March, 2009 whichever is earlier. Notwithstanding such a stated position, the department seems to be taking a view that is different in certain circumstances. For example, where the new software undertakings have been set up under an earlier STP license, the tax holiday period in some cases have been held to cease at the end of the expiry of 10 years from the date of the original license, even though such software undertakings have not completed their ten-year run. Our belief is that this is not in the spirit of Section 10A and is an unintended consequence. If we set the context to what was intended by the legislature, which is undeniably giving the IT Sector the fiscal relief till 2009, a mere technical shortcoming cannot and should not cause the denial of such an intended benefit. Apart from the above technical issue which can get clarified very easily, there are other opportunities to make it easier for tax administration and facilitate efficiencies through restructuring. Once such opportunity is available in Section 72A as it stands on the statute book today.
While the tax credits for carried forward losses of companies taken over through a scheme of amalgamation has been envisaged under Section 72A, it seems odd that BPO/ITES units are excluded in the list of eligible undertaking. It is more of a drafting oversight I think. The authorities are well aware that there has been a mushrooming of several small size BPO ventures in the heady days of year 2000, which are today faced with lack of traction and have become attractive candidates for M&A opportunities. It would be in the larger interest of both the ITES industry and CBDT if Section 72A is amended to provide for the necessary tax relief becoming available with respect to an amalgamating BPO entity. Allow transfer pricing regime to stabilise There is an urgent need to facilitate the creation of an extensive database required to benchmark the arm’s length pricing across industries. Both the Assessee and the department are at a disadvantage for want of any robust database which will give rise to some vexations litigation. The present safe harbour limit of ± 5% is very marginal, keeping in mind the evolutionary stage of the Transfer Pricing legislation in India. It is strongly recommended that the said limit should be increased or aligned to international level of about ± 15%. The current provision stipulates a penalty of 2% on the value of the International Transaction which by all means is very stringent and harsh given that all the double taxation avoidance agreements contain adequate provisions to check possible abuse through related treaties. Further, such penalties are unwarranted at this nascent stage of Transfer Pricing legislation which was intended to be a tool for anti-avoidance.
While the tax credits for carried forward losses of companies taken over through a scheme of amalgamation has been envisaged under Section 72A, it seems odd that BPO/ITES units are excluded in the list of eligible undertaking. It is more of a drafting oversight I think. The authorities are well aware that there has been a mushrooming of several small size BPO ventures in the heady days of year 2000, which are today faced with lack of traction and have become attractive candidates for M&A opportunities. It would be in the larger interest of both the ITES industry and CBDT if Section 72A is amended to provide for the necessary tax relief becoming available with respect to an amalgamating BPO entity. Allow transfer pricing regime to stabilise There is an urgent need to facilitate the creation of an extensive database required to benchmark the arm’s length pricing across industries. Both the Assessee and the department are at a disadvantage for want of any robust database which will give rise to some vexations litigation. The present safe harbour limit of ± 5% is very marginal, keeping in mind the evolutionary stage of the Transfer Pricing legislation in India. It is strongly recommended that the said limit should be increased or aligned to international level of about ± 15%. The current provision stipulates a penalty of 2% on the value of the International Transaction which by all means is very stringent and harsh given that all the double taxation avoidance agreements contain adequate provisions to check possible abuse through related treaties. Further, such penalties are unwarranted at this nascent stage of Transfer Pricing legislation which was intended to be a tool for anti-avoidance.
Linked By: www.callcentersindia.com
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workforce management tool
In today’s contact center, where the overwhelming majority of ongoing expense is related to staffing, optimizing the personnel resource is critical. Getting the “just right” number of staff in place to answer incoming calls, place outbound calls, respond to emails, and handle web contacts. is critical to call center success and profitability. Overstaffing results in spending needless dollars for additional staff, while understaffing will affect service and have a detrimental effect on morale and contribute to staff turnover.
Call center managers have a wealth of performance and service statistics available to them from the ACD and other contact center technologies. Call volume, time-of-day call distribution, and contact handle times are now available, along with much information about individual and team productivity. All this information can be used to estimate future call volumes, predict how many staff will be required to handle the contacts, and determine schedules that best match the workforce to the contact workload.
The Need Workforce management tools
The changing mix of contact volume, coupled with the growing complexity of staff scheduling (longer operating hours, weekend shifts, mixture of full- and part-time staff, etc.) make the problem of workforce management ideally suited for the computer. Workforce management (WFM) software, combined with the historical and real-time statistics of the ACD, is an essential tool for today’s professionally managed call center.
Workforce management tools are used to keep sales and customer call center resources happy. I am familiar with two separate areas where this is most often used:
1. Salesforce incentive management – assuring that sales and business goals are aligned and that sales staff are properly motivated to deliver the right results and avoid compensation issues and disputes.
2. Call center staff optimization - assuring that resources are properly managed and scheduled to deliver superior customer service, provide incentive, track progress and increase retention.
The basic functions associated with a workforce management software system are as follows:
Call volume forecasting. A WFM system uses historical and current call information from the ACD and other contact center systems to predict future call volume based on overall calling trends, seasonal factors, and other predictable calling patterns. Forecasts are automatically updated with new information about contact patterns through a direct interface with contact center systems such as the ACD, outbound dialer, or email/fax servers.
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Staffing calculations. A telephone traffic engineering technique is used to determine the required number of staff based on the forecast workload for incoming calls. This technique, called Erlang C, takes into account the random arrival of calls into the center, as well as the “hold for the first agent” queuing that typically takes place. Other mathematical models are used to factor in the sequential workload of emails and/or outbound calling.
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Staff scheduling. “Bodies in chairs” staff requirements along with non-productive time estimates (for breaks, trainings, meetings, etc.) are used to determine a schedule requirement for each half-hour or quarter-hour period. A set of optimal schedules is then created based on these requirements and a call center’s unique scheduling rules and constraints. These schedules are then assigned to staff based shift bid rules and employee preferences.
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Day-to-day performance tracking. Perhaps the most critical component of a workforce management system is the intra-day comparison of actual performance against the plan. Call center management must actively compare actual workload by half-hour to the forecast, and actual number of staff on the phones to the schedule plan. The call center manager needs to see these changes as they are happening, in order to make necessary adjustments to meet service goals.
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- ~Cost Justifying Workforce Management Tools
Not all call centers need an automated system to accomplish workforce management tasks. Need is a function of size and operating complexity. Generally call centers with more than 30 agents with an increasingly complex scheduling environment (round-the- clock operations or an increasing volume of emails/faxes, for example) can cost justify automating these functions.
An automated workforce management system generally produces measurable improvements in the following areas:
- More efficient scheduling. The savings associated with more efficient scheduling can take many forms, including reduced overall staff hours, reduced need for overtime, and identification of overstaffed periods to offer time off without pay. Workforce management system users generally experience a minimum reduction of staff hours of 2 % and average potential is in the 5 – 10% range.
- Automation of workforce management tasks. Depending on how often forecasting and scheduling tasks take place and to what degree they are currently automated, there is a wide range of potential savings in staff time by automating these tasks with a full-featured workforce management system. It is generally expected that at least 25% of administrative and managerial time currently devoted to the manual performance of these tasks can be saved.
- Reduction in workforce shrinkage. Many hours of staff time are lost in most call centers due to excessive amounts of non-productive time (time spent not handling calls). An automated workforce management system can provide historical and real- time information on schedule adherence and schedule exceptions for better management and control of staff, reducing workforce shrinkage by 2-5% in most call centers.
- Reduction in network costs. By creating a set of schedules that minimizes understaffing as well as overstaffing, implementing workforce management results in a more consistent level of service to callers and may reduce queue time and toll-free network costs.
- Increased revenues. For call centers that realize revenue by answering calls (catalogs, reservations centers, etc.), workforce management automation can help reduce queue times and improve service, thereby reducing the number of abandons and increasing the number of revenue calls completed.
(To determine an estimated payback period, take the estimated savings from Items 1-5 above for estimated annual savings or divide by 12 for an estimated monthly savings in the first year of implementation. The payback period on such a system can be calculated by dividing the one-time purchase price by the average monthly savings.)
In addition to these measurable cost savings, there are many intangible benefits. Perhaps the biggest of these is the addition of a sophisticated “what-if” planning capability that allows management to forecast and plan staff needs for the short term to respond to unexpected changes, as well as long-term budgeting and planning.
Selection Guidelines
Organizations considering a workforce management purchase should heed the following guidelines:
- Cast a large net. Invite all qualified vendors to present their products. Insist on a detailed demonstration and ask lots of questions about how the package would work in meeting your center’s specific mode of operation
- Talk to others that have done it. At a minimum, talk to four or five other organizations similar to yours (in size, type of operation, ACD brand) that have implemented a system.
- Consider the support capabilities of each vendor. Workforce management software systems are not simple, off-the-shelf packages.
- Don’t suffer “sticker shock”. Prices for workforce management systems cover a wide range, depending on whether you are considering a single module, or a comprehensive integrated system. Some of the more comprehensive packages may seem expensive, but don’t lose sight of the fact that each agent employee may have a fully burdened cost of anywhere from $30,000 – $50,000 annually. Saving just a couple of employees’ labor expenses can quickly justify the most expensive package.
- Plan for a successful implementation. During the purchase process, it is critical to communicate and motivate everyone in the center to participate in the process. While implementing workforce management results in a more efficient operation and a less stressful environment in the long run, it is important to realize that such an implementation may mean a cultural change for agents, supervisors, and management in the short term.
Accomplishing Profitability and Service Objectives
Whether large or small, the objective of every contact center is to accomplish the most work at the highest level of service at the lowest cost. This objective is achieved through workforce management. The larger the workforce, the more complex the task, and the more suited the problem is for automation.
Not only do automated systems save substantial management and clerical time, but they can also reduce personnel costs dramatically by optimizing the staffing resource. Benefits include a more precise forecast of future call volumes showing peaks and valleys of calls, exact determination of staff needed for each period minimizing overstaffing and understaffing, and the ability to monitor call center performance and make adjustments as needed within the day. The end result is the ability to handle more calls at a better level of service to the caller at a reduced cost.
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Posted by: Sales & Marketing Team
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About CCI
Call centers India Inc. is a Washington based corporation. Headquarters are in Seattle, Sales and U.S. Operations are in this city of Seattle near Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. Operations are in Noida India, a suburb of New Delhi India. The Indian corporation Vcare Care Call Centers India (p) Ltd is a wholly owned subsidiary of the US Corporation.
