The 2008 European Outsourcing Summit

Transcription

1 The 2008 European Outsourcing Summit Outsourcing Destinations for European Companies Ahmed Aboul Ezz HR Resourcing Manager Xceed

2 Ahmed Aboul Ezz Mr. Aboulezz has over 12 years of solid experience in the field of operations and customer service. He has a vast international exposure in being employed by multinational companies operating in North America, Canada, Europe and the UK. He is currently working as the HR Resourcing Manager for Xceed responsible for the sourcing of the Call Center agents and its support functions needed to fulfill Xceed s customer needs.

3 Outsourcing destinations for European Companies/Oct. 16, 2008

4 Introduction Outline Outsourcing Key Decision Drivers Offshore Outsourcing Destinations India Philippines Nearshore Outsourcing Destinations Eastern Europe North Africa Tunisia Morocco Egypt The Right Outsourcing Decision Cultural Affinity & Customer Satisfaction Key Takeaways Q & A

5 IAOP Presents The 2008 European Outsourcing Summit October IESE Business School, University of Navarra Barcelona Spain Outsourcing destinations for European Companies A discussion of popular destinations of choice for European companies near shore (intra-eu, European continent), far shore (India, China), emerging areas (South Africa, South America) where Europe has stronger economic ties. What are the challenges and opportunities to be gained from these destinations in context of European work? By Ahmed Refky, Senior VP - Xceed

6 Ahmed Refky,, Senior VP Xceed Ahmed Refky, Senior VP Xceed - responsible for defining and implementing Xceed's vision and strategy in the area of contact center outsourcing, IT enabled services and Professional Services. Xceed is a fast growing global provider of quality, multi lingual Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) services, offering integrated customer care, technical support and associated back-office processing for commercial and governmental clients worldwide.

7 Outsourcing Key Decision Drivers Outsourcing has become a universal business practice with different value propositions for different locations. The cost benefit should be a mere given but there is more to the value than just seeking optimum operational cost reduction. The focus for European Companies should be multilingualism and cultural affinity.

8 Outsourcing Destinations for European Companies An examination of some of the most popular offshore and nearshore emerging destinations in which cost savings exist and subsist on their value prepositions. India Philippines Eastern Europe Tunisia Morocco Egypt

9 Offshore Outsourcing India India has always been the benchmark by which offshore outsourcing is measured. It offers one of the lowest cost structures along with a large scale skilled force. However the value proposition abates when sophisticated infrastructure or multilingual capabilities are required.

10 Offshore Outsourcing Philippines The Philippines offer significantly low costs, work force scalability and government incentives. However there are concerns associated with country s risk profile. The Political unrest, security breaches and the data theft are considered key risk factors when outsourcing to the Philippines.

11 NearShore Outsourcing Eastern Europe Poland, Romania, Ukraine and Czech are examples of some already European destinations. The geographical and cultural proximity to Western Europe is considered one of the main advantages. In addition to, very few language barriers. However, the access to an open labor market in western Europe lead to the tightening of the labor market and wage inflation.

12 NearShore Outsourcing North Africa North Africa is one of the emerging offshore locations that recently rose in various rankings such as AT Kearney's Location Attractiveness Index. Tunisia, Morocco and Egypt are competing with Eastern Europe due to the low costs, high language skills and keeping the required culture affinity.

13 Near Shore Outsourcing Tunisia With a population of 1o million, its very obvious than Tunisia has very limited scalability. Therefore, it could serve as an optimal destination accommodating high end technical programs with limited numbers and slow ramp ups. Tunisia is predominantly serving France.

14 Near Shore Outsourcing Morocco French companies are the number one client served in French language, however other European languages also exist. Moroccan call center activity is rich with outbound programs, such as telesales and telemarketing.

15 Near Shore Outsourcing Egypt Egypt is serving most of the European languages to prominent pan European countries, though it is still perceived as an Anglophone destination. Egypt s scalability within the educated and skilled population as well as the sound infrastructure enables it to serve the European countries in a very adequate level. Cairo, Egypt has been ranked eleven (11) by the Tholons Study: Top 50 Emerging Outsourcing Cities.

16 Markets Comparison Datamonitor 2007

17 Markets Comparison Datamonitor 2007

18 Multilingualism & Cultural Affinity The two strong evidences that a European Company may examine, and are the actual subject of this synopsis: multilingual capabilities and cultural affinity. A high quality customer experience with the local sound A scalable, well educated multilingual pool is a must for European countries and accent neutrality is a given. The cultural affinity in the outsourcing world became a key aspect, especially if dealing with an offshore call center project.

19 Cultural Affinity & Customer Satisfaction Cultural Training should not only consider the cultural affinity acquired due to the commercial sophistication of the labor working in the niche market of call centers; but also the business culture of the buyer. The business teams involved during the implementation stage and most of all the client relationship management part of the project itself, those teams must be handpicked to suit the client s culture from a business perspective. The cultural compatibility element is needed to gain the targeted customer satisfaction levels.

20 The Right Outsourcing Decision The Right Outsourcing Decision Cost Geographical Proximity Sound Infrastructure Political Stability Government Incentives Security (Information Security Breaches) Scalability Multilingual Capabilities Cultural Affinity

21 Key Takeaways Falling to satisfy the culture compatibility on a due diligence check at any of the business levels must not be underestimated as in many cases the service had to reach a complete halt after serious glitches caused by cultural unawareness. Cultural affinity must be evident throughout the client relationship cycle starting from the sales team and ending up with the vendor account management team not restricted to agents cultural training.

22 Thank you

23 Q & A