Category: Analytics Outsourcing

Three Keys To A Successful Virtual Team

I’m borrowing this idea from an article called “Going Virtual: Hiring the Right Team for Remote Work”
Going Virtual: Hiring the Right Team for Remote Work

Among other things DMAIPH has a side business focusing solely on building and managing virtual analytics teams, based in the Philippines, for small and medium US based companies. In the past year we have set up three teams and the lessons we have learned about how to be successful validate the three points in the above article.

Key #1: Hire only people with significant work experience. I love working with fresh grads as they are mostly blank slates who you can empower and educate to fit your own vision. However, our experience here is that the best virtual employees are ones with significant office based experience.

One of the great benefits to setting up a virtual team in the Philippines is the large pool of former call center agents who have significant industry experience but have left due to family commitments. Tapping into that talent pool has been a huge boon for DMAI.

Key #2: Make every hire a trial hire until you determine fit. Attrition with virtual teams is by default pretty high as employees can have a lot less loyalty to a person they never meet. In addition, coaching and mentoring are challenging to do effectively online so its really important to find the right fit before entering into a long term partnership.

Another plus of doing business in the Philippines is that its standard to bring staff in on a six month temporary contract. After the six months they are evaluated and either released or picked up. We offer a standard pay increase at six months when a contract employee is normalized. Its really helped us build a core team of people who will be with us a long time while at the same time not forcing us to keep people around who really don’t want to be here.

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Key #3: Put barriers in the process of hiring new people. As we have evolved the virtual business we have become better and better about building screens that really do optimize the talent pipeline process. Like most companies we have a number of minimum requirements that help target the right applicants and we also mix in assessments that require the applicant to show some of the analytics skills we need.

The combination of experience, having them walk a mile in our shoes and making it kinda hard to get hired has really lead us to providing top end talent for a reasonable price.

Analytics Jobs – DMAIPH hires, refers and connects Filipino analytics talent. The Philippines is at the center of the action when it comes to solutions to the global need for analytics. Working with DMAIPH to find work, hire analytics talent or set up analytics teams will ensure you are tapped into the best of the best when it comes to analytics in the Philippines. Contact DMAIPH now at analytics@dmaiph.com or connect with me directly to find out how to take advantage of this booming opportunity.

Teaching A Person To Fish – The BPO Way

“Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.” This in one of the most famous quotes used when it comes to empowering others to become independent and self-sufficient.

The primary reason why I left my career at Wells Fargo and moved to the Philippines to set up a business was the opportunity I saw to be a once in a lifetime kind of thing. My goal to empower Filipinos with basic analytics and decision-making skills that they could use in careers in the BPO Industry plays to both my strengths and my passions.

I see the BPO Industry as the biggest pool to fish in for fresh graduates. They are young and healthy enough to survive the working at night lifestyle, they are fresh out of very structured work environments which most BPOs are and in general they have a least a basic level of English.

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I see analytics and decision-making methodology as the pole they use to fish. By learning some basic terms, getting their hands dirty with some entry-level BI tools and by having an introduction to things like process improvement, they have head start over many other fresh grads and undergrads.

They can improve their fishing pole by mastering certain software and programming languages, but improving their English and by being mentored to look at a BPO job as the first step in a career not just a job they do for a while.

As time goes by, I hope more of my brethren in the BPO Industry took more time to think about how to teach their employees to fish and not just throw them on the phones and hope they sink or swim. Our recruitment and retention would be so much better if we were seen as a place to learn how to fish for a lifetime and not just feed their family for the day.

The Dark Side of BPOs… It Doesn’t Have To Be This Way

Let me start by saying I am a big proponent of the BPO Industry in the Philippines.

I’ve worked in the industry for over 10 years and have spent countless hours involved in sharing information about the growth and success we have enjoyed.

I speak at schools on a regular basis explaining to student the huge opportunities a call center career can have.
Overall, I think the positives far outweigh the negatives in the industries impact on the economy of my adopted home country.

However, some days I just shake my head. One of my former employees was just telling me about her recent experience with her new employer and the challenges she is facing really leaves me feeling blue about the BPO Industry in the Philippines.

Still under a new hire training period she, she is not technically entitled to any paid time off even when she is sick or there is an emergency. So when she recently had an illness and had a doctor’s note prescribing time off, she expected that her employer would allow her at least unpaid off until she recovered from a pretty nasty infection. Because it’s the right thing to do.

However, her request was denied and on top of not being allowed even unpaid time off she was instructed to work an 11 hour shift because of business needs. Wow.

Being the top of her training batch and having zero absences to date have zero impact. The fact that she is one of the most dedicated and hardest working employees I have ever worked with has zero impact. She had to go to work sick and put in 11 hours.

The short sighted lack of compassion demonstrated by the low level manager of the business unit of the huge multinational corporation that makes billions makes me sad.
But it also reminds me that this is why I set up my own company, because being part of something so big and so focused on profit is not something I want to be part of anymore.

So to all my friends and connections who are BPO executives, managers and leaders… lets not allow this to happen in our businesses. We have to change this mentality for the simple fact is that there are not enough qualified workers for our industry. The answer to being short staffed and metric driven cannot be just the bottom line when it makes us push our best workers to the point of making unhealthy life choices. We lose out of so many talented contributors to this industry because we treat them like a piece of machinery and just look to replace then when they breakdown.

4 Lessons From The Phoenix: Finding Success As You Rise Up From Failure

Here are four keys behind my recent run of success:

1. Find Disciples
2. Create Lots and Lots of Content
3. Go Both Horizontal and Vertical
4. Stick with the Plan

One of the greatest pieces of advice I ever got from a mentor was to go out and find three people who could become my disciples. People who understand and believe in the power of using data to driven decision-making.

Throughout the first two-year of my business I was never able to keep more than one at a time on my team as the business evolved rapidly. However, over the past six months I have firmly established two of them in the business as key partners in decision-making. And I still have one of my original influencers close at hand. I know have three disciples who believe in what we do and are able to talk my talk and walk my walk. Mission accomplished.

Another key piece of advice I picked up about a year and a half ago that I have stuck with is create lots of content. I’ve heard this before and see the power of some of my heroes like Guy Kawasaki and Seth Godin when it comes to creating a constant stream of interesting content. However, it took a while for me to find my grove, but since then I have been churning out a fairly steady stream of social media content. I blog, am an active Liker on FB and share a lot via LinkedIn. That’s the second key to my success.

Another part of my success has been adding more and more services to my existing clients. This is a strategy I learned very well with Wells Fargo. Its far more profitable to go vertical with existing clients then try to go horizontal with lots of new clients.

And the final key that has help me rise from the ashes of one failed business to build a successful one if stick to the plan. Yes, its important to adapt and evolve, but those should be in unison with the core reason you went into business in the first place… to empower people to make better decisions. I started with a knowledge process outsourcing business model to being more analytics jobs to the Philippines and have done exactly that.

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http://business.inquirer.net/168827/firms-form-analytics-industry-union

I saw this article and I think about how good it is to be spot on with something. Having seen this opportunity a few years ago and setting up my business now is starting to seem like an awesome decision! 🙂

Here is another one.

http://businessmirror.com.ph/index.php/en/news/opinion/30949-the-philippines-as-an-analytics-hub

IBM really has done some amazing work pushing analytics into the forefront of the BPO Industry in the Philippines.

Cool stuff!

What To Do When Employees Don’t Succeed?

http://www.recruiter.com/i/4-positive-alternatives-to-firing-staff/?utm_content=buffer888a9&utm_medium=social&utm_source=linkedin.com&utm_campaign=buffer

Came across this interesting article on LinkedIn, about what to do instead of firing an employee. It caught my attention as the BPO Industry in the Philippines continues to grapple with attrition rates that are way to high.

In short, the problem is that with a perceived deep talent pool to tap, BPOs have put little effort into retention policies instead being quick on the trigger thinking they can easily find a better employee. This mindset is not only self-destructive but also badly out of line with available data. As it gets harder and harder to recruit quality employees, many times the answer is pour more money into recruiting or more money into incentives, but almost no one is putting more money into training and coaching.

When you can step out of the industry for a minute and look at the patterns its pretty mind-boggling that such a booming and vibrant industry is so short-sighted.

So, with that back drop in mind, I found this article a good one to help me and my management team put some pauses in place and do a little more due diligence before coming to the decision to give up on someone.

The 4 bullet points listed are all very good ones to chew on:
1. Employ Self-Assessments to go hand in hand with KPI data points
2. Setting clear and achievable goals to mark success
3. Targeted coaching and training
4. And redeployment to positions with a better chance for success

I’ve added these discussion topics to my next management meeting agenda and will build in additional check points within our assessment process. All in all a good read indeed!

HR & Recruitment Analytics – The recruitment and retention of top talent is the biggest challenge facing just about every organization. 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.

No Matter How Much Training We Do, Will It Ever Be Enough?

http://blogs.wsj.com/searealtime/2014/03/13/poverty-is-stubborn-foe-in-philippines/

I came across this recent blog post from the Wall Street Journal and it matches a lot of my own observations about the economic realities of the Philippines. Having spent most of the past 2+ years here in the Philippines I have seen my own perceptions of the country’s amazing economic growth evolve from one of unbridled enthusiasm to one of more moderate expectations.

Just to go back a few years, I was at Wells Fargo and heavily involved in both remittances to the Philippines and outsourcing to the Philippines. I saw a lot of data about all time high remittance inflows at the same time we saw a huge shift as the Philippines passed India to become the call center capital of the world. Coupled with my visits to the Philippines, it seemed to be a perfect time to come here and set up a business.

So I came here, set up the business, started doing training and have been able to help quite a few Filipinos find there way towards analytics focused jobs. I’ve also been able to employ many as well. However, as time has gone by, I have also seen that my efforts (as well as so many well-meaning others) come up short in really making a difference. If you add up all the OFWs and all the BPO Employees that are driving more spending and more growth, its still not enough to move the Philippines out of the grasp of massive and disabling poverty.

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As the article points out, training is a key missing effort that despite many best efforts is still falling short. The talent gap between the job requirements and the available workers keeps growing faster then all the training and shifts in education can keep pace with.

When I read articles like this, I find myself wishing I could do more and I will keep doing as much as I can, but to be honest I have started to feel that people like me are just too few and far between to really make a difference. Don’t get me wrong, I still love what I do and am passionate to keep doing it… but I am a little less spirited and a little more cautious now then I was at the start of this journey.

I guess that’s my new found wisdom talking…

Convergys eyes 6,000 new hires this year… But From Where?

A recent ABS-CBN headline touts how one of the biggest BPOs in the Philippines is planning to increase their staff by about 15%. And they are not alone, in the past few months I have seen a lot of the bigger players (including IBM and Google) make public announcements about staffing up here in the Philippines. But a lot of people are asking where will they come from?

Based on research being produced and/or complied by IBPAP, we are seeing a widening of the talent gap between the number of seats available and the number of quality candidates to fulfill them. The Philippines is about to graduate hundreds of thousands of college students, yet so few of them will be ready to step right into a call center job. The government has made huge strides in partnering with the industry leader and higher education to create courses that will help fuel the demand, but its not nearly enough.

And to make things even more interesting, we are seeing a lot of mergers between bigger players (Convergys just acquired Stream) as they try to consolidate to offer more services to bigger clients abroad. So the big fish are eating well. However, the same cannot be said for a lot of the smaller BPOs.. most set up by Filipinos with the idea of capitalizing on the call center boom. But they are for the most part struggling as they either can’t find accounts or enough staff to fill the client requirements. The competition has never been more fierce when it comes to finding good people.

So where does that leave the industry? Is the pool big enough to supply the big fish like Convergys with 6K more employees? 2014, will be an important year in the evolution of the BPO industry in the Philippines.

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As for DMAI? We continue to grow quickly as we have a mostly work from home team that is almost completely made up of former call center agents who have walked away from higher pay for better work life balance. Is this the wave of the future? I think so!

Outsourcing Tip > Make NASA Jealous! Ensure You Have A Smooth Launch Of Your Outsourcing Efforts

The final area that I have seen countless outsourcing efforts fall short is in having a smooth launch. You have put so much time into sizing the opportunity, negotiating the contract, finding the right people, acquiring the technology you need and building a technique playbook, but you aren’t done yet. You still need to roll it out.

When it comes to outsourcing, there is one thing I have never, ever seen. And that is a full delivery of services, exactly as required on target and without any glitches.

Here are a few keys to ensuring that you go live and avert as many potential disasters as possible.
• First of all, have a risk minded person involved. Someone who is great at looking at something and then coming up with a laundry list of things that can go wrong. And then most importantly, have them in charge of eliminating or mitigating the risks.
• Second, have your processes, the workflow, escalation procedures, and other important documents in writing for the team. No battle plan survives first contact unscathed, but the battle will go much better with one.
• Third, brief everyone. Have a pre-kick off meeting, do a walk through, run lots of tests. Do whatever you can to mimic production so that people get used to having to make decisions just like they will when things are live.
• And finally, hapollo11ave a plan to celebrate. Let everyone know what awaits them if they pull everything off. Give them an extra reason to go an extra step. Everyone wants to be part of a winning team enjoying the celebration of a new start.

That is just a few ideas of what you can do to ensure your launch go as smooth a NASA’s putting a man on the moon!

Analytics Outsourcing – DMAIPH has successful set up Filipino analytics teams for over a dozen U.S. based businesses. Offering both virtual and office based teams that specialize in problem solving using data, new technology and analytics techniques is our strength. Finding and empowering analytics talent is increasingly challenging, but we have it down to a science. Contact DMAIPH now at analytics@dmaiph.com or connect with me directly to learn more about how to set up an analytics-centric team in the Philippines.

 

Outsourcing Tip > The Three T’s: Talent, Technology and Technique

I’ve been part of dozens of BPO team set ups and have directly implemented five this past year or so. In ALL five cases, we have had challenges because we didn’t have the right talent at launch, we didn’t have our technology lined up correctly and we didn’t have techniques in place to ensure a smooth transition of work and an optimal business flow.

Finding good talent here in the Philippines can be a difficult. I’ve blogged about this quite often, the skills gap is a major concern for the long-term success of outsourcing to the Philippines. There are so many good people with the right work ethic and the desire to learn, but so few of them are trained in a way that makes them day one ready to go in a call center environment. Making sure you have correctly identified the skills you need, allocating the appropriate recruiting resources, and building a pipeline to replenish loses and fuel expansion, is so much harder than it sounds.

In regards to technology, there are so many ways to connect clients, customers and operations here in the Philippines. The Cloud allows all sorts of processes to be easily shifted to remote staff and the culture in the Philippines is very tech driven, it’s a great match.

The challenge is sometimes the technology needed is not as easy to introduce as expected and telecommunications and online access very greatly across the country and the workforce. Having a tried and test technological solution and being prepared to deal with the connectivity issues will help assure a much smoother transition of work from abroad.

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Most call center operations I have worked with don’t have a clear concept of what they want the day-to-day to look like. The lift and shift approach where you just take a process from overseas and apply it here never works without adjustments. Many times you can find more optimal ways of doing things when you set up because you are able to look at the process end to end. Taking advantage of fully understandings the process being outsourced, documenting it and training on it with a clear plan are all keys to success.

So in conclusion, often what people assume would be the easy parts turn out to be the hardest when it comes to the talent, technology and technique needed to se up a successful outsourcing operation. DMAIPH specializes in helping call centers bring more data to their decision-making and ensure a more optimal approach.

Analytics Outsourcing – DMAIPH has successful set up Filipino analytics teams for over a dozen U.S. based businesses. Offering both virtual and office based teams that specialize in problem solving using data, new technology and analytics techniques is our strength. Finding and empowering analytics talent is increasingly challenging, but we have it down to a science. Contact DMAIPH now at analytics@dmaiph.com or connect with me directly to learn more about how to set up an analytics-centric team in the Philippines.