Support ANTI-SOPA Protest!

President Aquino III Inaugurates ExlService Holdings BPO Center

Philippines president Benigno S. Aquino III in conversation with Asia Society's Vishakha Desai, 2011.

President Benigno S. Aquino III led the inauguration Wednesday of the additional center of the outsourcing provider ExlService Holdings Inc. at the SM Mall of Asia in Pasay City.

In his speech during the inauguration, the President thanked the ExlService leadership for expanding its operations in the Philippines noting that its bigger operation is a good start for the country as it enters a new year.

ExlService expansion in the Philippines is a manifestation of the renewed investors’ confidence for the Philippines under the new government, the President said.

Read more at Zambo Times

Photo by asiasociety at Flickr.com

_

Kunnect WebAgent Sets Gold Standard for Remote At-Home Agents

Simplifying cloud computing for call centers and at-home agents

Kunnect, a long-time provider of one of best and inexpensive cloud-based telephony and hosted call center solution in the world, recently unveiled its WebAgent 1.0 web application that can be used with its Kunnect XVP Hosted Call Center solution. This new app allows better and seamless performance by remote, at-home agents or reps and can easily integrate to a CRM software.

Kunnect’s XVP Hosted Call Center solution is one of the most flexible system a contact center can use because it can be activated within the hour and clients can scale up and down anytime to meet those unforecasted load demands. In addition, contact centers need not worry about downtime, IT and telecom maintenance, verion upgrade issues and a lot of operational management and expenses usually connected to a premise-based solution or even a high-priced hosted version. With this, a Kunnect client can simply focus on customer contact services with the ease of use of Kunnect’s user interfaces.

The Wall Street Journal reports:

“Kunnect’s WebAgent sets the gold standard for remote, at-home agent call center solutions with its ease of deployment and overall effectiveness,” said Patrick Gibson, president of Dealer Dialer. “It will help grow our business of providing a superior product to some of the largest automotive websites in the world, including Cars.com and Autobytel.”

The new WebAgent 1.0 of Kunnect contains a lot of agent functionality on the screen plus a built-in SIP phone. It supports uLaw/aLaw, Speex, g711 and other VOIP codecs, including compression-based g729 (though a one-time license of $10 is needed for the latter.)

Kunnect’s cloud-based contact center solution, including the new WebAgent, will allow companies to offer a high-quality user interaction from a home-based worker for less than they’d pay to support an employee at a brick and mortar facility.

Source: WSJ Market Watch

Image created by Raffy Pekson II

_

It’s More Fun to Invest in the Philippines

Investing in a call center in the Philippines can be fun, too!

Investing in the Philippines by setting up and operating your own small or mid-sized call center has become easier than before. Being the top country in the world for outsourced call center services means having access to a wide range of operational needs, from skilled people to technology requirements and office space.

Kunnect is a cloud-based, hosted call center technology company that has been in the forefront of the customer contact world since 2005, with its executive team having decades of experience in call centers, telecommunications and information technology. In the Philippines, it works closely with the small and mid-size call center market as well as keeping in line with the large enterprises and industry organizations. This only means Kunnect has the expertise and experience to make things work, even for its smallest client.

Here are blogs and articles that may help you in your decision process to invest in the Philippines:

Q&A with Myself: Setting Up and Operating a Small Business Call Center

How To Operate Your Business or Call Center On A Shoestring Budget

How to Employ At-Home Agents for Your Business

Work-at-home QA Analysts Using Kunnect

Call Center Outsourcing 2.0

KUNNECT Launches Best-in-class Hosted Call Center Solution in the Philippines

Do You Have the Solution to Your Call Center Problem?

Overseas Filipinos Come Home for BPO Jobs

The Real Math of Subscribing to a Hosted Call Center Solution

A Subscription-based Hosted VoIP Service for Calling Within the Philippines

Cloud Computing and Customer Contact

An Existing Typhoon in Asian Business Called KUNNECT is Here!

Talk Is Cheap!

Stop Message-blasting and Start Talking to Your Market – Now!

The Best Solution for People and Communications

Click for Contact Information

_

Avaya is in Danger of Imploding

The Trojan nuclear power plant cooling tower goes down in a cloud of dust off of I-5 around Kalama, Washington. Is Avaya following suite?

It’s not my news announcement – it’s a growing buzzword in the contact center world today.

Brian J. Bitsky, a Contact Center / CRM Sales Professional from Denver, recently posted a discussion feed entitled “Report Claims Avaya on Path to Implosion.” Curiousity suddenly ensued because I always wondered why the behemoth hardware company is still standing despite all the competition in the pure cloud-based playing field – like the cloud-based hosted call center solutions company I represent. I went directly to the source of Brian’s blog and read a lenthy evaluation of Avaya by Jeff Hawkes, Consultant at SonicMG. Here’s the conclusion of his report:

While Avaya continues to dominate the market for on-premise PBX systems and other telecommunications equipment, it faces a long, steep road ahead to regain its business health and profitability. Of course Avaya is not alone. The entire telecommunications industry is under siege from over leveraged balance sheets and a downturn in demand for the core hardware they sell as evidenced by recent company announcements and news headlines like the one from the Wall Street Journal published on Friday November 11, 2011 describing the mounting pressure faced by the Chief Executive of Alcatel-Lucent to right the struggling telecommunications company after lowering its profit forecast for 2011.

In thinking about Avaya, I’m reminded of an old Wall Street saying: “cut your loses short and let your profits run.”  With little in the way of profits besides “management oversight” and consulting fees, Avaya’s investors have been extremely patient.  However, as the LBO (Leveraged Buyout) of Avaya nears its fifth anniversary, and the prospects of a large payday for TPG Capital and Silver Lake dwindle, expect the veneer of patience to start to wear thin.   Avaya’s business partners would be well served to wise up and stop placating the hype.  Dealers need to take an objective look at Avaya’s business results and begin formulating plans for their own business based on a number of possible outcomes.   Ultimately, Avaya’s fate is in its own hands and the hands of its Business Partners.  Everyone should understand the stakes are high and the margin of error is razor thin.  Any deviation from here onward will only prove disastrous for all.

Going back to my cloud-based hosted call center solutions company (hint: it starts with a “K” on the left column – LOL!), its thrust is not the bang heads against a busines like Avaya; rather, it’s always focused on a cloud-based expertise for the voice-based market of customer contact solutions. It’s funny but somewhere in the midst of our Canada office hangs a not-so-noticable sign: “F**K_HARDWARE!” That’s precisely what the world is shouting today. Consumers have taken an “Occupy Wallstreet” stance to crappy client-server hardware and software that bleeds you to death with high cost of implementation, endless version upgrades and periodic maintenance. Many have already taken strides to go cloud computing. Is Avaya even seriously considering it?

Anyway, you still have to read the entirety of Jeff’s report (“Telecom Insights“) to understand and appreciate the future of hardware-based or premise-based computing and telephony solutions for businesses, worldwide.

Enjoy the good read!

Source: Telecom Insights | Brian J. Bitsky

Photo by delolds at Flickr.com

_

Megaworld is Top BPO Office Developer in Philippines

Typical BPO Office.

Megaworld, founded and incorporated in 1989, is engaged in the development of large-scale mixed-use planned communities or townships that integrate residential, commercial, educational, leisure and entertainment components in Metro Manila. It is currently developing over 40 residential and business process outsourcing (BPO) office spaces in Metro Manila, where the company launched eight new projects this year.

The Andrew L. Tan-led firm claimed the lead in the number of units set for completion five years from now, citing a report by property consultancy Colliers International Philippines. It was poised to construct the most number of residential condominium units in the country from 2011 to 2016.

Megaworld is looking to firming up its presence in central Luzon. Last month, the company forged a P7-billion deal with state-run Clark Development Corp. to develop portions of the Clark Freeport Zone and Clark Special Economic Zone in Pampanga province into mixed-use projects.

Read more at BusinessWorld Online

Photo by callpoint at Flickr.com

_

UK Retailers Attracted to Payroll Outsourcing for 2012

Using payroll outsourcing as a cost-cutting measure.

The Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR) in the United Kingdom (UK) has warned sales are expected to have fallen this month despite the Christmas rush. Retailers, expecting to lose trade after Christmas, may be attracted to using payroll outsourcing as a cost-cutting measure.

Payroll outsourcing could be a good way to cut costs during hard times, with chairman of the National Outsourcing Association recently explaining farming out such duties to third party personnel leaves business people with time to focus on vital core activities and customer satisfaction.

In general terms, this managed service involves the total management of an organization’s payroll operation, handling data capture, processing, printing, distribution and reporting. By using professional payroll services, business owners can trust that expert firms’ technologies will be able to spot various forms of payroll fraud. Moreover, if errors do occur – from fraud to delayed business cheques – the service provider will be responsible for remedying the situation or paying the price.

In a review of current trends in payroll software and services, fully-managed payroll service, otherwise known as outsourced payroll, not only is the biggest business growth area for payroll agencies, it is being achieved with little or no advertising. This “secret” service potentially puts the jobs of payroll professionals at risk.

Sources: Sage UK | PayPerShop Ltd | The Outsource Blog

Photo by guillaumebrialon at Flickr.com

_

New U.S. Bill to Limit Overseas Call Center Outsourcing

United States Congress Building

United States Congressman Tim Bishop (D) of New York recently introduced a bipartisan legislation to bar corporations that send U.S. call center jobs overseas from receiving federal grants and loans. The “U.S. Call Center and Consumer Protection Act” (H.R. 3596) also requires overseas call center employees to disclose their location to US consumers and gives customers the right to be transferred to a US-based call center upon request. The bill also has the full support of the 700,000-member Communications Workers of America (CWA).

Congressman Bishop also sponsored the “Stop Outsourcing and Create American Jobs Act of 2010″ (H.R. 5622), which would have required federal agencies to request information about a corporation’s outsourcing practices when it applies for government contracts and allows preference for companies that have not outsourced jobs in the last year. However, this bill never made it out of the congressional committee. Rep. Jerry McNerney, sponsor of H.R. 5622, reintroduced the same bill this year as the “Stop Outsourcing and Create American Jobs Act of 2011″ (H.R. 3338) which amends the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to provide for the identification of corporate tax haven countries and increased penalties for tax evasion practices in haven countries that ship United States jobs overseas, and for other purposes.

According to CWA, total call center employment in the United States has dropped from 5.2 million in 2006 to 4.7 million in 2010, a loss of approximately 500,000 jobs lost in four years. Companies have also taken millions in incentives from local taxpayers to open call centers in the U.S., only to off-shore their operations a short time later and leave local communities devastated and still paying the bill.

The Philippines has the largest number of call centers in the world, with about 400,000 workers compared to India’s approximately 350,000 workers, based on recent media reports. The call center outsourcing industry in the Philippines is projected to jump 25 percent a year during the next five years according to a story in The New York Times.

The new legislation of Rep. Bishop would require the U.S. Department of Labor to track firms that move call center jobs overseas; the firms would then be ineligible for any direct or indirect federal loans or loan guarantees for five years. It is also designed to limit the threat of consumer fraud and identity theft at foreign call centers.

Sources: Rep. Tim Bishop Site | TMCNet.com

Photo by dok1969 at Flickr.com

_