Call center: A new boulevard of employment for Bangladesh
Al Mamun | Sunday, 8 June 2008
The overall Call Center outsourcing market is expected to continue grow steadily, according to a recent research done by Frost & Sullivan Inc., the San Antonio-based research and consulting firm. This firm states that the call center outsourcing market reached $19.5 billion in revenues in 2005 and is likely to reach $20.1 billion by 2012.
The market is growing no doubt, but the outsourcers are also under increasing pressure to do more than just increase efficiencies. Clients expect outsourced call centers to improve retention, and loyalty as well.
These days, companies are looking for an outsourcing partner who has hundreds of vendors and dozens of geographies and sites to choose from. It makes for a difficult selection process. They basically see the vendor's geographical location that matches their customer base and cultural needs. They always try to make sure the vendors on their short list have expertise in the call center mechanism. One very important thing they look during vendor selection process is political stability of the location. They will certainly make sure that the location is in a politically stable place for doing business comfortably. As Bangladesh from this perspective offers little advantage. It needs to work hard to prove that the company will get 100 per cent support from the government and leading political groups.
From a Corporate perspective, outsourcers extensively research vendor availability and capabilities. Most of the time, corporations and clients want to make sure if the vendors or call center providers are willing and able to provide the desired outsourcing services? Also they will make sure if they have previous experience? Have they been successful? What capabilities and capacity do they have? Are they willing or able to offer a trial run? Another very important thing corporation looks for how the vendor resolves unsatisfactory performance. The outsourcing vendor should assume responsibility and the risk for not meeting the service levels specified in the contract.
As call center outsourcing business is another dotcom phenomenon and all the excitement is going to be short-lived, with the current boom ending in a bust, the call center excitement could die down, with most jobs, at the risk of getting eliminated.
For the Bangladeshi organisations the enter into successful call center outsourcing relationship requires a major time commitment. So be sure to demonstrate the right people and quality services in a timely manner to provide help.
Bangladesh to win needs, is to concentrate and improve the knowledge of how US companies go about selecting vendors and outsourcing location, what are the typical SLA's (Service Level Agreement), what are the little-known facts and why these are important to win contract or business. Bangladesh also needs to understand what are the often-misunderstood issues about outsourcing and why those need to be corrected? Buy doing the homework in this area Bangladesh will get advantage in the call canter business.
What experts are thinking about the future of Bangladeshi Call Center's? The writer tries to find it out interviewing Habibullah N. Karim, President of Bangladesh Association of Software and Information Services (BASIS). During the interview, taken over phone, Karim also the Chairman of the IT Committee of American Chamber in Bangladesh (AmCham) talked elaborately about the prospects and future of this dotcom phenomenon.
Karim, 23 years veterans in ICT industry said that the call centre opportunity is real and Bangladesh can have a share of this market through aggressive entrepreneurship.
He said that Bangladeshis are joining the party late. The window of opportunity remains for hardly 5-years at the most, he said. As IVR technology improves and matures side-by-side with artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities over the next 5 years voice-based human-operated call centers is likely to decline.
About the Call Center myths and realities Karim thinks the hype around the call centers should be moderated with reason. Call centers are a good business opportunity and can bring fortunes only if executed right which means carrying out with due diligence, both the supply and demand sides of the industry, allowing sufficient time to unlearn the myths or wild assumptions while learning the hands-on fundamentals of this industry and finally provisioning sufficient working capital funds to sustain business operations during the learning phase which could take two years.
What type of commitments and support the Bangladesh government is willing to provide to this business? His answer to this question was, "First and foremost the internet bandwidth and VoIP tariffs must come down to the levels of the other countries of the region. In a recent meeting of the infrastructure sub-committee of the Better Business Forum the chairmen of BTRC and BTTB acknowledged that costing of these services shows that the government can offer competitive tariffs if it so chooses. In many countries internet service is considered part of the public service obligation (PSO) and accordingly it is subsidised. We don't want subsidy - we only want the government to pass on the cost to consumers without profit. Is that too much to ask?"
To another question he said, "At the political level, of course, economic issues including export growth of IT/BPO services took the back burner in the last three years as political and governance issues took precedence over everything else. Generally, however, no political party or leader publicly decried the prospects of the IT/BPO services industry though few concrete and sustained measures were taken by the political party-led governments in the last ten years despite big plans and optimism."
Karim thinks the 'clients in the USA and EU should look give business to Bangladesh for two reasons, the costs rose in India by (27 per cent in 2007 alone, according to World Bank). The costs rose in the Philippines too due to rise in wages and local currency appreciation against US Dollar and risk mitigation of dependence on one or two countries. Bangladesh with its dual advantages of low wages and large labour force qualifies as alternative destination of such services.
To whether Bangladeshis are capable of handling the VoIP technology he said, "Not quite but getting there. BTRC has put in place the necessary policy frameworks and is working with the industry to figure out the best way forward."
Karim said, "only with full-cycle natural-gas generator backup in duplicate. Bangladesh can guarantee 24/7 coverage in its declining power supply situation. Any entrepreneur planning to set up export-oriented IT services firm must keep capital provisions for this," he said.
About the BTRC licensing process in Bangladesh, Karim thinks, so far it appears quite transparent and quick, and added, "I haven't heard any complaints yet. However, BTRC still needs to work out the VoIP bulk usage rules for call centers."
To the question what are the big challenges for Bangladeshi companies to get competitive advantage, he said, "VoIP bulk usage rates are one, the other would be uninterrupted power and internet connection and finally the most important, locating, training and retaining English-speaking call-centre agents."
To the question what's the minimum educational qualification for a call center operator, Karim said, "Anyone with good conversation skills in English should qualify irrespective of educational background. However, Indian and Philippino experiences show that college/university students and graduates make for better call centre agents."
He said the call centres provided hot business opportunity but Bangladesh is a late entrant. As such Bangladesh does not have the starter advantage. Bangladesh must study the mistakes made by entrepreneurs in India and Philippines and carefully execute its business plans after going through the full diligence cycle. Any miss-step early on could spell disaster for the whole industry.
.............................................
The writer is a senior Vice President for an Investment Bank's Information Technology Division in New York, USA. He can be reached at [email protected]
The market is growing no doubt, but the outsourcers are also under increasing pressure to do more than just increase efficiencies. Clients expect outsourced call centers to improve retention, and loyalty as well.
These days, companies are looking for an outsourcing partner who has hundreds of vendors and dozens of geographies and sites to choose from. It makes for a difficult selection process. They basically see the vendor's geographical location that matches their customer base and cultural needs. They always try to make sure the vendors on their short list have expertise in the call center mechanism. One very important thing they look during vendor selection process is political stability of the location. They will certainly make sure that the location is in a politically stable place for doing business comfortably. As Bangladesh from this perspective offers little advantage. It needs to work hard to prove that the company will get 100 per cent support from the government and leading political groups.
From a Corporate perspective, outsourcers extensively research vendor availability and capabilities. Most of the time, corporations and clients want to make sure if the vendors or call center providers are willing and able to provide the desired outsourcing services? Also they will make sure if they have previous experience? Have they been successful? What capabilities and capacity do they have? Are they willing or able to offer a trial run? Another very important thing corporation looks for how the vendor resolves unsatisfactory performance. The outsourcing vendor should assume responsibility and the risk for not meeting the service levels specified in the contract.
As call center outsourcing business is another dotcom phenomenon and all the excitement is going to be short-lived, with the current boom ending in a bust, the call center excitement could die down, with most jobs, at the risk of getting eliminated.
For the Bangladeshi organisations the enter into successful call center outsourcing relationship requires a major time commitment. So be sure to demonstrate the right people and quality services in a timely manner to provide help.
Bangladesh to win needs, is to concentrate and improve the knowledge of how US companies go about selecting vendors and outsourcing location, what are the typical SLA's (Service Level Agreement), what are the little-known facts and why these are important to win contract or business. Bangladesh also needs to understand what are the often-misunderstood issues about outsourcing and why those need to be corrected? Buy doing the homework in this area Bangladesh will get advantage in the call canter business.
What experts are thinking about the future of Bangladeshi Call Center's? The writer tries to find it out interviewing Habibullah N. Karim, President of Bangladesh Association of Software and Information Services (BASIS). During the interview, taken over phone, Karim also the Chairman of the IT Committee of American Chamber in Bangladesh (AmCham) talked elaborately about the prospects and future of this dotcom phenomenon.
Karim, 23 years veterans in ICT industry said that the call centre opportunity is real and Bangladesh can have a share of this market through aggressive entrepreneurship.
He said that Bangladeshis are joining the party late. The window of opportunity remains for hardly 5-years at the most, he said. As IVR technology improves and matures side-by-side with artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities over the next 5 years voice-based human-operated call centers is likely to decline.
About the Call Center myths and realities Karim thinks the hype around the call centers should be moderated with reason. Call centers are a good business opportunity and can bring fortunes only if executed right which means carrying out with due diligence, both the supply and demand sides of the industry, allowing sufficient time to unlearn the myths or wild assumptions while learning the hands-on fundamentals of this industry and finally provisioning sufficient working capital funds to sustain business operations during the learning phase which could take two years.
What type of commitments and support the Bangladesh government is willing to provide to this business? His answer to this question was, "First and foremost the internet bandwidth and VoIP tariffs must come down to the levels of the other countries of the region. In a recent meeting of the infrastructure sub-committee of the Better Business Forum the chairmen of BTRC and BTTB acknowledged that costing of these services shows that the government can offer competitive tariffs if it so chooses. In many countries internet service is considered part of the public service obligation (PSO) and accordingly it is subsidised. We don't want subsidy - we only want the government to pass on the cost to consumers without profit. Is that too much to ask?"
To another question he said, "At the political level, of course, economic issues including export growth of IT/BPO services took the back burner in the last three years as political and governance issues took precedence over everything else. Generally, however, no political party or leader publicly decried the prospects of the IT/BPO services industry though few concrete and sustained measures were taken by the political party-led governments in the last ten years despite big plans and optimism."
Karim thinks the 'clients in the USA and EU should look give business to Bangladesh for two reasons, the costs rose in India by (27 per cent in 2007 alone, according to World Bank). The costs rose in the Philippines too due to rise in wages and local currency appreciation against US Dollar and risk mitigation of dependence on one or two countries. Bangladesh with its dual advantages of low wages and large labour force qualifies as alternative destination of such services.
To whether Bangladeshis are capable of handling the VoIP technology he said, "Not quite but getting there. BTRC has put in place the necessary policy frameworks and is working with the industry to figure out the best way forward."
Karim said, "only with full-cycle natural-gas generator backup in duplicate. Bangladesh can guarantee 24/7 coverage in its declining power supply situation. Any entrepreneur planning to set up export-oriented IT services firm must keep capital provisions for this," he said.
About the BTRC licensing process in Bangladesh, Karim thinks, so far it appears quite transparent and quick, and added, "I haven't heard any complaints yet. However, BTRC still needs to work out the VoIP bulk usage rules for call centers."
To the question what are the big challenges for Bangladeshi companies to get competitive advantage, he said, "VoIP bulk usage rates are one, the other would be uninterrupted power and internet connection and finally the most important, locating, training and retaining English-speaking call-centre agents."
To the question what's the minimum educational qualification for a call center operator, Karim said, "Anyone with good conversation skills in English should qualify irrespective of educational background. However, Indian and Philippino experiences show that college/university students and graduates make for better call centre agents."
He said the call centres provided hot business opportunity but Bangladesh is a late entrant. As such Bangladesh does not have the starter advantage. Bangladesh must study the mistakes made by entrepreneurs in India and Philippines and carefully execute its business plans after going through the full diligence cycle. Any miss-step early on could spell disaster for the whole industry.
.............................................
The writer is a senior Vice President for an Investment Bank's Information Technology Division in New York, USA. He can be reached at [email protected]