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by: ZigfredDiaz
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Next to India, the hottest destination for business process outsourcing is undoubtedly the Philippines. A lot of call centers and other business process outsourcing ventures have cropped up all over the country. More than half of the available jobs advertised in the newspapers are business process outsourcing jobs. Instead of being stagnant because of the dwindling dollar, our export sector has exhibited growth due to business brought about by business process outsourcing. With these in mind, it seems that putting up call center seems very lucrative.

Due to this development, we thought of putting up a call center. However as we studied the call center business more extensively, we learned a lot of things that dispelled our misconceptions about call centers. These are as follows:

1.) Operating a Call Center still follows the traditional business processes - Contrary to what most people believe, Operating a call center does not spell instant big bucks in a short period of time. Just because the demand in the market is so big and because you are earning dollars does not necessarily follow instant profits.

A feasibility showed to us that it is only in the second year that the call center will start to profit. During the first year the business has to incur losses or only reach a break even similar to any kind of business where it is not expected that you profit immediately. Sacrifices have to be made within a certain period. You also need to have a good management team just as in any other traditional business. A lot of small time call center operations had declared bancruptcy due to mismanagement. What is most important also is that you have a good Human resource department as this is often referred to as the heart of call center operations.

2.) Running a Call center requires intensive Capitalization - There are those who believe that putting up a call center requires only a very small amount of. They think that you can just just rent a small space and link together a bunch of computer in a network and to the internet and then start operating. Operating a call center is not as simple as most people think. You have to burn a lot of money. We were told that the dialing software alone cost more than a million pesos. Aside from the computers themselves you will have to get licensed copies of Windows XP plus you have to set up other stuff like your server, ensure that you have a good, stable internet connection and buy the i.p telephones that agents use.

3.) Call center operations requires intensive marketing - Some people think that because there is so much demand for call centers they can just build a call center and expect clients to come. This kind of thinking is very erroneous. Clients are not just looking for "call centers" per se. They are looking for reputable call centers. Call centers that can deliver services that their clients wants them to deliver. As a new player, you will have to establish yourself as somebody who is reputable.

This is not a problem for big call centers. They get clients easily because they have established themselves as reputable. But not so for small players. What most small call centers usually do is get the outbound first (By outbound we mean that call center agents calls persons abroad to try to sell something or offer a service. On the other hand inbound refers to catering to the needs of existing clients of big companies who outsource their services) Although there is money to be made in outbound, it should be noted that most outbound agreements are usually performance basis. If you go for outbound you defintely make money if your agents are good sellers. Otherwise you loose. It is therefore logical that it may probably take some time for small players to establish themselves as reputable and trustworthy with the outbound before they can be entrusted with the inbound.

Before you join the bandwagon of the business process outsourcing industry especially call center operations keep all of these things in mind.

About the Author

Zigfred Diaz may not write about business process outsourcing always, but he blogs on business and entrepreneurship from time to time. He also blogs about financial management and How to invest in the Philippine stock market.

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