Author: DMAIPH

Analytics Expert and President & Founder of DMAI.

Why The Philippines? The Shift In Services Across The Globe Leads to My Adopted Country

“The world is currently witnessing a fundamental reorganization in the way services are delivered to customers. This is what is behind the movement to outsource. It’s a lot more than just saving money by shipping jobs overseas.” – Harvard Professor Robert E. Kennedy

In his book the Services Shift, Kennedy outlines 5 primary reasons for this shift in services. All 5 have a great deal of influence on why the Philippines has become the call center capital of the world.

The globalization of services, in which different tasks are being carried out by different individuals in different locations, is about gaining access to the best combination of talent, resources and markets.

  • Technological Innovations like easy access to the internet and stored data.
  • Emerging Market Growth in traditionally closed markets
  • Global Macroeconomic Liberalization of government polices toward trade
  • The Corporate Imperative to both reduce costs and improve quality
  • The Convergence of a Global Business Culture based on the English language and American business models.

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There are so many forces for this move to outsource and analytics has moved to the top of everyone’s wish list of things to look globally for.

If you have been thinking about getting your feet wet in setting up a team in the Philippines, I can help. I have set up a dozen different teams of all shapes and sizes for various U.S. companies.

Adding a team in the Philippines will add a lot of value to your business, so connect with men and we can discuss a specific solution for you.

HR & Recruitment Analytics – The recruitment and retention of top talent is the biggest challenge facing just about every organization. You really have to Think Through The Box to come up with winning solutions to effectively attract, retain and manage talent in the Philippines today.

DMAIPH is a leading expert in empowering HR & Recruitment teams with analytics techniques to optimize their talent acquisition and management processes. Contact DMAIPH now at analytics@dmaiph.com or connect with me directly to learn how to get more analytics in your HR & Recruitment process so you can rise to the top in the ever quickening demand for top talent.

What Makes A Good Analyst?

Three different sources on what makes a good analyst…

From one of the most influential books I have ever read,  the Accidental Analyst… An ANALYST is a person who analyzes and skilled in analysis. Four Character Traits that most analysts have:

  • PASSION for helping people solve real problems
  • KNOWLEDGE of the business being analyzed
  • EXPOSURE to thinking analytically and problem solving tools
  • EXPERIENCE using data to solve problems

Certain personality types most analysts have:

  • reflective
  • intuitive
  • deep-thinkers
  • and able to make quick judgments

In addition, the International Institute for Analytics and Vendor Talent Analytics, Corp. surveyed 302 analytics professionals in 2013. Curiosity came out as the top skill in a study of the characteristics of analytics pros.

And finally from KDnuggets.com:

“The Analytics Professionals in our 2012 Study are very creative and curious. They have an insatiable thirst to learn; wanting to look everything up on the Internet immediately because they simply “have to know.”. When something doesn’t work, they’ll assume there is a rational explanation and jump in to find and solve it.”

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Guidelines For BS in Business Adminstration Track In Business Analytics.

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This is pretty school stuff! To the best of my knowledge, no other government body anywhere in the world is taking such an active approach to updating college curriculums to implement analytics training.

Recent innovations “have developed new tools and techniques enabling business management and public institutions to adopt business analytics into their organizational processes and information ecosystems. Necessarily, from such innovations emerged corresponding demand for human resources with skills and competencies defined by users of business analytics and translated by CHED into industry led curriculum.”

DMAI has been actively taking part in both awareness building around the demand for analysts and in training on business analytics for over 2 years now. The time is NOW to take things to the next level!

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The Concept of Analytics

I start just about all my Power Point presentation trying to get a sense of where the audience is with their comprehension of analytics.

Per Wikipedia, the definition of analytics is simply the discovery and communication of meaningful patterns in data.

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While most people have an idea of what analytics is: data, analysis, metrics, and business intelligence are just the start… it is an abstract concept that is difficult to summarize in a sentence or two.

Most business leaders know that they need more analytics based decision making in their operations, however few have figured out how to obtain it as analytics software or engaging high priced consultants doesn’t suffice.

This approach is more about empowering analytical thinking then it is teaching a technological skill. I have found that being able to harness the power of analytics is as much an art as it is a science. In the end, analytics is about three things; finding data, analyzing it and communicating the results.

Over the next several blog posts, I will take the core slides of my standard Introduction to Analytics Power Point and share the content here.

When I think of analytics and what it can do to empower people, companies and ideas, I always think of this quote:

“Far better is it to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure… than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much, because they live in a gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat.”  – Theodore Roosevelt

Training, Training, Training, There Is No Other Solution

The the longer I am here in the Philippines, working in the BPO industry, the clearer this concept becomes.

As of today, there are over 2,000 analyst jobs available on jobstreet.com.ph

If you take all the students enrolled in all the recently analytics centric courses imagine that wouldnt even fill up 1/4 of the open slots.

So when I saw this image…

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I’m immediately thinking this is where so many decision-makers continue to get it wrong… you HAVE to invest in training your own people and/or training near hires. If you keep trying to pirate someone, you are just making the problem worse.

You end up with a mix of undertrained (and undermotivated) lifers and job-hoppers ready to take off as soon as something that pays more comes along.

Preparing For Your Interview… Here Are Some Things To Consider

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/recruitment-interview-skills-awareness-survey-results-preater

Came across this interesting article that seems to tie into something we have found to be true. Most candidates fail the interview because they are classified as either unprepared and/or nervous.

“There are many things that can let a candidate down on the day and the most common cause, as stated many, many times, is lack of preparation. Listening skills, asking interesting questions and being negative about a former or current employer were also popular subjects raised over and over.”

Preparation can cover quite a range of activities:

  • Personal Appearance
  • Punctuality
  • Company Knowledge
  • Relating ones skills to the job
  • Knowledge of the job

Personal Appearance has become so downplayed in recent years, especially in the call center industry where candidates rarely even get to a level of business casual. When someone does dress up, it really stands out. It’s a real competitive advantage that few take advantage of. Plus its simple psychology… when you dress up you act up and when you dress down you play down.

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Punctuality is another old school interview skill that seems to have gone by the wayside and has a devastating impact on candidates. So often little merit is placed on being on time, which means the candidate is rushing once they realize they will not make the appointed time. Then they are frazzled and not in a calm state when they interview. Plus the interviewer is perturbed. Never a good way to get the ball rolling in your favor.

This is a no brainer, but still in this day and age of easy to access knowledge, more than half the candidates who come across my desk have not studied up on the company. It shows such total lack of respect it’s a 100% guarantee of interview failure. And for the candidates it usually means the first of many empty answers.

Relating ones skills is something you think most candidates would be doing when they read the job posting. But often I find they just read what they wanted to read and not what was actually there. So there is a big mismatch between candidate and employer expectations. Never a good way to show you are prepared for the interview, lets alone worthy of being trusted with a job.

Knowledge of the job is often another issue and here in BPO land, the biggest one I see if people who want to work in a call center, but really don’t enjoy speaking English. See my previous blog for my thoughts on this one.

So, one of the things we are doing in our training classes is coaching candidates on how to be successful interviewees. If nothing else, at least they are given insights into how to pass the interview, something that 90% of our initial applicants are failing to do.

Conversational English > That Elusive Skill Stopping So Many Call Center Careers From Getting Started

Learning a foreign language is tough for most of us. I took two years of Spanish in high school and didnt try very hard. I got average grades and really didnt pick up a lot. Then I spent six months in Japan, immersed in Japanese culture and picked up it very fast… didn’t learn how to write much, but my conversational Japanese became passable.

Three years into living in the Philippines and my Tagalog is ok, I can follow along most conversations but still struggle with pronunciation because most of my day is spent speaking English.

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Conversational expertise in a language is really hard if you don’t have the chance to speak the language everyday. And that brings us to the topic at hand. Conversational English as a requirement for call center employment.

There is such irony in the fact that so many Filipinos want to work in a call center because it means good, stable pay and benefits. But proportionally so few Filipinos really want to push themselves to learn how to master Conversational English. In a land deeply connected to the U.S. and awash in American culture… many Filipinos only speak English when forced too.

When they get into the application process for call center jobs, they fail because even though they understand English and have had years of English language study, they just havent spoken it enough to pass the interview.

So to all those who try and fail, to all those trainees who keep trying and to all the future applicants… the only way to secure that well paying job with good benefits is to practice. Force yourself to speak as much English as possible.   Always love Tagalog and keep speaking it, but practice, practice, practice…  English Only Please!

SWOT > Great Tool For Analysts To Know

One of the reasons I love working with students is often something that is old to me and to many analysts, is actually new to them. SO getting to explain SWOT to students, or in this case having a student share with me their understanding of SWOT is pretty cool.

SWOT can be very helpful in general consulting and also in process optimization projects that many analysts find themselves assigned to.

How the SWOT ANALYSIS helps the business

One of the best way of evaluating a business unit opportunities is conducting the SWOT Analysis. Using a SWOT Analysis in your business, you can provide a necessary tools and information to establish your goals and objectives. And it will measure the progress of the business. The Strengths’ and the Weakness and the Weaknesses will be the inside Factors; the Opportunities and Threats will serve as the exterior factors.

Evaluating the Strengths

Evaluating what does the company do well, does the company has strong sense of purpose and the culture to support that purpose and is the company strong in its market. It could be your marketing expertise, or your excellent customer service. It’s important to try to evaluate your strengths in terms of how they compare to those of your competitors.

Recognize the Weaknesses

Recognizing the weaknesses will aid the decision-making process designed to improve you’re company. Don’t just make a list of mistakes that have been made but instead learned from what happened. Be prepared to hear things you may not like, but which, ultimately, may be extremely helpful. Business weaknesses can include accessibility of product, higher prices than other competitors and poor quality of products and services. By this you can minimize your weaknesses.

Look for the Opportunities

In this section you can identify what are the new opportunities for your business and interesting trends which you can take advantage of.  Example of opportunities includes potential new uses of products or services, social factors and the use of marketing or promotional techniques to market the business.

Be ready for the Threats

Threats to your business can be also as weaknesses and can be adversely affect your business but it can be a short- term circumstances that can be resolved immediately. For external Threat it could be new legislation or a new competitor in your market and for internal threats could include the company’s skill or staff shortage.

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You Don’t Build A Business… You Build People

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It’s funny to me that I shared this on LinkedIn and someone had the thought to spin it into a negative thing. Someone sarcastically replied that this is false and that big bosses just use people to make money. I’m guessing he sees this as a way to get people to work harder, but it the end only the top people benefit. Or something like that.

When I saw this, I immediately thought about a training program we have just kicked off to address a significant challenge we have in both my business and in my industry. The call center industry in the Philippines is probably one of the most hyper competitive labor markets anywhere in the world today.

To be able to be successful you need to find people who are stick around. So looking at the best way to do that is to build them up. To train them, to empower them, to enchant them.

Being equal parts educator, analyst, entrepreneur… this concept is something I firmly believe in, I have the data to back it up and the success to prove it is working. So take that mister sarcasm… DMAIPH is a great example of this philosophy actually working.

Analytics Leadership – DMAIPH specializes in arming the Data-Driven Leader with the tools and techniques they need to build and empower an analytics centric organization. Analytics leadership requires a mastery of not just analytics skill, but also of nurturing an analytics culture. We have guided thousands of Filipino professionals to become better analytics leaders. Contact DMAIPH now at analytics@dmaiph.com or connect with me directly to discuss a uniquely tailored strategy to ensure you are the top of your game when it comes to Analytics Leadership.

The 3 V’s of Big Data: Volume, Velocity, & Variety

The value of big data isn’t in the amount of data it can process, but in the insight that big data analytics can yield. Big data has value because it can assimilate vast amounts of different types of data. The three V’s – volume, velocity, variety – are wbrainhat give big data its value, and what powers these three V’s is more and better data.

Source: im-techsolutions.com

Analytics is all about looking for patterns in data that give you actionable insights.