By Martin Conboy

I have just come back from a speaking tour of the Philippines. Every time I go there I am always amazed at how quickly their BPO sector has grown. The rise of BPO in the Philippines has been nothing short of amazing. The very first calls were taken in 1997, and by the year 2000 they had about 25,000 people earning a living from BPO. That’s when I first heard about their BPO sector. We were doing call centre research and we had to double check the statistics to confirm the sudden surge in the size of their call centres. Today, the Philippines’ BPO sector employs about 640,000 people and enjoys revenues of $11 billion, about 5% of the country’s GDP. Add to this the multiplier effect and there is a greater community getting a taste of the riches that BPO is bringing to the country.

17,000 and growing of those people service Australia.

The Philippines (population 101m) is unlikely ever to surpass India (1.2 billion) across the entire range of outsourcing offerings, which also include all kinds of information-technology services. However, never say never. The Philippines built its sector on front office voice work and they are starting to understand that the future is visual.

One of the talks that I gave was at the PSIA (Philippine Software Industry Association) and they are totally wired into the future of the BPO sector. As the sector shifts gears, they are delighted that they are about to have their day in the sun. The PSIA is getting behind a brilliant new concept called Project KLIK – Basically a reality TV/ Video concept that showcases Filipino culture. It’s going to be very big and a lot of major international brands have lent their weight to it. If you are a Filipino anywhere in the world and you are reading this and you want to know more, then drop a line to executivedirector@psia.org.ph This is exactly where the BPO industry is headed and the Philippines is going to lead the way with this very clever and innovative way to showcase their visual talents.

I also spoke at an ICT – BPO event in Cebu which was attended by over 400 people, so they are starting to come along nicely as the next major BPO destination with Clark/Subic. They might be small in comparison to Manila but they lack none of the enthusiasm and are pulling the business community along with them. So for companies looking for alternatives to Manila you might like to consider Cebu and Clark/Subic. Once again if you need to know who to talk to, let us know and we will connect you to the right people.

The main reason for the success of the Philippine call centres is that workers speak English with a relatively neutral (US) accent and are familiar with American idioms—which is exactly what their American customers want. Of these, many have taken to complaining bitterly about Indian accents (which no amount of “voice neutralisation” coaching seems to have overcome).

The challenge for the Philippines’ BPO industry is that it is overly committed to the USA and then over-represented in voice. As I like to call it, flying around on one wing. Having empty facilities during the day that are crying out to be utilized is a big issue for the operators in the Philippines.

It became apparent to me during my visit that the missing link to be successful in handling voice related work for Australia at least is ‘Culture Training’, which goes beyond simple voice and accent assimilation. FooBoo is in the process of developing a program that addresses this gap. If you want to know more or have some ideas about what should be involved in such a program, then drop me a line. (mconboy@FooBooOnLine.com)

What helps is that the country has a large pool of well-educated workforce. The government has really got behind the sector by offering an incentive for companies to train the near hires. (People who would have been hired if their English skills were just a bit better)

The other interesting thing that I noticed was the reverse brain drain. There are lots of Filipinos repatriating home and really adding to the intellectual horsepower of the community.

The big question is whether the Philippine BPO industry, having conquered the contact centre market, can now move up the value chain. To keep growing rapidly—and profitably—it needs to capture some of the more sophisticated higher value back-office jobs. Somehow I have a feeling that like good wine they will just get better with age.

Martin Conboy BPO speaking tour of the Philippines

27^th June  - Cebu ICT-BPO – www.cebuictandbpo.com

28^th June  - BPA/P      – 2:00 pm 107 Perea St. Legaspi Village Makati City

28^th June  - PSIA         - 5:30 pm Dusit Hotel Makati

29^th June  – Clark ICT – 9 am Benjamin Function Room, Hotel Stotsenberg,

Clark Freeport Zone, Pampanga

Group: National Outsourcing Association

Subject: Please assist the NOA by taking a quick 3 minute survey on UK-shoring
As part of on-going research for this year’s NOA flagship campaign, Outsourcing Works, we are asking all those involved with outsourcing to give their opinion on whether they think the UK can become the global strategic hub for outsourcing.

• Please participate in the National Outsourcing Association and sourcingfocus.com’s UK-shoring survey: Onshore or Offshore?

  The Outsourcing Debate.

Complete the 3 minute survey on this SurveyMonkey link: 

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/DML7FT5

• Unisys announced the availability of its Mobility Solutions Suite of services.
  These services are designed to help organisations manage, secure and support mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets – as well as their applications – and lead to improved employee productivity and customer service.

• Resources sector pulling back on hiring in the face of shortages:

Employers in the resources sector are frustrated over relentless skills shortages and are slowing down their hiring activity as a result, says Manpower Group

• NBN Co is currently recruiting up to 90 new permanent employees a month

• Aegis Australia – which already manages the customer experience for a significant number of Australian companies – has launched a new social media solution that involves not only monitoring and analysis but also engaging consumers online, on behalf of an organisation.

• 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

• New Generation of UTM Firewalls Deliver Proven Enterprise-Grade Security to Small and Distributed Organisations. Dell SonicWALL TZ Series Provides Market-leading Security Combined with High Performance, Ease of Deployment and Broad Mobile Platform Support.

  The TZ 105 and TZ 205 provide an array of security features that deliver enterprise-grade network protection powered by Dell SonicWALL’s patented Reassembly-Free Deep Packet Inspection®. The only firewall in its class to truly enable mobile workforce with native SSL VPN remote access client for Apple iOS®, Google® Android™, Windows, Mac OS and Linux devices Delivers wire-speed Deep Packet Inspection performance and protection for today’s broadband connections.

By Robin Stanley

The Faculties of Information technology and Business and Economics held a well-attended breakfast seminar at the Park Hyatt in Melbourne last week, focusing on outsourcing. With over 60 delegates drawn from a wide range of industry sectors and the various outsourcing professional associations, the audience were given an update on Monash research on current outsourcing trends and practice together with some perspectives on supplier/customer relationship management from a leading consultant in the field.

Professor Rudy Hirschheim, a Monash visiting academic from Louisiana State University who provided a historical perspective on the growth of outsourcing. The first wave beginning in the early 70s with large US multinationals outsourcing their IT needs. The second wave involved offshoring to India, the Philippines, etc. More recently, the past decade has seen the emergence of microsourcing or crowdsourcing with an exponential growth in microsourcing vendors address everything from micro tasks through to complex projects.

Professor Hirschheim said that the microsourcing market will exceed US$20 billion by 2015 and will be driven by a future involving “non-ownership of assets” involving triadic relationship (A group of Three) structures between clients (buyers), labour pool (suppliers) and platforms (websites). Already we are seeing the future with the emergence of the networked enterprise supported by social media for communicating externally and crowdsourcing for collaborating externally.

Mr Andy Zaple, a Director of the Sydney-based Pitt Crew consultancy, provided some of his insights from many years of practical experience assisting both users and providers of outsourced services. His main theme was based on the metrics for managing a successful relationship that should be based on outputs rather than inputs. All too often, client-vendor relationships deteriorate because the focus tends to be on things that go wrong rather than devoting effort towards improving service levels and developing strategy. Managing service levels through appropriate rewards and rebates is critical in achieving success. Here, Mr Zaple advised against monitoring too many targets and to beware of averaging performance outputs as this can dilute the focus on the critical measures of process improvement.

Finally, Dr George Rivers, from Monash’s Faculty of Business & Economics, provided an interesting analysis of the economics of outsourcing based on the real transaction costs associated with the outsourcing of different services. Dr Rivers was able to show that the various drivers of transaction costs were themselves a function of some key parameters including: organisational structure, value/volume/frequency of transactions and other, less obvious measures such as R&D intensity. A move towards more outsourcing can only be justified where the transaction costs of labour are greater than the true transaction costs of intermediate goods or services.

The seminar host, Dr Robin Stanley, Senior Business Development Manager with the Faculty of Information Technology, closed the session with some questions from the audience and a challenge for organisations to take advantage of the generous State and Commonwealth support for research by working with institutions like Monash University. Flexible relationships ranging from short-term honours projects and consulting exercises through to more complex longer-term projects allow industry partners to gain competitive advantage from the thought leadership provided in the emerging practices and supporting technologies associated with business processes such as outsourcing.

Brisbane Sundowner: Thursday 17 November 2011

The Great Social Media Debate! Hear from six Industry Experts…
Thinking about Social Media…does is assist Companies or just act as a distraction?

Information and Bookings: https://ccma.worldsecuresystems.com/BookingRetrieve.aspx?ID=156315

Melbourne Luncheon: Friday 2 December 2011

Neil Rainey, Leadership, Talent and Development Guru ‘ How to Work your brain Brilliantly!’

Neil examines recent scientific information on the brain and how it works, looking at how the work we do can either be done well or implode into a world of stress and pain…

Information and Bookings: https://ccma.worldsecuresystems.com/BookingRetrieve.aspx?ID=137759

A quiet but dramatic resurgence in manufacturing has been underway in Philippines for some time. As the stampede to China falls away, global decision makers are looking again at Philippines and are finding a vastly improved business and lifestyle environment. With a government that is perceived as both politically stable and fiscally responsible, and a workforce that is as dynamic as it is loyal, a meaningful revival seems in store.

One of a number of senior managers leading the charge is Chandra Anamirtham, President of Hitachi Global Storage Systems Philippines. Under his energetic guidance, the global company has designated Philippines as the key worldwide manufacturing hub for various high-value processes. The result being a near doubling of employment and hugely increased career mobility opportunities for Filipinos.

Join us to hear the winner of the Expatriate Executive of the Year award at last year’s Asia CEO Awards, Chandra Anamirtham PhD, President of Hitachi Global Storage Systems Philippines, speak about how he created a globally recognized powerhouse organization in Philippines. This month’s Asia CEO Forum is being held on Wednesday, August 24th beginning at 7:45am at the DUSIT THANI HOTEL.

Specifics about Chandra Anamirtham PhD, President of Hitachi Global Storage Systems Philippines, can be viewed at this address: http://www.asia-ceo.org/events/Hitachi-Chandra_Anamirtham.htm

Please confirm your attendance in advance through our online reservation system at http://www.asia-ceo.org/register.htm. Breakfast is included and the nominal cost of admission is Php1,000.

Asia CEO Forum, presented by PLDT ALPHA Enterprise, is the largest regular business event in Philippines. For information on how to participate, go to http://www.asia-ceo.org/.

Next CCMA event on Brisbane: Social Media and the Contact Centre. Guest Speaker – Michael Ossipoff.

If you missed him in Melbourne, catch him in Brisbane!

Wed 14 September 2011

Telstra Presentation Centre
L4, 275 George St, Brisbane CBD

7.30 to 9.15, including breakfast

See link below for booking details.
https://ccma.worldsecuresystems.com/BookingRetrieve.aspx?ID=145565

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.

ABPOA members and guests are invited to attend, meet and network with our friends from the Philippines.

The Philippine IT Services industry has experienced phenomenal growth, and has developed a reputation for excellence in Customer Service, Back-Office Solutions, Medical & Legal Transcription, Software and Applications Development, Animation, Engineering Services and other technology support solutions.   It is backed by strong government support, business-friendly policies, and reliable supply of managerial talent and knowledge workers, a strong telecommunications infrastructure and competitive cost structure.

Where:
Level 15, NSW Business Chamber, 140 Arthur Street, North Sydney
When:
Monday 30th May from 6:00 pm to 8:00 pm

To secure your place at this event, please send your RSVP to Peter Springett at pspringett@foobooonline.com, by Monday 23rd May 2011. Please note that places are limited and will be allocated on a ‘first come first served’ basis.

To help defray costs we ask for a small contribution of $25 per person

ABPOA members Datacom and Avnet are sponsoring the event

Datacom’s Maximising Service & Program Delivery for Government Event

Datacom Connect will be holding a lunch and learn event for government agencies and departments for those officials who are designers, implementers of service and program delivery. The impressive lineup of speakers over this succinct event includes:

Chris Butler, Head of Division, AusIndustry (DIISR),
Sarah Staveley, ANZ Customer Service Manager, APGC Microsoft
Mark McWilliams, Head of Strategy Datacom & ABPOA Board Member
Keynote by Jonathan Ladd, Group CEO, Datacom

The event will provide insights on how citizen and people centric designed programs can markedly improve service and program delivery. By taking an look at the real and present issues facing government and its programs and services; the event will discuss how the new age normality of service excellence expectations and doing more with less with the average engaged Australian worker and on the trending channel preference of customers and people can help improve outcomes

Seats are limited. Register now to attend this event: http://bitly.com/fk2ewx

Location: The Boat House by the Lake, Grevillea Park, Menindee drive, Barton ACT 2600
Date: 25th May 2011
Time: 11:45am to 1:30pm
Contact us: (02) 9023 5000

International Strategy for Cyberspace
The White House yesterday released their United States International Strategy for Cyberspace, which sets out their vision for the future development of the internet.

This is a far reaching discussion document that brings together the contemporary issues that the industry is facing globally.

The stated goal is:

“The United States will work internationally to promote an open, interoperable, secure, and reliable information and communications infrastructure that supports international trade and commerce, strengthens international security, and fosters free expression and innovation. To achieve that goal, we will build and sustain an environment in which norms of responsible behavior guide states’ actions, sustain partnerships, and support the rule of law in cyberspace.”

With the forthcoming NetHui at the end of June this document will no doubt be a key discussion point, I encourage you to study it.

China’s Shared Services and Outsourcing Industry – May 26th Beijing China

Contact:
Contact Name: Ben Hasson
CEBEX Group-China Entrepreneurs
phone number: +86 10 8530 6215 /250
fax number: +010 8561 1933
Email Address: ben.hasson@cebexgroup.com
www.chinaoutsourcingconference.com
Beijing, China, 26.5.2011

Over the past several years, China’s shared services and outsourcing Industry has achieved Impressive growth, emerging as a “go to” outsourcing destination due to advantages China has In terms of labor costs, a profitable Inflation scale, management capabilities, and social stability.

China Entrepreneurs’ Shared Services & Outsourcing Summit will give a unique look at the progress of this promising industry and its synergy with china’s business ecosystem. It will not be a purely theoretical conference, but an in depth shared experiences featured by a number of seasoned international and local providers of shared and outsourcing services, corporate decision makers and industry experts.

This conference will present a platform for overseas and Chinese buyers, providers, and advisers to meet and discuss current global opportunities and challenges by shining a light on the latest industry trends, decision-making strategies, technological advances and governmental reforms related to outsourcing. This conference will instruct businesses on how to make the best use China’s shared services and outsourcing resources.
What do we do?

China Entrepreneurs, a branch of CEBEX Group, develops custom tailored conferences and forums, mainly held in China, focused on initiating conversation within the Chinese business, finance and legal communities. China Entrepreneurs was established in 2003 and has grown significantly in the past two years. For more Information go to www.ce-online.cn or visit our conference website at: http://www.chinaoutsourcingconference.com

By Martin Conboy President Australian BPO Association

Last week I attended the Frost & Sullivan Customer Contact Australia 2011 seminar in Sydney.

We heard a great presentation from Rolf Hanson, the CEO of new Telco amaysim, Australia’s latest Mobile Network Virtual Operator (MNVO) about customer centricity and how after only operating for a few months in Australia they have already grabbed significant market share form the big Telco. Hansen spoke about the type of customer service they offer via their local call centre, albeit more expensive than the options off shore. He explained how his company had created a positive customer focussed culture and a flat rate of 15 cents per minute for mobiles, that he believed was the difference between his offer and the major telcos. Their marketing tag line is interesting “Purity in a dirty market’.

Joe Bellini, Executive VP and Chief Sales Officer and Jonathan Gray, Executive Director, Marketing of TeleTech who flew in from Denver HQ also spoke at the event.

Bellini advocated the utilisation of social media and new technologies to deliver a consistent customer experience in a multi-channel world. “A holistic and integrated strategic approach is essential to the effective leveraging of new and emerging channels such as social media”.

Brad Norman CEO of Philippines based ‘Taking You Forward Inc. “ gave an excellent presentation on benefits and opportunities around outsourcing to the Philippines.

I sat on a panel that addressed driving profitable growth in times of heightened competition and customer expectations. There were a number of points raised about best practices for gaining and retaining customers. Even though the discussion centred on integrating social media and tools like video for face-to-face customer contact, and mobile marketing, I believe that the main consumer sticking point was missed. That is how contact centres need to increase customer loyalty and spending. I raised the point that while many call centres are struggling to come to grips with Social media they have still not fixed the most hated of all call centre tools, the badly engineered IVR .It’s all very well thinking about the future but for goodness sake fix up the existing tools first. Badly engineered IVR systems drive consumers away from businesses.

As consumer confidence in the economy returns and global markets regain strength, companies in all industries are jostling for position in the ultra competitive new economic climate and consumers will simply not wait in the madness of looped IVR messages telling them how important their call is. In a recent article about ‘Innovation, the new currency of success’ for Virgin Blue, Senator Kim Carr, Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research, the Australian economy is at a tipping point, with profound consequences for business, the economy and the Australian way of life, and innovation is its only saviour. “As a country we are facing serious competition on a global scale,” he said.

Carr believes innovation is key for Australian businesses to remain competitive in the tough domestic and international markets that have become constricted since the GFC. Those who do not invest in innovation, he says, are locked in to a race to the bottom.

Many companies who believe that some markets will come back are only fooling themselves. They are cutting costs and dropping prices in a downward spiral that will guarantee their eventual demise. “ We must insure we’re involved in a race to the top in terms of providing economic opportunities for all people, not a race to the bottom by cutting wages, lowering standards or reducing quality,’ Senator Carr says.

During the call centre conference I found the sentiment towards outsourcing and Off Shoring to be lukewarm at best and leaning towards the negative at worst. Its surprising how little major corporations know about the positive impact that outsourcing can have on their business. I nearly swallowed my tongue when I heard one senior executive from one of Australia’s leading financial organisations say that outsourcing was a price cutting option to throw low level customer interaction work over the fence and that she made her problems the outsourcing companies problems and that they had better make sure that they just got on with it, as the company basically washed their hands of the challenge. Amazingly there was no consideration of the customer experience in this approach.

These days outsourcing as a service tool is very much part of the business landscape and is an innovation used by companies that allows them to play to their strengths and use outsourcing to drive business outcomes. Consumer needs change constantly and companies must find ways to serve them in ways that are favourable to consumers. Today companies are no more than a click away from being sacked by customers who cannot get first call resolution in a way that suits them.

There is no questioning that many consumers at very comfortable with technology and using the web for everything from booking travel to buying a product on line via eBay, so I raised the concept of ‘Self Service’ and once again was left with the view that the Australian call centre industry lacks clarity about their role and what their value add is with respect to customer centricity.

This week as I write I am at the 14th annual Australian Shared Services & Outsourcing Conference. Shared Services is a bit further along the value chain and what a difference a week makes. There are 470 senior professionals and the atmosphere is electric with the opportunities in Outsourcing and off shoring. Major Australian companies, like Macquarie Bank, ANZ bank, BlueScope Steel, BP, Rio Tinto, Deloitte, Telstra, Qantas, TABCORP, Aegis and Shell Oil talk about how they use various offshore locations around the world to augment their business processes. Interestingly the same lack of understanding of how to organise and utilise the channels of social media and commercial application around mobility marketing is prevalent at this conference as well. Another point of interest is that I notice that there are a lot more women in senior positions in this part of the BPO value chain and that can only be a good thing.

On another front we have so many brilliant people in the industry its hard to understand why we are not more actively selling that expertise into the growth markets in Asia.

Next week I will share the stories of the people that I met at the SSON Conference.

It is a geological fact that Philippines sits within one of the world’s most active earthquake zones. The 12-million person megalopolis of Manila has a massive fault-line running directly through it where damage will be most severe when the next one strikes.
 
At this month’s Asia CEO Forum, Felino (Jun) Palafox, the country’s most prominent architect and urban planner, will present his views on what people need to know to protect their businesses. He will address issues around where not to locate a business (away from fault-lines and other high risk areas) and what to look for in earthquake-resistant building construction.   
 
Mr. Palafox will also provide an executive update on the future of Metro Manila. As perhaps the world’s fastest growing megalopolis, there are major trends in place that will determine which neighborhoods will be pleasant to live in and which commercial areas will be good for your business.  According to Jun, everything to do with business and personal real estate issues has already been decided by established mega-trends.
 
Palafox Associates is ranked by World Architecture Magazine as the top architecture firm in Southeast Asia, and it also ranks among the top 100 in the world.  Mr. Palafox and his firm have been engaged in high-profile projects in 33 countries over the past 20 years.  He was recently elected President of the Management Association of the Philippines (MAP), the country’s foremost leadership association representing the country’s most senior management practitioners.
 
You can hear Felino (Jun) Palafox talk about earthquake risk in The Philippines. The event is being held on Wednesday, April 27th beginning at 7:45am at the Tower Club of Manila, (33rd floor, PhilamLife Tower, 8767 Paseo de Roxas at the corner of Ayala Avenue, Makati City, Manila). 
    
The event brochure is pasted below. Specifics about Jun Palafox, Principal Architect of Palafox Associates and President of Management Association of the Philippines, can also be viewed at http://www.asia-ceo.org/events/Palafox_Jun_Architect.htm
 
Please confirm your attendance in advance through the on-line reservation system at http://www.asia-ceo.org/register.htm. Breakfast is included and the nominal cost of admission is Php800. 

By Michael Alan Hamlin

In recent weeks, the Business Processing Association of the Philippines (BPAP) has made two important announcements that show the industry continues to impress investors. Last week, the association – which serves as the umbrella association for a range of outsourcing and shared services sectors in the Philippines – confirmed that the industry as a whole grew 26% in 2010 to $8.9 billion in revenue.

Employment grew 25% to 525,000 skilled workers and professionals, an increase of 100,000 jobs. Value-added, non-voice jobs grew fastest at 30%, according to BPAP chairman Alfredo Ayala. “We now employ more than 100,000 professionals in this sub-sector,” he said, “with many of these BPO employees coming from finance and accounting, legal, and medical sciences backgrounds.”

All major IT-BPO sectors reported impressive growth. “We achieved robust growth in all major sectors of the industry: voice-based BPO, non-voice business support and complex services, and information technology,” Mr. Ayala said. “Our contact-center sector grew over 20%, overtaking India and establishing itself as the largest in the world on the back of the Philippines being recognized as the most-preferred destination in the world for these services.”

According to BPAP, smaller outsourcing sectors such as IT, transcription, animation, and game development also grew as recovery from the 2009 global financial crisis took hold.

According to BPAP senior executive director Gillian Joyce Virata, only engineering services failed to post positive growth because the industries it serves – construction and automotive – have yet to fully recover. Nevertheless, these sectors have increased the value and complexity of their services delivered from the Philippines. Mirroring growth in value-added, non-voice jobs overall, software sector jobs grew at a healthy 28% in 2010 according to Nora Terrado, president of the Philippine Software Industry Association. “We earned US$725 million in export revenues last year as our clients renewed their IT spending in anticipation of expansion after a year of hesitation,” she said. Terrado said there are about 45,000 IT professionals employed in the country’s IT outsourcing sector, up 27% from 2009.

The fact that established sectors continue to post robust growth is significant.

“The Philippines now leads the world in voice-based customer service,” said Benedict Hernandez, president of the Contact Center Association of the Philippines. “We have solidified our global leading position with our agents providing the best customer service in the world.” The contact center sector grew 21% to US$6.1 billion last year. Employment jumped 23% to 344,000.

An IT-BPO and shared services industry road map was developed last year under BPAP’s direction by the Everest Group and Outsource2Philippines, with funding provided by the Commission on Information & Communications Technology. It forecasts at a minimum sustained growth of 15% annually for the industry.

“But with greater collaboration from all stakeholders, including government and the academe, we have the potential to grow at 25% a year. This would create 1.3 million direct jobs and $25 billion in export revenues,” Mr. Ayala said.

(Disclosure: I am president of Outsource2Philippines and BPAP is a client of TeamAsia, where I am managing director.)

An earlier announcement provided a backdrop for the industry’s 2010 results and demonstrated another emerging industry role for the Philippines: thought leadership. Ms. Virata announced that the third annual International Outsourcing Summit will take place in the Philippines October 11-12. “This year’s Summit will feature presentations and panel discussions with more than 60 top executives and analysts from leading organizations,” Raymond Lacdao, BPAP executive director for industry affairs said.

“The theme of the Summit – Global Market Leaders Addressing Global Issues – will focus on innovation and value creation. The industry is moving up the value chain rapidly, and clients expect services providers to be their partners in enhancing value for their customers,” Mr. Lacdao explained. “We will hear first-hand from industry clients what they expect. And top executives from industry will describe how they are responding.

Approximately 400 executives in the IT-BPO and shared services industry from 20 countries are expected to attend the three-day Summit and related events, which include an exhibit, gala dinners, and business matching, according to Mr. Lacdao. A website, www.internationaloutsourcingsummit.com, provides a detailed agenda, including invited and confirmed speakers.

“This year’s Summit will also review the IT-BPO Road Map 2011-2016 and the implications of recent developments on the Philippines’ position as the new leader in voice – and how it affects the even faster-growing non-voice segment for all locators,” Ms. Virata said. “With more than 20 verticals and 525,000 knowledge workers, the Philippines is the place to meet top influential executives from the industry and the industries is serves,” Mr. Lacdao said.

Source: MB.com.ph

By Martin Conboy, President – Australian BPO Association

Last week, Reid Hoffman, chairman and founder of leading social media connection site LinkedIn wrote to me personally to thank me because I was one of LinkedIn’s first million members (member number 915334 in fact!). The other reason for the correspondence was that they were celebrating the 100 millionth member joining the site.

They’re now growing at roughly one million new LinkedIn members every week, the equivalent of a professional joining the site at faster than one member per second.

When Hoffman founded LinkedIn, his vision was to help the world’s professionals be more successful and productive. Today, LinkedIn is changing the lives of millions of members by helping them connect with others, find jobs, get insights, start a business, and much more.  

LinkedIn is also rapidly growing their network globally —their site is currently used in over 200 countries and territories around the world, with more than half of the users coming from outside of the U.S. You can now connect just as readily with someone in Sao Paulo or Sydney as you can with your colleagues in San Francisco, London or New York. You no longer have to live in the same city — or even the same country — to build and strengthen relationships that can help you succeed and grow professionally and fundamentally transform the trajectory of your career path.

Last Friday the ABPOA, in conjunction with Taurus Marketing, ran a breakfast seminar about demystifying social media. Social media has been around for a while; Twitter is now 5 years old and Facebook is over 500 million members. However, it is only now starting to become mainstream in Australia. During the seminar, we heard from Iggy Pintado described as a “super-connected” networker on LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter, he has earned his place in the Top 25 list of the most connected business networkers in Australia. (17,000 linkedin connections, yours truly has managed to just get to 500) His book, Connection Generation, is a fascinating study of how connectedness affects our place in society and business and the challenges and opportunities this compelling development presents. Sharon Williams from Taurus also shared some great insights and tips around Social Network Listening.

There is no question that social media is pervasive and ubiquitous and is reaching into everyone’s lives as it connects ideas and experiences around the globe. At the same time, we are seeing the declining use of traditional voice channels into call centres and a push towards web-based self-service.

A recent report by Service Excellence Research Group (www.servicexrg.com) claimed that although almost half of all customer interactions are taking place online, only 23% of the time does self-service resolve a customer’s issue to the point that it deflects a case from an assisted support channel.

The report observes that self-service is integral to shaping the overall perception customers have about their providers’ services. In order to promote adoption and assure that self-service offerings enhance relationships with customers, vendors must mitigate risks associated with failed self-service experiences. Customers now have a wealth of web-based information about the products they use, and if they find their providers’ self-service content wanting, they’ll go elsewhere for help, or worse, lose patience and abandon them altogether.

The conclusion of the report is that, support organisations that intend to leverage self-service as a key channel must provide seamless integration between self-service and assisted service options. Seamless support allows customers to initiate an assisted support request as soon as they exhausted reasonable self-service options. The seamless technology model leverages technologies such as chat, click to call, web-based case submission, and remote support tools.

So the good news for the BPO sector is that although there is a paradigm shift to non-voice online channels for customer service and support, there will always be a need to provide a human voice on the other end of the line. Let’s not forget the single most important statistic in call centres and outsourcing is – first call resolution. Most companies do not want to take on the extra headcount and will turn to the BPO sector for support. One of the challenges will be that companies may not want to pay for support agents or a FTE basis and will look for a model that charges by the minute or by the call on a pay as you go basis.

The Association is planning another event in May around social media and how BPO can offer solutions to support the channel.