Outsourcing: West Corporation Interview (Part 3)

By guest author Tony Scott

New Offshore Centers For BPO?

Tony: Are you looking at the virtual model outside of the United States as well, or do you do pure brick-and-mortar offshore?

Matt: We have discussed it, but we haven’t pursued it at this point.

Tony: In terms of your workforce, what percentage of it is domestic versus offshore?

Matt: At present, we are about 90% domestic and 10% offshore. We have offshore facilities in the Philippines and Jamaica and are currently looking at the potential of other near-shore locations. However, our evaluation of other locations is always client-driven, meaning that we try to determine what locations will be the best for our clients in terms of pricing and quality. We are not going to offer our clients seats simply because we have seats that are underutilized in some location.

Tony: Have you seen increasing competition over the last year or two from outsourcing BPO companies in other locations beyond the traditional locations in India and the Philippines?

Matt: Egypt is an example as one that’s growing, and we have also seen a lot of growth in Central America. I think the saturation point in smaller Central American countries will happen pretty quickly. I think that Mexico is important from a bilingual standpoint since the U.S. Hispanic market is growing.

Tony: In terms of the call center locations that you’re looking at beyond the United States, are those locations driven primarily because of labor arbitrage or are you also looking at the bilingual capability, or a pure Spanish- or Portuguese-speaking capability, for example?

Matt: We want to be able to provide our clients some labor arbitrage when we go into any market. But when we do go into a market we want to take advantage of the demographics in that particular location. In the Philippines, where we are servicing customers in the United States during our day on a time shift basis, we look to see how we can take advantage of the time shift there and do back office and things of that nature during the night hours in the United States. In Latin countries we could potentially provide a bilingual agent at an attractive rate, but we could also provide a pure Spanish or Portuguese play at an even more attractive rate for customers that need that capability. We are always looking at maximizing our investments.

Tony: What percentage of the business that you have right now is predominantly labor rate arbitrage-driven versus value-added services that you might be providing?

Matt: That varies by vertical. As an example, there are certain verticals that, because of their involvement with the government or current economic conditions, are looking to maintain a domestic presence. There are other verticals where, because of cost constraints, they are first and foremost looking for labor arbitrage.

This segment is part 3 in the series : Outsourcing: West Corporation Interview
1 2 3 4 5 6