pinoynetwit
Jun 6, 2007, 08:47 PM
Got this article from my main "tambayan/home base":
http://timawa.net/forum/index.php?topic=8075.0
http://www.deccanherald.com/Content/Jun62007/avenues200706055783.asp
A wake-up call for BPOs
By Samir Kapoor
While the "plain vanilla graduate" has witnessed increasing disposable income, the Indian customer has started demanding better customer service and this is a huge paradigm shift - from customer service being an alien concept to taking it for granted!
The young BPO workforce, the Government and the Industry need to take stock! The last decade has seen India grow as a major player in the world BPO space. Today we boast of some of the world’s best run BPOs, operating out of different geographies and in different verticals. The entire country has seen this industry impact their lives in one way or the other.
While the “plain vanilla graduate” has witnessed increasing disposable income, the Indian customer has started demanding better customer service and this is a huge paradigm shift - from customer service being an alien concept to taking it for granted! I don’t want to take away anything from this industry, they have given employment to people who couldn’t dream of getting jobs.
On demand
The industry has created numerous success stories and has touched the life of many families, but today the talent crunch has reached a point where not only is talent short but has started demanding more. This is a case of “yeh dil mange more” and this could be the beginning of the end, remember that the basic principal a company works on is to add value to their customers and shareholders.
The rude reality that we should not shy away from is that work is coming to us not only because we are great at customer service (remember this was an alien concept to us), but because we are cheaper than most developed countries! Hypothetically let’s take a case where another developing country can deliver this at lesser price than us, what would the Indian companies do?
While no other country can match the scale thanks to our huge English speaking population but some of these countries can definitely eat into the pie. So most Indian companies true to their repute are thinking ahead of the curve and are already setting up shop in other countries. The major reasons, hedge risk, have a global footprint, create a diverse workforce, better and cheaper infrastructure, and lower attrition to name a few.
I had an opportunity of studying the Philippines BPO industry and I was really impressed with what I witnessed. Let me give a rundown on some of the facts about the BPO industry as it exists in the Philippines.n
The government is going all out to woo BPOs to set shop in Manila, they have something called the Philippine Economic Zone Authority, which earmarks special economic zones where companies get tax holidays and other peripheral benefits.
nIt is ranked second to India in NeoIT’s country survey of BPO attractiveness, and fourth in A.T. Kearney’s Global Services Location Index. These surveys consider cost structure, service maturity, availability and quality of the labour pool, infrastructure and risk to the business environment.
nMetro Manila also known as NCR (National Capital Region) has dominated as the most viable sourcing destination in Philippines for thefollowing reasons
a)Excellent public transport.
b)Readily available English speaking workforce.
c)People wanting to come and work at Makati, Ortigas, Fort as they are CBD’s (central business districts).
nNumber of voice based call centers in Metro Manila : More than 80
nHiring in NCR is easy if you pay competitive salaries.
nUnlike India where non-voice is a preferred process, Filipino like to talk to people and they actually prefer voice processes over non-voice.
nMost of the major international BPO’s have a strong presence in the Philippines and have aggressive ramp plans. One of the surprising things that I noticed was the fact that transport is not provided even for night shifts! Yes you are reading it right “No transport”. The public transport system is robust and safe. This is a huge cost saving. Typical BPO’s in India spend over Rs 4,000 per month towards an agents transport!
Looking at their infrastructure a layman would say they are at least a decade ahead of us if not more. The Filipino sees the call center career as a viable and a long term one whereas his Indian counter part takes it as a stop gap arrangement and hence the attrition.
The noticeable fact in Philippines is the dominant position of women, emerged as lot of men either have gone overseas to work or do not work. Most offices have a 70:30 composition in favour of women. English is a natural language to Filipinos with an inbuilt international touch.
I have heard of a few accent training centers here but most companies don’t have the type of accent training that we do at India, this is another cost saving. People are a bit laid back here and have to be pushed. At the same time, they are very sensitive and do not take harsh criticism easily; basically they have to be handled with higher sensitivity as compared to in India.
They treat the work place as an extension of their lives where they would make deep rooted friendships that last. So they need to have a good working environment, good relationships with colleagues and peers in the office to be productive. Filipino’s love to do overtime as this means more income. They expect the management to give them this opportunity once a fortnight.
Cultural influence
Another advantage they have is to do with the fact that there is a huge US cultural influence. Most families have one of their family members in the US or have somebody aspiring to go there. The cultural alignment makes them more effective in handling customers from the US and this has its impact on the CSAT (customer satisfaction) scores. I am not for once saying that we are not doing a great job, but there is a message for us; salaries beyond a point will hit us hard and infrastructure needs to gear up to get us to the next level.
Let’s look at the positives of our competitors and try and see what works for us, lets not be arrogant about what we have achieved, there is no such thing as perfect, we need to keep improving and thinking of new ways and creating new norms.
Philippines may never scale up to our level as they just don’t have the population, but sometimes it’s important to look at the rare view mirror so that complacency never creeps in.
The writer can be contacted at: samirkapoor@rediffmail.com
___________________________________
off-topic:
70:30 ratio in favor of women daw sabi ni Indian.....Minsan mas malala pa dyan ratio! Kung guwaping ka di mo na kailangan manligaw sa chicks....ikaw na liligawan! hikhihkhihkhik
1Kahig1Tuka - I saw job opening for CSR in your company - wrong fit ako since I am avoiding tech support for now. nick mo di bagay sa iyo...dapat "Naghaharing Uri" o kaya "Panginoong Maylupa".:D
http://timawa.net/forum/index.php?topic=8075.0
http://www.deccanherald.com/Content/Jun62007/avenues200706055783.asp
A wake-up call for BPOs
By Samir Kapoor
While the "plain vanilla graduate" has witnessed increasing disposable income, the Indian customer has started demanding better customer service and this is a huge paradigm shift - from customer service being an alien concept to taking it for granted!
The young BPO workforce, the Government and the Industry need to take stock! The last decade has seen India grow as a major player in the world BPO space. Today we boast of some of the world’s best run BPOs, operating out of different geographies and in different verticals. The entire country has seen this industry impact their lives in one way or the other.
While the “plain vanilla graduate” has witnessed increasing disposable income, the Indian customer has started demanding better customer service and this is a huge paradigm shift - from customer service being an alien concept to taking it for granted! I don’t want to take away anything from this industry, they have given employment to people who couldn’t dream of getting jobs.
On demand
The industry has created numerous success stories and has touched the life of many families, but today the talent crunch has reached a point where not only is talent short but has started demanding more. This is a case of “yeh dil mange more” and this could be the beginning of the end, remember that the basic principal a company works on is to add value to their customers and shareholders.
The rude reality that we should not shy away from is that work is coming to us not only because we are great at customer service (remember this was an alien concept to us), but because we are cheaper than most developed countries! Hypothetically let’s take a case where another developing country can deliver this at lesser price than us, what would the Indian companies do?
While no other country can match the scale thanks to our huge English speaking population but some of these countries can definitely eat into the pie. So most Indian companies true to their repute are thinking ahead of the curve and are already setting up shop in other countries. The major reasons, hedge risk, have a global footprint, create a diverse workforce, better and cheaper infrastructure, and lower attrition to name a few.
I had an opportunity of studying the Philippines BPO industry and I was really impressed with what I witnessed. Let me give a rundown on some of the facts about the BPO industry as it exists in the Philippines.n
The government is going all out to woo BPOs to set shop in Manila, they have something called the Philippine Economic Zone Authority, which earmarks special economic zones where companies get tax holidays and other peripheral benefits.
nIt is ranked second to India in NeoIT’s country survey of BPO attractiveness, and fourth in A.T. Kearney’s Global Services Location Index. These surveys consider cost structure, service maturity, availability and quality of the labour pool, infrastructure and risk to the business environment.
nMetro Manila also known as NCR (National Capital Region) has dominated as the most viable sourcing destination in Philippines for thefollowing reasons
a)Excellent public transport.
b)Readily available English speaking workforce.
c)People wanting to come and work at Makati, Ortigas, Fort as they are CBD’s (central business districts).
nNumber of voice based call centers in Metro Manila : More than 80
nHiring in NCR is easy if you pay competitive salaries.
nUnlike India where non-voice is a preferred process, Filipino like to talk to people and they actually prefer voice processes over non-voice.
nMost of the major international BPO’s have a strong presence in the Philippines and have aggressive ramp plans. One of the surprising things that I noticed was the fact that transport is not provided even for night shifts! Yes you are reading it right “No transport”. The public transport system is robust and safe. This is a huge cost saving. Typical BPO’s in India spend over Rs 4,000 per month towards an agents transport!
Looking at their infrastructure a layman would say they are at least a decade ahead of us if not more. The Filipino sees the call center career as a viable and a long term one whereas his Indian counter part takes it as a stop gap arrangement and hence the attrition.
The noticeable fact in Philippines is the dominant position of women, emerged as lot of men either have gone overseas to work or do not work. Most offices have a 70:30 composition in favour of women. English is a natural language to Filipinos with an inbuilt international touch.
I have heard of a few accent training centers here but most companies don’t have the type of accent training that we do at India, this is another cost saving. People are a bit laid back here and have to be pushed. At the same time, they are very sensitive and do not take harsh criticism easily; basically they have to be handled with higher sensitivity as compared to in India.
They treat the work place as an extension of their lives where they would make deep rooted friendships that last. So they need to have a good working environment, good relationships with colleagues and peers in the office to be productive. Filipino’s love to do overtime as this means more income. They expect the management to give them this opportunity once a fortnight.
Cultural influence
Another advantage they have is to do with the fact that there is a huge US cultural influence. Most families have one of their family members in the US or have somebody aspiring to go there. The cultural alignment makes them more effective in handling customers from the US and this has its impact on the CSAT (customer satisfaction) scores. I am not for once saying that we are not doing a great job, but there is a message for us; salaries beyond a point will hit us hard and infrastructure needs to gear up to get us to the next level.
Let’s look at the positives of our competitors and try and see what works for us, lets not be arrogant about what we have achieved, there is no such thing as perfect, we need to keep improving and thinking of new ways and creating new norms.
Philippines may never scale up to our level as they just don’t have the population, but sometimes it’s important to look at the rare view mirror so that complacency never creeps in.
The writer can be contacted at: samirkapoor@rediffmail.com
___________________________________
off-topic:
70:30 ratio in favor of women daw sabi ni Indian.....Minsan mas malala pa dyan ratio! Kung guwaping ka di mo na kailangan manligaw sa chicks....ikaw na liligawan! hikhihkhihkhik
1Kahig1Tuka - I saw job opening for CSR in your company - wrong fit ako since I am avoiding tech support for now. nick mo di bagay sa iyo...dapat "Naghaharing Uri" o kaya "Panginoong Maylupa".:D