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Home | Business | Outsourcing
Thinking of putting up a call center ? Are you sure ? 
By: Zigfred Diaz
The Philippines is currently the next hottest destination for business process outsourcing after India. There are several call centers and other business process outsourcing ventures operating in the country right now. A proof of this is when you look at the classified ads section of every Philippine newspaper, you can notice that more than half of the available jobs pertain to business process outsourcing. Another proof of this is the growth of our export sector despite the dwindling dollar. With these in mind, it looks like getting into the call center business will be very lucrative.
We thought of putting up a call center because of these developments. However as we closely studied the call center business, there were several things that we learned that helped dispel our misconceptions about call centers. They are as follows:
1.)Traditional business processes is still applied in the call center business - Operating a call center does not spell instant money in a short period of time contrary to what others think. It does not necessarily mean that you get instant profts just because the demand is so big or that you are earning dollars.
A feasibility showed to us that it is only in the second year that the call center will start to profit. During the first year the business has to incur losses or only reach a break even similar to any kind of business where it is not expected that you profit immediately. Sacrifices have to be made within a certain period. You also need to have a good management team just as in any other traditional business. A lot of small time call center operations had declared bancruptcy due to mismanagement. What is most important also is that you have a good Human resource department as this is often referred to as the heart of call center operations.
2.) Intensive Capitalization is required in call center operations - Some people think that putting up a call center requires only a little amount of capitalization. After all you just rent a small space and hook up a bunch of computers together and to the internet. This is grave misconception. Contrary to what most people think, starting call center operations require you to burn money. For example, the dialing software alone cost more than a million pesos. Aside from buying the computers, you have to buy licensed copies of Windows XP. You also need to setup other stuff like your server, ensure a good and stable internet connection and buy the i.p telephones.
3.) Starting a call center requires you to intensively market it - There are those who think that since there is so much demand for call centers if they build it, clients will come. This kind of mentality is what causes other small call center operators to close down. The demand is not just for any "call centers" per se, the big demand is for reputable call centers. This means that you have to project yourself as somebody who can deliver services that their clients wants them to deliver. Since you are new in the call center industry, you will have to work hard to establish yourself as "reputable."
Big players in the industry have no problem with that. Clients immediately sign up to them because the have already established a name. But what about small players ? They usually only get the outbound. (Outbound refers to call center agents calling persons abroad trying to sell something or offering a service while inbound refers to catering to the needs of already existing clients of big companies who are outsourcing their services) There is money to be made in outbound but the problem is most outbound agreements are usually performance basis. So if your agents are good at selling or convincing people to buy your client's products or services than you make money. If not, then you loose. It may take some time for small players to establish themselves as reputable and trustworthy with the outbound before clients entrust them with the inbound.
Before you join the bandwagon of the business process outsourcing industry especially call center operations keep all of these things in mind.
Article Source: http://www.uberarticles.com/articles
Zigfred Diaz may not write about business process outsourcing always, however his insights on business are interesting. He also has excellent articles on investments, money management and How to invest in the Philippine stock market.
This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License, which means you may freely reprint it, in its entiretly, provided you include the author's resource box along with LIVE links (without "nofollow" tags).
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