UK Visit

Two weeks back, I was in UK for about 4 days. I used the opportunity to visit some of our existing UK Accountant clients ( CA / ACCA ) from whom we regularly outsource Accounting and Book Keeping work. I also visited couple of new prospects who are seeking to outsource their Book Keeping / back office function.

My meetings were very interesting with each one  of them. Almost all of them wanted to give work to us. Besides the cost factor, which was obvious they realised that they were getting more value for money since we employ career accountants who are dedicated to their work, whereas they were using work at home moms, or entry level employees to get their work done, who were lacking in a certain resolve to do their best.

But one of the things that is foxing me is that even though they accept the benefits of changing their approach to client delivery, there is the human resistance to change that makes them drag their feet, so to speak.

     

A rural BPO - 2

The rural BPO being set up by Wipro in Manjakudi is fully complete. Two Team Leaders have been deputed from elsewhere to kick start the location. The physical infra is all in place and I was told that the first batch of 300+ associates have already been recruited and training is going on. This photo could have been taken in any of our locations.  I was informed that the process was a voice process from US. Given the strong challenges in accent nuetralisation, I would have thought that it might have been a domestic process. Achieving client satisfaction metrics is going to be an issue, unless it is a  B2B process and client expectations have been appropriately set :-)

A Rural BPO

I was recently traveling in  Tanjore district, close to my ancestral village of Sedanipuram, when I had occasion to go to Manjakudi and visit the Veda Patashala ( Vedic School ) there and meet with the head of that institution, whom I know well.

The Veda Patashala is run by Swami Dayananda Saraswathi, a forward looking religious leader. At Manjakudi, which is his birthplace he has set up many educational institutions to cater to various academic disciplines.

During my visit, I came to know that they have tied up with WIPRO to set up  a rural BPO. I seized the opportunity to visit the place since such developments are of keen interest to me.

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The US crisis SnP downgrading AAA+

The US is headed for a crisis, that no one can deny.  There is nothing like a free lunch and unpaid bills do have a habit of catching up sometime or the other. It may be 2 months from now or 2 years from now.

No one is sure how this will pan out. How will it affect us at a business level? How will it affect us at a personal level.

Here are Vital Link Outsourcing, we are searching for answers and I am sure that we are scratching our heads as much as you are probably scratching yours.

One thing we know for sure from a BPO perspective. Some of our clients will have an imperative to outsource more, in order to cut costs further and survive. Many others may see their own business volumes shrink and thus the aggregate number of transactions to outsource may fall. Some may see both.

It would be an interesting study to see which factors influence either of the above two scenarios.

Any ideas?

NZ seems to be picking up

When it came to outsourcing, NZ always seemed to be quite laid back in its approach. Not much traction was seen in NZ companies trying to outsource to India. Vital Link Outsourcing had formed a subsidiary quite a few years back there but things went cold due to lack of interest.

Suddenly things seem to be picking up on the NZ front.  First we heard back from our old contact seeking to revive the relationship. And then this article in the news.

http://tvnz.co.nz/business-news/fairfax-outsource-kiwi-jobs-india-union-4256353

P. Venkatraman
CEO
Vital Link Outsourcing - A India based BPO catering to the SME segment in Internet Research, Content Aggregation, UK Accounting and Dcoument management. In two engagement models. Shared Business Services and Delivery based.
www.vitallinkcorp.com