The idea of outsourcing business services to Asia has grown over the last decade. The 1990s as a period of liberalising markets. By the 2000s there was a skills shortage, there was a pool of skilled labour also needed in developing countries, and some companies had proven that its possible to mix workforces from different countries, but even easier to recruit local high level staff to manage locals. This caused a huge disparity in income in the developing world between the JV company employees and the under-apaid employees of local and state enterprises. Now we have reached another level where businesses in the Western world are trying to outsource services to Asia, be they technical support, customer surveys, etc. Of course to a large extent they are relying on locals to manage local staff.
There is a great deal of skill in these third world countries, but it has only been the multi-nationals who have tapped it. Even the immigrants to Western countries have not been very successful making use of their home country skills.
The two cultures getting the lions share of this work are:
1. The Philippines
2. India
The bulk of the work done by Filipinos is in the Western world. They are given skilled or unskilled visas, and they go overseas as nurses, seamen, programmers, etc. Those that stay have the opportunity to work in the call centre industry. There are basically three types of call centre - those that provide (i) basic product support like account or product information, (ii) technical support or (iii) sales. This last type has yet to be successfully adopted in Asia. I have seen Telstra (Australia) fail dismally trying. It was trying to employ pushy Indian call centre staff to sell telco products to retirees like my father. Good luck! Clearly there is a cultural divide that Telstra did not grasp. By far the Filipinos are more personable and proficient in this area, though they are not as efficient. Studies however show that Filipinos are more likely to stick around, so staff retention rates are higher. Gradually you can expect more services to be added to the Philippines bag of tricks.
One of the areas where Filipinos are particularly good at is design - whether graphic design or fashion design. The reason is clear enough - fashion is important in the Philippines. Style matters in this country, and people know it from a very early age. Filipinos are very brand-conscious. Brand awareness is superficial. There is no question that some Filipinos are asking deeper questions about form and function. We have employed a few website designers in the Philippines to design client websites, and we have been very pleased with the results. If you would like a quote, email us. Its far cheaper than the cost of website creation in your own country. There is of course a quicker way - you can do-it-yourself.
------------------------------------
Andrew Sheldon www.sheldonthinks.com
There is a great deal of skill in these third world countries, but it has only been the multi-nationals who have tapped it. Even the immigrants to Western countries have not been very successful making use of their home country skills.
The two cultures getting the lions share of this work are:
1. The Philippines
2. India
The bulk of the work done by Filipinos is in the Western world. They are given skilled or unskilled visas, and they go overseas as nurses, seamen, programmers, etc. Those that stay have the opportunity to work in the call centre industry. There are basically three types of call centre - those that provide (i) basic product support like account or product information, (ii) technical support or (iii) sales. This last type has yet to be successfully adopted in Asia. I have seen Telstra (Australia) fail dismally trying. It was trying to employ pushy Indian call centre staff to sell telco products to retirees like my father. Good luck! Clearly there is a cultural divide that Telstra did not grasp. By far the Filipinos are more personable and proficient in this area, though they are not as efficient. Studies however show that Filipinos are more likely to stick around, so staff retention rates are higher. Gradually you can expect more services to be added to the Philippines bag of tricks.
One of the areas where Filipinos are particularly good at is design - whether graphic design or fashion design. The reason is clear enough - fashion is important in the Philippines. Style matters in this country, and people know it from a very early age. Filipinos are very brand-conscious. Brand awareness is superficial. There is no question that some Filipinos are asking deeper questions about form and function. We have employed a few website designers in the Philippines to design client websites, and we have been very pleased with the results. If you would like a quote, email us. Its far cheaper than the cost of website creation in your own country. There is of course a quicker way - you can do-it-yourself.
------------------------------------
Andrew Sheldon www.sheldonthinks.com
