By Luke Bujarski

Martinez: More than just a job.

The contact center industry in the Dominican Republic is poised to double in size from 10,000 to 20,000 bilingual agents by 2017. This is the message passed on by Eddy Martinez, president of the export and foreign investment agency CEI-RD, as well as key industry insiders during detailed discussions with Nearshore Americas. However, concerns about the availability of high-tech talent suggests that the DR still has some way to go before moving into higher-end software and application development services.

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By Uyadan Banerjee

1. Why do you want to do the software project in Agile mode?

Potential reasons include:

(A) You are already engaged in IT outsourcing and have a good working relationship with the outsourced vendor. You have successfully used Agile internally and want to extend it to outsourced projects.

(B) You want to outsource a new project because you do not have internal bandwidth to work on the requirements for it or the actual development. You expect that outsourcing will help you overcome the bandwidth limitation and Agile will help you to evolve the requirements through multiple iterations.

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By James Bargent

Since leaving office in 2001, Bill Clinton has found a niche as a globetrotting philanthropist. The former US president has used his political contacts and populist touch to bring together corporate interests, politicians, non-profit organizations, and major charitable donors to promote his vision of market-driven development. Working through the Clinton Foundation and in roles such as UN Special Envoy to Haiti, much of Clinton’s work has focused on Latin America.

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Who owns the software that you develop? By the definition of the word “own,” it would be you, right? You create it, you distribute it, you own it.

Seems logical, but this simple question is turned on its side when it comes to software that has been developed for the web or as a mobile application. When developing for the web, even though you retain ownership of the intellectual property, the page or service is available publicly – so it becomes an asset of the web. This, however, is not the case for mobile apps. When someone actively makes the very personal decision to download an app – to give it precious space on his or her mobile device – that user most definitely is the owner of that app. Of course you will keep the intellectual property of the app’s code, but the app itself doesn’t belong to you anymore …

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By Dan Berthiaume

Shared services, or the combining of similar outsourced functions, provide BPO customers the opportunity to create savings and spur improvements in specific areas of the company. However, end users are now going further and are applying shared services across different sectors of the company and using them to get a better analysis of the future, improve their management of human resources, among other solutions.

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Ci&T’s head of mobile strategy on the huge difference between mobile and web applications

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By Sabina A. Schneider

Terabytes and even petabytes of unstructured data hold vital business information somewhere within – but sifting through a virtual haystack of skyscraper proportions requires new tools and new ideas. Even sophisticated relational systems can’t extract all the value from the massive collections of data maintained, and enlarged daily, by today’s organizations. New solutions are needed.

This white paper briefly summarizes the impending data overload and then describes how advanced platforms and processes can be used to build an effective, affordable information mining and analysis system. Find out how tools like Hadoop help businesses not only dig up the data they’re looking for but also discover what that data means.

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By Jones Lang LaSalle

Locations in Mexico and Central America are seeing increasing levels of direct investment activity for customer contact operations. As the number of markets attempting to solicit investment in the customer support industry increases, it becomes more difficult to decide on a location best able to meet corporate requirements.

This special report provides an overview of some of the more important considerations a company needs to consider when thinking about direct investment in the Nearshore region.

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By Linda Tuck Chapman

Outsourcing is serious business and will have a long-term impact on your company’s future. Let’s improve the odds that it’s a positive one! Your customers and shareholders shouldn’t and won’t differentiate who delivers their services – your company or a third party. So the time you invest in planning your outsourcing program and sourcing the right service providers is time well spent.

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Source: Reuters

Chile’s annual inflation this year will likely be substantially lower than in 2011, when it shot up above the central bank’s tolerance range to reach 4.4 percent, Finance Minister Felipe Larrain said on Thursday.

“We’re confident that this year inflation will be substantially lower than last year’s, and we’ve already had a good start with January inflation,” Larrain told reporters.

Chilean inflation slowed in January, coming in slightly below market expectations, with the consumer price index rising 0.1 percent, following December’s shock 0.6 percent increase.

Reduced inflation could give the central bank room to reduce its key interest rate further after it held rates steady at 5.0 percent in February following a surprise 25 basis point cut in January. However, strong local economic activity and robust domestic demand will likely prompt the bank to again hold rates pat in March, a recent poll showed.

The monetary authority is seen keeping its …

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