By Ilya Bogorad

If you are looking to outsource or change processes in a multisite organization, you will face a typical organizational design challenge: how do I structure and locate teams to maximize their collective performance. In this article, I will share some of the most salient points which must be considered. This is a result of our work with our most successful clients.

Let’s talk about this concept –  repeated ad nauseum by managers and HR staff all over the world like a sacred mantra — the concept of a team.

Everyone talks about teams and the team building. Inordinate amounts of money are spent on retreats, exercises and training which provide no lasting value. Rare is a job posting that does not include a requirement for a candidate to be a “team player”, which is just gratuitous in this context. Who would say that they are not one?

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Ann Harts: “Buyers and their mergers and acquisition firms who have Community Screening Studies at the outset will be better prepared to negotiate any post transaction costs”

With the vast amount of due diligence required in the acquisition process, it truly is all about location, location, location for call center.

By Ann R. Harts

Performing due diligence for a merger or acquisition of a BPO or contact center company is an extremely time consuming activity usually with limited resources and time. In the pre-merger due diligence, the target company’s locations are most often viewed simplistically as merely the physical location. However, a most often overlooked piece is the location analysis, which should be a key component for any potential acquisition.

Location analysis, or a Community Screening Study, is important in developing an accurate purchase price and assists in avoiding costly post-closing liabilities and issues. These studies require knowledge not only in the site location and economic development field, but the ability to quickly size up real estate markets, workforce issues, saturation levels, competition, recruitment, historical attrition rates and retention viability. It is critical to align with professionals who have significant experience digging below the surface to see what’s truly going on in various markets.

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By Ilya Bogorad

“If you are considering outsourcing within your organization, you have to instill a sense of transparency and accountability to make sure that difficult issues are openly discussed, diagnosed and acted upon”

Few subjects are as controversial in the business world as outsourcing,  be it offshore or nearshore. If you invite a group of executives, managers and professionals to discuss the subject, the resulting conversation won’t be boring.

Horror stories will intermingle with accounts of epic success, passionate disagreements are virtually assured and in extreme cases some hot heads would insist on taking it outside. Serving strong coffee at such an event is not a good idea and alcohol should be avoided entirely.

If you are thinking of outsourcing one of your functions or business processes, you may emerge from a discussion like this quite confused. In the cacophony of opinions, who should you listen to? I suggest that you listen to me.

What the Other Partner Can Offer

Outsourcing is as old as the hills. Ever since the division of labor has come into existence, people have procured services and products from each other because the other party could furnish them better and/or cheaper.

The procured services or products can be used for internal consumption or form a part of our own product or service offering. As an example, we don’t have a recording studio in our office. When we need to make an audio or a video recording as a part of our work for a client, we pick up the phone and call professionals.  It would be cost prohibitive for us to do it in house, in terms of both time and money. Besides, this is not our core competency.

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By Kirk Laughlin, NSAmericas Editorial Director

The patient in the documentary received treatment at Clinica Biblica in San Jose.

Bob, the patient who is the subject of an eye-opening documentary about medical tourism described his knee problems as like “stepping on a steak knife. ” The makers of the film, the Medical Tourism Association, say Bob saved about $80,000 by going to Costa Rica to receive a double knee replacement.

Nearshore Americas provided “on the ground” coverage of the fast-growing medical tourism industry of Costa Rica earlier this year, which included a first-hand account of one man’s experience with vibroliposuction.

As someone who just received knee surgery because of a recent collision on the …

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The global services outsourcing industry may have a  lot of things going for it, but in most cases the industry as a whole is not winning any awards for transparency. It is the view of Tom Anderson, who recently founded the Foundation for Transparency in Offshoring, that clients or buyers have a right to know where their business process (and more importantly IP) is being handled. His group is particularly focused on the practice of offshoring market research.

We asked Tom recently about the reason he founded FTO and why transparency is such a big deal.

Why did you launch FTO?

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As Latin America emerges as a significant player on the worldwide outsourcing stage, questions are coming up around how well Latam sourcing providers are marketing themselves.  With US buyers looking for knowledge and insights, providers need to step up their digital marketing capabilities, says Fernando Labastida, owner of Latin IT Marketing, and a leading expert on marketing practices in the offshore industry.

We sat down recently with Fernando to get more of his thoughts.

What do Nearshore service providers need to do to improve marketing practices in the digital age?

For lack of a PC term, they have to look and behave American (or European or Canadian, depending on which market they’re going after).

1. They have to have modern, user-friendly, straightforward and to the point websites with flawless English. No more flash websites. No more “good enough” translations. No more typical corporate websites with information about their company, their wonderful reliable, expert developers who know Java .NET, SQL Server, Oracle, IBM and can develop anything from an iPhone app to an add-on for SAP.
2. They need to start blogging, creating eBooks, making videos, do webinars. They essentially need to take a content marketing approach, because that’s the best long-term strategy to turn their web presence into a destination and become thought leaders.

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By Kirk Laughlin, NSAM Editorial Director

I always enjoy reading the various recommendations that come out from industry experts about best practices in outsourcing. Some of the advice is intended to be truly independent and unbiased and that’s the kind of material we’re often looking for at Nearshore Americas.

Other times we see “experts” arguing a specific point, but in reality they have a hidden agenda and the tone of their advice favors that agenda.

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