• Aegis Australia has appointed a new CEO with 20-year customer contact executive Andrew Hume taking over the reins.
• Datacentre Africa, the premier regional event for IT infrastructure, will take place in Johannesburg 26-27 June 2013. Thinking differently about data centres provides the focus for this year’s Datacentre Africa (http://www.datacentreafrica.com)

By Martin Conboy

With the upcoming SSON event in Melbourne looming, the leading personalities and thought leaders were asked where they saw the industry heading in terms of growth and best practice, and where some of the challenges are as the industry moves forward.

Global expansion and engaging with Asia

Enrico Rizzon, VP of A.T. Kearney remarked ”Whilst the Australian market is becoming more comfortable with outsourcing, the post-event reality often falls short of the original business case both in terms of performance and value delivered.” There is no doubt that not all outsourcing projects have gone along according to plan and some projects have been cancelled.  “Was the original business case optimistic or could the execution have been better or both?” he questioned.

With a slightly different perspective and a clarion call to industry, Donal Graham Asia Pacific Leader, Back Office Transformation at Deloitte, “The BPO market in ANZ is growing, as evidenced by the presence of new vendors, but too many companies are moving too slowly and too cautiously.” Graham sees it as a pragmatic issue, “The reality is that we will remain a high cost country for the foreseeable future and as such we need to look for every means to improve value and differentiation”. He goes to say, “Australia and NZ must adopt a new mindset to outsourcing and offshoring. Our politics, our media and even legislation such as Australia’s Fair Work Act present barriers to truly thinking of offshoring for competitive advantage”.

 “As Australian firms struggle to come to terms with the ‘new normal’ of lacklustre growth in traditional markets, increased regulation, and stubborn productivity, shared services and outsourcing are a key strategic imperative” agrees Martin Fahy, Partner KPMG, “They provide a platform for growth in Asia, an effective route to regaining cost competitiveness, and a basis for driving better Finance and HR capability in the business.”

Best Practice

Niranjan Deodhar Vice President Genpact feels that the processes are becoming to complex and that may be causing some players in the market to be turned off and not see the opportunities in the right light, “The market for globalised services is far too obsessed with scale.” He sees the market shifting away from the Tier one contracts and spreading to smaller organisations, “We need to drop the entry barrier and make this work for more than just the big end of town. That will require more standardized and intelligent processes, and simpler governance.” He argues that, “Measures of success have to simplified as well, so that governance can be simplified. This means clients too have to change their expectations. Simple transfer of customized processes will not enable this step change – clients have to be open to really absorbing the best practice that a good provider can bring, and be ready to change.”

“Today’s Shared Service Centre (SSC) and Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) have reached the end of their self-live. The benefits gained by economy of scale in a SSC and leveraging the global work force by BPO no longer give competitive advantage and in many cases are playing catch-up with the leading players in the marketplace.” Remarked Peter Monk, Partner & BPO Solution Provider at IBM. He asks, “How do we infuse technology holistically to become a key enabler of process transformation? How do we leverage Research & Development (R&D) to continually innovate and future proof our business?”

With a slightly broader viewpoint, Michelle Cox, Director BPO HP comments, “The BPO market has traditionally relied on bringing to its clients the benefits of scale, labour location and leveraged investments. Now with the advent of multi-channel communications, mobility ‘apps’ and cloud-based models you can no longer simply expect that lining up scale to bring efficiency to a service line will be enough. To succeed and stay relevant you must develop a viewpoint on how customers want to interact with you, aim to achieve customer intimacy at all touch points and choose which parts outsourcing makes sense.”

Russell Ives, Partner, Accenture supports the reasoning, “To achieve and sustain superior outcomes from BPO and Shared Services organisations need to change their frame of reference from the BPO provider and Shared Service function to a broader more holistic end to end perspective that covers transformation of the retained organization, collaborative outcome focused partnerships, change management and continuous improvement for the long term, and has a focus on benefits above and beyond cost reduction.”

Challenges

No one said it was going to be easy, and there was a number of significant hurdles to overcome if we are to fully realise the benefits of outsourcing. One of the first challenges is to make outsourcing a legitimate part of the business landscape. “Educating the media, politicians, unions and the broader public is crucial,” claims David Fincher, Partner of Ernst & Young. “It is the duty of all of us who have had a positive exposure to offshoring to increase the education of those that have not,” he added.

Arno Franz, President of ISG sees Software as a Service as a treat to the space, “While captives and shared service operations have been focused on delivering value (a.k.a. reducing their cost) to their organisations, they have been ignoring the threat of SaaS. Similarly the IT function has been concerning itself with Big Data, Cloud and IaaS, but have also been caught napping. With products like Workday, Oracle Taleo and SAP Success Factors and a plethora of others, we see a turbo-charged SaaS market and equally turbo charged client expectation. While the number of engagements are small, they are growing exponentially, and the result will be a BPO market that will fundamentally change and a shared service function that will lose its relevance.”

“Across the globe we are coming to terms with ageing infrastructure, ageing workforce, transformational service delivery and ever tightening fiscal constraints,” claims Chris Morrison, a Partner at KPMG. He identifies the government sector as an area of opportunity, “The Government Sector needs to transform rapidly and swiftly to support the needs of our citizens and deliver services that will support our communities for years to come. This will require us to release resources to service delivery and embrace BPO partnerships at every level of government in every service area.”

Morrison concludes with, “The challenge (if we are willing) is to develop BPO partnerships and services that will drive our communities and transformational change.”

If you would like to hear more from these leading experts then please visit http://www.sharedservicesweek.com.au

By Siân Jenkins

Ahead of SSON’s 16th Annual Australasian Shared Services & Outsourcing Week, taking place in Melbourne in May 2013, I’ve been speaking to the speaker line up to get their exclusive insight on some of the topics set to be discussed at the conference in March.

Sanjay Patel is Executive Director of Asia Pacific and Japan Regional Shared Services for Merck & Co. Inc. (Merck), and the international opening keynote at this year’s event. He is also the 2012 winner of SSON’s Outstanding Contribution to the Industry Award for Asia.

Merck is one of the top pharmaceutical companies globally and it is Sanjay’s role to lead the shared business services, the multifunction shared services for Merck in Asia Pacific and Japan.

I wanted to speak to Sanjay about what he sees as key to this year’s theme – creating the intelligent enterprise – and get a taster of some of the experiences he has learnt from Merck.

What does the Intelligent Enterprise mean to you?

Shared Services organisations are uniquely positioned to leverage the vast amounts of diverse data that power end‐to‐end business processes, such as Accounting to Reporting, Order to Cash, Procure to Pay, and Hire to Retire, etc. Being a shared services organisation is no longer just about cost‐cutting, now the real value lies in the transformational capabilities that it offers for organisations that want to drive change and improvements.

There is a growing trend towards traditional shared services organisations that possess these end‐to‐end process expertise and have access to vast amounts of data, to capitalise on this opportunity and transform themselves into an “intelligent enterprise” by moving up the value chain and be seen less as back office operators, and instead more as an intelligent enterprise that provides new service offerings, such as Business Analytics and Insights that assist stakeholders in answering strategic business questions.

An intelligent enterprise, to me, would be an organisation that is connected and collaborative and excels at utilising its information assets, advanced analytical models and visualisations to maximise value for its customers and stockholders by allowing them to make fast, informed decisions.

What are some of the biggest challenges you’re faced with in helping achieve this more strategic service?

In the area of Business Analytics, some of the challenges include getting access to high quality data, the ability to define what business question needs to be answered, and also finding the right talent.

Good data is one of the key ingredients in gaining insights. Often, in large organisations, gaining access to data may pose a challenge, and even if you do get access to it, questions need to be asked about the integrity/quality of the data, if no formal data governance framework exists. There is also the challenge of extracting data from different ERP systems within the organisation. Most organisations are driving towards one standard ERP platform but you can’t wait for that to happen and need to work with several systems.

From a stakeholder perspective, it is important to articulate what business question(s) needs to be answered, as that would determine the data (or data sets) you would need to help with the analysis.

Finally, finding the right talent in establishing an analytics team often poses a challenge, as the demand for these talents is high and supply is scarce. It is important to find individuals who have deep functional and data knowledge, and proven and innate ability to engage stakeholders and use information to solve business problems as part of collaborative teams. They also need to be effective at communicating the results of the analysis to their stakeholders, i.e. possess the ability to tell a story with data.

If you are starting up an Analytics capability, it would be advisable to start off with a few simple projects that can deliver measurable benefits quickly and help demonstrate your capability. There is also a need for speed in preparing business analytics in order to add value to business decisions in an increasingly fast‐paced business environment. This would help in establishing credibility and trust with your stakeholders and build a foundation upon which you can build a successful intelligent enterprise.

How do you think organisations should be harnessing the wealth of information that can be applied to the organisation?

To me, it is important to first have a very clear vision on how the organisation wants to harness this information and what is the value proposition or differentiating factor you are trying to create. Before embarking on a journey to create any Analytics capability, it is important to have a robust data governance framework, because without strong, clean data or reliable data, the business analytics capability may not be very effective in providing valuable or reliable insights.

In defining the data governance framework, it is important to establish for every data type (e.g. customer, vendor, financial, employee, product, etc.) who the process owner for that data type is. The process owner needs to establish the information policy and information quality goals and communicate desired behaviours and value proposition. Secondly, define who will play the role of the information or data steward. This is the person or the group who will be responsible for ensuring that there are clear policy rules around how the data should be set up; who has access to it, what will be the process to ensure the data remains clean when it goes in the system and when it comes out of the system and finally, the person or group who will have operational stewardship of the data, i.e. create and maintain content in the system.

As it relates to Business Analytics, it is important to bear in mind the following as you start your journey:

  Engage stakeholders on the business questions they need answered to support business strategy

  Nurture a culture that values new ideas, from anyone, anytime, anywhere

  Seek opportunities for advanced analytics, highest ROI comes from predictive, 
simulation and optimisation models

  Identify initiatives or projects that help drive revenue, optimise or reduce costs and 
optimise working capital

  Focus on realisation of value, value usually comes from change (policy, service levels, 
processes, etc.)

  Leverage analytics as a powerful motivation for high data quality 
Advertise the capability and demonstrate the results, however don’t underestimate the difficulties in operationalising the analytics model and embedding them in your end‐to‐end processes.

Why do you think it’s so important for people to attend the 16th Annual Australasian Shared Services and Outsourcing Week? 


For me, there are a few things. Firstly, it is always good to network with your peers in the industry who are doing similar things and learn from each other, because a lot of the ideas can be easily replicated in other organisations. The peer networking is one of the big benefits and I would recommend professionals go and attend this. Secondly, you get to learn from a sales side what are some of the new tools, technologies or capabilities that are available that could make you more efficient as a shared services organisation. Thirdly, picking up on some of the best practices that are available to bring back to your organisation and be able to apply them. I attend once a year the event in Singapore and coming out of that event is always beneficial.

www.sharedservicesweek.com.au

The Bangladesh Association of Call Center and Outsourcing (BACCO) is welcoming the world to Digital World 2012, Bangladesh with the slogan Knowledge to Prosperity. This event celebrates national enthusiasm and achievements along with commemorating Vision 2021: Digital Bangladesh.

The three-day long conference will be held from 6-8 December 2012 at Bangabondhu International Conference Centre (BICC) to be organized by Bangladesh Computer Council (BCC), Ministry of ICT, and supported by Government of Bangladesh (GoB). The Honorable Prime Minister of Bangladesh has given her kind consent to inaugurate the event on 6th of Dec’12.

Digital World 2012 revaluates Bangladesh to become a leader with Information Technology & to open the ways of ICT and regulations regarding infrastructure moving towards Vision 2021. The event focuses on defining a roadmap for e-transformation in Bangladesh through effective integration of technology in public and private sector. Alongside, it will also lay out a proactive agenda to strengthen & showcase competitiveness in ICT.

Being the country’s only association for Call Center and Outsourcing companies here in Bangladesh, BACCO has been involved with core activities in organizing the event. In connection to that BACCO has organized two Major Seminar Sessions consecutively on Friday, 7th Dec’12 from 5:30-7:30PM and on Saturday, 8th Dec’12 at 2:30-4:30PM at Green View, Bangabandhu International Conference Centre (BICC). BACCO would like to take the privilege to invite all the stakeholders of outsourcing industry to these very useful seminar sessions. Seminar on 7th Dec will cover the topic: “Back To The Future: Where Will The Outsourcing Industry Be In 10 Years Time? What part will you play?” and whereas Seminar on 8th Dec will cover the topic: “Contact Centre as a new career and business prospect”. Stakeholders can participate in both the sessions just by ‘On Spot Registration’ – free of charge.

Most importantly these seminar sessions will be graced by Mr. Martin Conboy, President of Australian BPO Association (ABPOA) and Publisher of widely circulated online BPO magazine ‘ The Sauce’ as the Keynote Speaker. These seminar sessions will cover an imaginary journey towards future of Bangladesh outsourcing industry in accordance with the updates about global BPO industry and specifically the ways and means to crack the Australian market by emphasizing on developing service portfolios and creating business values by the vendors from outside.

BACCO is expecting that participants of these seminar sessions would be able to add enormous value to their knowledge, resulting into implementing the experience into their own territory to move forward to the Outsourcing World.

Well, the end of the year is nearly here and the talk is turning to Christmas and summer holidays. This year I have delivered BPO presentations at ICT-BPO/ Shared Services conferences in Australia and visited the Philippines, Sri Lanka, China, Mauritius and Malaysia. It’s brilliant to see the BPO space in each of those countries and what it is contributing to the local economies.

There is always one more show to go and my last event for 2012 is in the first week of December. I will be delivering a presentation at Digital World 2012, in Bangladesh.

http://www.digitalworld.org.bd/

It should be interesting as they are expecting over 30,000 visitors. If anybody wants to come along let me know and I will put you in touch with the organisers or click the link above.

Bangladesh has the potential to become a “Next Destination” for English speaking BPO outsourcing. I will report back after my visit.

The stake for Bangladesh is, net US$ 5 billion revenue annually in the next 10 years, with a minimum of US$ 600 per month taxable salary per person and creating over 200,000 sustainable jobs for middle class youth employment, it will definitely accelerate the country’s drive to become a middle income country.

Studies has shown for every US$ that comes from BPO; it has 11 times the velocity or multiplier affect in the local Bangladesh economy. They can see what the ICT- BPO sector has done for the likes and Mauritius and The Philippines and they want to get a piece of the action.

The BPO industry in Bangladesh only started in Bangladesh around the year 2008. The Government designated The ICT –BPO sector as a valuable support industry. The Vision of “Digital Bangladesh 2021″, has given the local industry the focus and momentum to leverage technology to improve the lives of over 160 million people.

The “Digital 2012″ conference rides on the success of the e-Asia Conference held in Bangladesh, 2011. The event will become a permanent annual digital conference, sponsored by the Government of Bangladesh to provide continued support and focus to achieving the vision of the “Digital Bangladesh 2021″.

Global IT-BPO leaders share their perspectives in the Chairman’s Panel during the 4th International Outsourcing Summit held October 7-9, 2012 in Manila, Philippines.

Photo shows (from left): Alfredo Ayala, chairman of the Business Processing Association of the Philippines; Som Mittal, president of NASSCOM; Augusto Castellanos, director of Proexport Colombia in India; Hoang Nam Tien, chairman of FPT; Huw Watkins, managing consultant of PA Consulting; and Dennis Wright, president and CEO of Peregrine Development International.

Global leaders in the IT-BPO industry gathered in Manila to share their perspectives on and strategic directions for the industry’s next frontier during the fourth International Outsourcing Summit (IOS) held October 7-9, 2012 at the Makati Shangri-La. Over 570 delegates from 17 top and emerging outsourcing markets and investment destinations participated in the Summit.

The Summit was organized by the Business Processing Association of the Philippines (BPAP), the umbrella association for the information technology and business process outsourcing (IT-BPO) and Global In-House Center (GIC) industry in the country.

Industry representatives from Australia, Bangladesh, Belgium, China, Colombia, Denmark, Greece, India, Japan, Malaysia, Netherlands, Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, United Kingdom, United States, and Vietnam joined a series of discussions on strategies for growth and diversification, talent supply, hyperspecialization, competition and customer retention, among others. Breakout session topics included branding and talent marketing, new technologies, healthcare outsourcing, cost and innovation, and the software industry.

Som Mittal, president of NASSCOM and one of the top global leaders to speak in IOS, expressed optimism for the industry’s accomplishments and its next frontier. “Outsourcing models are changing—driven by new technologies, reinvented business models, new buyer segments and solutions around emerging markets. Therefore, today’s world can be as the called ‘golden age of outsourcing’,” Mittal said. “This goes as maturity of the outsourcing market and increased capabilities of industry players have led to rapid change in expectations from clients and as a result roles and goals of service providers today have changed.”

President Benigno S. Aquino III delivered the keynote address and formally closed the conference. “The competitive advantage of the Filipino is increasingly becoming clearer to the world. In fact, according to a study published in April of this year, the Philippines was ranked the world’s best country in business English, and I was amazed at this,” said Aquino. “The IT-BPO industry has been capitalizing on these qualities, and they have done that while offering opportunities in-country, rather than out of our country—keeping our talent here, and arresting the social costs of working abroad,” the President said.

“The Philippine IT-BPO industry is making good progress towards achieving the stretch goals of Road Map 2016,” said Alfredo Ayala, BPAP chairman and president and CEO of LiveIt Investments Ltd.. “We aim to become the world’s number one destination not just for call centers but other select non-voice segments of IT-BPO, generate a total of 4.5 million direct and indirect jobs, and achieve cumulative revenues of US$96 billion for 2012‒2016,” Ayala said.

BPAP expects to generate US$13.4 billion in revenues and 772,000 full-time employees (FTEs) in 2012. These figures are seen to increase in 2013 to $16 billion and 926,000 FTEs, respectively.

Ayala noted that IT outsourcing grew by 37% in 2011, while healthcare information management posted an impressive 172% revenue growth over 2010 revenues. “We also saw growth in value-added sectors like game development, engineering, and complex back office services.”

Since the last global Summit, emerging global services delivery centers in Asia, Africa, Central and South America, and Eastern Europe “continue the race to leverage demand for specialization and influence best practice in specific knowledge domains,” according to Ayala.

According to research and consultancy firm Everest Group, the global offshore services market is growing at a healthy pace, and will more than double by 2016 to US$250 billion. Gartner reports that by 2016, the Asia-Pacific market for business process outsourcing (BPO)—excluding Japan—will reach US$9.5 billion.

Small business view also sought for customer contact strategy

(This could be a great opportunity for the BPO sector to supply virtual agents – Editor)

The Australian customer service industry will discuss the mooted changes to social media governance at the Customer Voice Leadership Forum in Sydney later this month.

More than 150 delegates are expected to attend the session, which will be used to help develop industry recommendations for dealing with increasing customer interaction via platforms such as Facebook and Twitter.

The Customer Voice Leadership Forum is the largest annual customer service gathering in Australia. The event attracts representatives from some of the largest companies in the world and this year is being held at Darling Harbour on September 26.

The push for industry discussion comes following the Advertising Standards Bureau’s determination that advertisers were responsible for comments posted on company Facebook pages. Companies will now have to remove derogatory, misleading or otherwise offensive posts within a 24-hour-period or risk penalties.

Forum delegate Brett Feldon, Chief Technology Officer – Speech Solutions, Salmat, said the determination meant companies would need to rethink their current approach.

“We’re at a very important juncture right now. As an industry we need to shift business thinking on social media from great opportunity to significant business responsibility,” Mr. Feldon said.

“Social media is a critical part of the marketing and customer service mix – as an industry we need to come up with strategies that are able to make the most of this medium for Australian businesses. The Forum will play an important role in shaping that discussion.”

The Customer Voice Leadership Forum will also include delegates from small-to-medium businesses for the first time this year.

Mr. Feldon said the industry was keen to involve SMEs in strategy discussions, as issues with social media regulation were particularly difficult for emerging businesses.

“Unlike larger organisations smaller businesses may not have the resources to constantly monitor and update social media channels. This presents us with another layer of complexity and its critical that these businesses have a seat in developing an overarching strategic response,” said Mr. Feldon. (Does this present the BPO service sector with a great opportunity? Editor)

“At the other end of the spectrum, larger businesses are going to have to consider how they amalgamate what up-until-now has been a marketing function, into a customer contact. There are a lot of questions that need to be considered right now.”

Speakers at the Forum sessions include Todd Sampson – CEO, Leo Burnett; Michael Bowman – Director Consumer Operations & CCR, Telstra; Grant Harrod – CEO, Salmat; Matthew Liebmann -Chief Commercial & Development Officer, Hoyts; Jonathan Barouch – Founder & CEO, Roamz; Tim Gentry – Managing Director Australia & New Zealand, Avaya; Brett Feldon – CTO, Speech Solutions, Salmat; and, David Olsen – Head of Social Media, Winning Group.

Other sessions at the CVLF include:

• The Future of Customer Experience
• Rolling out Omni-Channel Communications
• Managing Customer Contact through the Cloud

The Customer Voice Leadership Forum is being held at Doltone House, Darling Harbour, Sydney, on September 26 2012. For more information or to register, visit http://www.cvlf.com.au

About the Customer Voice Leadership Forum

The Customer Voice Leadership Forum (CVLF) was shaped from the Voice Leadership Forum (VLF). Launched in 2005, the original Voice Leadership Forum was formed as an association of members consisting of top industry professionals examining the use of speech recognition and voice biometric solutions within their organisations to address business challenges, drive thought leadership, create industry best practice standards and optimise engagement with their customers.

• The Australian BPO market is expected to grow by 20 % over the next year or two.
  Get your copy of the Australian BPO research study now.
  Go to – http://thesauce.net.au/sauce-research
• The Australian Business Process Outsourcing Association (ABPOA) is hosting a Cocktail Reception in honour of a trade delegation from the Business Processing Association of the Philippines (BPA/P) and the Australian-based Philippine Trade and Investment Commission.

  We would like to invite ABPOA members and guests to attend, meet, and network with our friends from the Philippines. 



  Where: Level 15, NSW Business Chamber, 140 Arthur Street, North Sydney NSW 2060
  When: Monday 21st May from 6:00 pm to 8:00 pm

  Tickets: To secure your place at this popular event, please register at
  Go To – http://abpoabpap2012.eventbrite.com

• Vocal Authenticity and Insightful Learning
  Transform your business through Vocal Authenticity and Insightful Listening

Use your voice to create more meaningful and trusting connections with others over the phone and face to face!

  Business Enterprise Centre

19/323 Castlereagh Street
Haymarket NSW
  Thursday 31 May 2012
  6:30 pm – 9:00 pm

Beverage and canapés provided
  Contact: admin@ccma.asn.au

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The East Africa Outsourcing Summit will be held at the Intercontinental Hotel, Nairobi from 5 to 6 June 2012. The event is hosted by international business-to-business conferencing company, Kinetic Events. The strategic invitation-only event will host senior-level professionals currently outsourcing, or considering outsourcing as an option. The event will address both operational and technological strategic issues shared by leading decision makers globally seeking to influence market share and profitability.

Kinetic Events is proud to announce confirmed speaker Jim McFie, Academic and Research Director at the School of Management and Commerce, Strathmore University, Nairobi. Jim is the Head of the Board Audit Committee, Standard Media Group Limited, and the Chairman of Sasini Limited, both quoted on the Nairobi Stock Exchange.
From 1993 to 2002 he was a Director of the Kenya Capital Markets Authority, a Member of the Kenya Value Added Tax Tribunal and a Trustee of the Kenya Corporate Governance Trust. Jim boasts an impressive résumé as Honorary Treasurer on the Board of Directors, AfriAfya, and the African Network for Health Knowledge Management and Communication.

Jim will lead a topical, must-attend discussion based on building the East Africa brand. The discussion will address how East African companies can develop a distinctive brand for themselves in a highly competitive international market. The focus will be set on how East Africa’s emerging status and outsourcing operators are ideally positioned to offer maximum service and price flexibility.

Attendees at the event will engage in interactive conference sessions and educational workshops designed for quality time and interaction with peers exploring the alignment of people, process and technology. The summit aims to offer insight into the solutions available to contact centres today, assisting companies in the negotiations and selecting the tools best suited to their needs.

For more information please visit www.eaosummit.com

Well Easter came and went, I am sure that Christmas was only last week , I sometimes feel like my desk calendar is on fast forward and the days and weeks are whipping past like the wind. Where does the time go?

Exciting news – The ABPOA is delighted to be hosting a market place breakfast with KPMG on May the second in Sydney. The Sauce, sponsored by IBM and Fuji Xerox will be showcasing the landmark research report “The Australian BPO Study 2912’ which the ABPOA endorsed.

This is the first time anybody has gone to the trouble to find out what’s really happening on the buy side in Australia and – let me tell you, there is a fascinating tale to tell.

There are only limited seats available so jump in quick if you would like to attend and find out what’s really going on in BPO in Australia.
Please visit http://outsourcingreporting2012.eventbrite.com to book your spot.

A couple of things that I can share with you are that Digital Marketing outsourcing is one of the growth areas and for your interest I draw your attention to the last two paragraphs from the article below about “How the marketing world went digital” and I see opportunities for enterprising BPO companies who can offer support with such services.

Also spotted this discussion on a LinkedIn blog, “The Death of the Call Center”.

Click here

It certainly is topical and has people with very firm views on both sides of the debate and in the context of the upcoming US election a fascinating discussion. (see story below about Joe Biden and Mitt Romney facing off about outsourcing of US jobs.)

Also in case you missed it last week, a story that will affect us all is the debate about the word ‘Outsourcing’ – http://thesauce.net.au/2012/04/buyers-and-providers-are-desperate-to-alter-the-perception-of-outsourcing/

We would be interested in your views about these subjects and please feel free to join the debate and post your comments at the bottom of this page or write to me mconboy@abpoa.com.au

The big SSON event is coming up next week in Melbourne and if you have not got your ticket you will be need to be very quick –
SSON

We are launching the new Australian BPO research report there so watch the mainstream Australian business media for coverage.

There is also some BPO M&A activity in the local market , see the story below by Malcolm Maiden and the further story about the NCO merging with APAC so plenty going on in the market as we now move into Q2 2012.

As always enjoy the read and thanks for all those who have sent encouraging feedback about the work we do- always appreciated and keep those stories coming in.