Turning The Corner

About a year ago I received an out of the blue call from a friend who said he needed help setting up a new team to do some outsourcing work here in the Philippines.

It seemed like a pretty simple set up, just six work from agents to do some lot tagging (adding keywords) for an online auction.

Twelve months later we have a team of 65 working on a variety of services, with about 10 of that number being office based contact center staff.

Based on past experiences with setting up teams here, I’d say overall it has been a very smooth set-up with a relatively low number of difficult challenges to face.

By the far the biggest reason for our success to date has been the caliber of the team I have been able to bring together. We have built a business from scratch and done it with a very methodical and cost effective approach.

As we have grown the business, we have celebrated several milestones. In the past few days, we celebrated three significant ones that mark a defining moment in our evolution from start-up to normal operations.

First we had a leadership meeting where we were able to give out a mix of swag items to the attendees. The cool thing is that some were from the client and some from our company. Having something in your hand that ties you to both companies is pretty awesome.

Second, we got new workstations set up for the office based staff to give us a much more established look and feel. I know this will go a long way in giving the team a sense of permanence that we needed.

And finally, we received health care membership cards for our 15 most senior team members. It’s a pilot program to test our before rolling out to the whole team, but it’s another key step towards building our identity.

There will be lots more swag coming soon. And new equipment and creature comforts for the office based team.

And finally more benefits for all DMAI team members in the months to come.

We have definitely turned the corner from Start-up Street and are now on Normal Operations Avenue! 