Monthly Archives: September 2010

The Outsourcing Boat

September 24, 2010 by 123outsource
Categories: Of Interest | Tagged , | Leave a comment

It was a Thursday afternoon, or at least that is what I though in the dream. I was rowing my boat around San Francisco out of the bay and into the ocean. I rowed under the Golden Gate Bridge. There was a huge ship out there. It didn’t seem to be going anywhere. It just sat there — floating. What could it be? I rowed closer and closer. Remember that this is a dream, and I row fast in dreams. My boat glided at what must have been 40 miles per hour with very infrequent pulling on the oars. In about 20 seconds, I made it to the boat. It was in international waters. There was a dotted line in the ocean demarcating where the international lines were. In real life, it would have been a lot further away from land — thank god for dreams!

The boat had lots of people from India and the Philippines on it looking over the railing. They sent down ropes to hoist my boat up. Once I was on deck, I asked what they were doing in the boat. They said, “Oh, this is the Outsourcing Boat, we do outsourcing here. We couldn’t get our H1 to work in America, so we do all of our work in international waters here in this boat. Our clients can come visit us here if they want. They like the comfort of knowing where we are and who we are and meeting all of us.”

I said that it was good that people knew where they were, otherwise they might be thought of as a fly-by-night operation.
Sujata corrected me, “No, we are not a fly-by-night operation… we are a row-by-night operation.. this is the Outsourcing Boat, not the Outsourcing plane.” I said, “Wow, it is sort of like the Love Boat, except you do outsourcing!” Sujata once again corrected me and said, “Well, we love doing outsourcing!” Maybe it should be called the Love Outsourcing Boat or the S.S. H-1.

So, I was given a tour of the boat. The deck was for relaxing and eating, not to mention meeting with clients. I saw many bosses from American companies who were given a complimentary motorboat ride from the docks to meet project managers on the boat. They were enjoying this stylish way of getting their work done. I ordered a lemonade while on deck. Sujata instructed me to call the 800 number to get my lemonade. They didn’t have waiters on this boat, that job was outsourced to their call center downstairs.

Me: “Hi, I would like one lemonade”
Call Center: “No problem, one lemonade coming up”
Me: “Do you need to know what table I am at?”
Call Center: “No, my phone system shows that you are at table 41.”

Then, a guy with a gps-tracking device found my table and delivered my lemonade. Wow! They outsourced a waiter’s job!
Next, Sujata showed me what was going on below deck. We went into an elevator, and went down one floor. This was the IT floor. There were hundreds of smaller rooms filled with geeky looking people staring at computer screens. There were meeting rooms, server rooms, and even a few small kitchen rooms. After that, we went down another floor. That was the outsourced Accounting floor. There were chartered accountants from India specializing in U.S. taxation, payroll, and other bookkeeping tasks. The next floor down was getting closer to the boiler room (no pun intended). This was the call center floor. I met Anna. She was from a small island in the Philippines where they eat rice, fish and coconuts all day long. She wanted a more interesting life, so now she lives on a huge boat. Anna was the one who took my order for a lemonade. The next floor down was the actual boiler room.

Sujata said that every day she looked at the land and wondered what it would be like to step onto land in America. I told here that America is huge and there are so many vastly different places, each one of them very unique. Then I was driving through the desert in New Mexico. This is what happens when you dream — there is no logical connection between different parts of the dream.

When I woke up, I went to my dream journal and documented my whole adventure. I thought that maybe in real life someone should invent something like an Outsourcing Boat. It is a great way to get around the red tape of visa restrictions. Think of how much stronger the American economy could be if anyone could come and work here with no conditions! No more waiting forever for the plumber to come! The next day, I actually needed a plumber — I called the 800 number and the voice who received me said, “Hello, thank you for calling A1 Plumbing, this is Sujata, may I help you?”

You might also like:

If you hire happy people to interact with your staff
http://bpo.123outsource.net/2013/05/29/if-you-hire-happy-people-to-interact-with-your-staff/

Casual day at a call center in India
http://bpo.123outsource.net/2011/03/31/casual-day-at-a-call-center-in-india/

Is it better to have a large outsourcing house or a smart business?

September 24, 2010 by 123outsource
Categories: Management | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

The concept of having a smart business is largely ignored in the outsourcing world. People focus on being able to do certain tasks such as data entry, .net programming, web design, accounting, inbound call center, etc. But, there doesn’t seem to be much emphasis on being smart about what you do. Maybe there is not much emphasis on intelligence because there isn’t much intelligence out there.

Consultants can make more than a boss of a company with 20 employees very easily. A boss of grunt workers operates on a thin margin, and spends most of his time hiring, firing, and rehiring more grunts who work for minimal wages with very inefficient output. A consultant on the other hand can make $200 or more per hour which can translate into more than half a million per year if they are fine tuned at what they do. To prove yourself as a consultant you need references and a very stable track record!

Many programming or outsourcing houses that have lots of employees could really benefit from having an outsourcing consultant come in and give them a tune-up. A few hours per week could help to identify serious flaws in the organization’s customer service, and work habits. Additionally, a consultant could train management on how to train workers in areas that they are lacking!

Imagine a city with stores that come to you?

September 24, 2010 by 123outsource
Categories: Innovation | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

The problem with most urban centers is that they are build along a grid. Grids are no fun. Imagine building a city with internal loops. Downtown could be in a circle around a huge park that you could enjoy a latte in during your break, or just take a very long walk. But, what about residential areas? What if a huge loop that was several miles in circumference was built around high rise apartment buildings. Imagine that the road had stores on it. But, the stores didn’t stand still — they moved.

You could have a railway track and stores on trains. The stores could slowly move at half a mile per hour and make it to your neighborhood. If you worked from home, this would be a convenient way to go shopping. Need a new pair of jeans? The Levi’s store will be in your area at 3:15. Busy at 3:15? You can walk to it at 2:45 and then take a shared cab to your appointment. Everything is possible when we let our imaginations wander like children do. Personally, I go on long drives to other states, and I have plenty to think about!

What if there were miles and miles of gardens that you traversed on your way to wherever you were going? Transportation in cities is no fun. You wait at a dirty bus or train station that smells of urine, get in a cramped bus that has jerky stops, and get off, and have to walk crossing dangerous intersections and waiting for lights. Imagine that you could go wherever you are going by walking through an assortment of unique and beautiful gardens. Imagine that you had a choice of walking, riding a bike on a designated bike highway with no cars to run you off the road, or ride a Segway. Now, imagine that the Segway was something you didn’t need to buy, rent, or fill out paperwork for. You just ride it within the track, and get off after you finished using it and park it next to a wall? For those of you who have never seen a Segway, it is a device with two wheels on an axle that you stand on. Lean forwards and it goes forwards. It manages to stand up and not fall over through an internal balancing system — very high tech and very cool. Sure, it might take longer to get where you are going in the garden system, but it would smell better and be more fun too. Especially if there were different choices of paths you could take to work every day. That way you would see more diverse scenery each time and never get bored.

I also think it would be fun if the stores and cafes we went to were all in an endless sequence of diverse gardens. Who wants to cross pollution infested busy streets, hear honking and risk getting run over. I’d rather take a walk in the park, and buy my Levi’s in a store there.

The issue with small stores on a rotating track in a neighborhood is that they wouldn’t be able to fit much inventory. However, using the several decade old Japanese JIT (Just in Time) inventory distribution technique, they could restock their store several times a day on an as needed basis! Unusual — yes. I think that such a system would be very convenient and fun as well. Additionally, it would stimulate entrepreneurship since all of these tiny stores on the train track would be private businesses under the umbrella of city government management. Interesting idea!

My idea resembles the idea of the taco truck a bit. There is one block in Los Angeles near the museum where there are about eight different food trucks. Get Pho’, tacos, teriyaki, Thai food, or whatever else you can think of. Imagine a city where there is one street, or one part of town where there are one thousand food trucks, and each one of them is unique to a certain extent. Perhaps many serve tacos, but they each have different sauces, or something different about their tacos. In Los Angeles, we have Korean tacos which are the best I’ve had in my life. Forced diversity is interesting because it forces you to innovate. I hope you share my culinary fantasy!

Should you hire a domestic or foreign company?

September 24, 2010 by 123outsource
Categories: Outsourcing Articles | Tagged | Leave a comment

Should you hire a domestic or foreign company?
 
When you need a task done, it’s hard to know who to hire. It’s scary to think about hiring a company in a foreign country. What will they be like?  Will they cheat me?  Do they speak my language?  What I learned is that companies right here in the United States are very likely to cheat you, or have workers who don’t speak or spell properly in English.  Don’t base your judgment of a company based on location — get to know them!
 
Getting to know you!
Companies represent themselves in many ways. Some have a beautiful website, great sales staff, and many brag about the types of services they offer.  But, if you look more deeply you may discover a lot more. I suggest doing a lot of digging.  Some companies may have fantastic staff members for web design, but if you hire them for content development, they might only have one person who is multi-tasking. That one person might not be that great at content development. You need to get to know not only the salesman at the company, but the owners, managers, and whomever the employee is who will be working on your projects.
 
The wall of separation
Many companies like to keep their employees behind an impenetrable wall.  Let’s keep it impersonal, right? This might be a good thing or bad thing depending on what type of project you are working on.  If the workers are doing generic and repetitive tasks and are replaceable, then you might not need to get to know them.  But, what if you are working on a sensitive programming project!  It is imperative that you know the workers well if working on a sensitive project of any type.  If anything goes wrong, there will be a huge communication issue between you and the workers!  
 
To outsource or not to outsource?
This is funny, but I like to outsource certain tasks, while other tasks must stay here in America.  Why?  If I need direct communication with staff members, they have to be in California and they have to be friendly and willing to meet regularly with me.  I interviewed companies about an ASP project.  The companies here who said they did the work in-house turned out to be outsourcing the work to India.  They told me it would be a lot more expensive if I wanted to have regular face-to-face meetings with the programmers and that it would be “difficult”.  Hmmm, looks like they are hiding something.  Their workers are in Hyderabad, and that’s why it’s difficult to see them!  However, I found a good company that really does have an in-house programmer. They are seven hours away, but they are real, and the programmer is a great communicator.
 
Critical projects?
If you are working on work that is not so important, you can risk a newer company, a younger boss, and risk working with strangers in general. If something goes wrong, you won’t lose your business.   But, what about a really critical project? I would get someone who has been in business for a decade and who has staff who have a lot of experience who are not going anywhere.  Even if the company is overseas, a personal visit makes your work with them a lot safer and builds a psychic connection between you which is very important!

Conclusion
The bottom line is to hire a company that you feel very comfortable with no matter where they are.  Don’t let artificial national borders be barriers for your enterprise!

If you were Donald Trump, what would you do?

September 24, 2010 by 123outsource
Categories: Outsourcing Articles | Tagged | Leave a comment

Do you ever find yourself in tough business situations where you don’t know what to do. I have a very bizarre, but effective strategy. I like to read books by business geniouses like Donald Trump and Warren Buffet. Of course, everyone has a different opinions of the business brains of this generation, but these two are people who I admire for their thinking skills and refinement, not to mention common sense.

If you live in Asia somewhere, you might not know who are great business thinkers are in America, but it pays to go to the bookstore and read about them. Another great book is from ancient China — Sun Tze’s Art of War. You can learn a lot about war strategy here, and there are many parallels between business and war — especially if you do business with the type of people I do!

So, what about my crazy strategy. What is it?

Simply by putting yourself in the place of a mega-genious, you can pick up some of their genious. Does this make sense? It doesn’t, but it works none the less. If I pretend to be Donald Trump solving a difficult business equation, I will generally come up with a much more refined solution to my problem, than if I try to solve it by being my frustrated self. I picture myself being him, and thinking like him — I mull over complicated equations coming up with insights that he would have and opinions that he would have. I would say, “watch out for that — in the long run that could end your business relationship”. Or, I might say, “The price is right, but how much are you sacraficing in quality — is it worth it in the long run?”. Or, I might say, “This company offers great flexibility — you might have to sacrafice in other areas, but the flexibility is worth a lot”. Who knows what thoughts would come into my head by channeling into someone else’s consciousness.

So, next time you have a business decision or problem, just ask yourself…

If I were (insert name of great business man in your country), what would I do?

The manager took a call from his daughter when a prospect called him

September 24, 2010 by 123outsource
Categories: Of Interest | Tagged | Leave a comment

It is natural to care about your family. You should ideally care more for them than you do for anyone else! But, my assistant called a manager in India about a job we needed him to do. He interrupted our call to talk to his daughter and then forgot to call back. My assistant waited up for him for a long time. This is very irresponsible.

In India, people have a different idea about responsibility which is why they get in trouble with American clients. Americans don’t want their calls to be interrupted unless it is an emergency. This manager could have talked for 1 minute to his daughter, finished up with my assistant and then called his daughter back. There are ways to handle conflicting commitments without offending or inconveniencing anyone.

The result is that this particular manager in India is now off our list of prospective companies to hire. We think he is irresponsible, or just too busy to be able to handle a job from us.

We also heard another story about a young Indian guy who took a call during an interview. That is insane. That is an extremely unprofessional and disrespectful thing to do. Sometimes people lack common sense, but having sense can save you from losing clients.

The moral of the story is that if you interrupt a call with a prospective client, you will probably lose them. If someone has known you for a few months (a few weeks is not long enough), then you can put them on hold if necessary. You can take a few necessary liberties with people you know well, but not with strangers. Additionally, if you are in hot water with a client, don’t put them on hold. If you are already inches from being fired, putting them on hold for ten minutes could be the last straw that gets you fired for good.

Maid in Dubai Continued: an introduction to Maidalytics

September 24, 2010 by 123outsource
Categories: Of Interest | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

“If Dubai follows my advice, they’ll have it maid!”

Having a maid labor pool in Dubai
I wrote another piece about a strategy for having a government operated labor pool for maids in the Emirates )where Dubai is the largest city.) The basic idea was to have the government import prospective maids and provide dormitory accommodations for these ladies at no cost to the maids. The government would then charge a fee to employers in exchange for paying for the air transportation and interim lodging for these ladies. There might be an up front fee, plus a percentage of the maid fees for the first year or a fixed monthly fee for the first year.

On humorous note, Dubai will probably misinterpret my suggestion about having a maid labor pool and build a four acre, multi-billion dollar luxury swimming pool & Jacuzzi complex for their maids just to show off.

A problem solved
The problem is that currently families hire maids, sight unseen and sign multi-year contracts for maid service. The maid cannot legally leave the arrangement until the contract is over or risk imprisonment. This puts both parties at risk. The families have no idea if they will like the maid, and the maids don’t know how they will be treated by the family. Having a dormitory arrangement paid by the government would allow families to meet maids, and pick & choose. If a family didn’t like a particular maid, they could fire them, and the maid would have a place to stay at the dormitory. If a particular maid didn’t get picked for too long a time, or got fired too many times, the government would have the option to deport them and the airfare would be paid for by the government in my system as a courtesy to all parties involved. The expenses incurred by the government would be roughly compensated for by the fees charged to employers.

Maid Training
Since the Emirates aspires to be the best country that is, was, or ever will be, it makes sense that they might enjoy the idea of going to the next level managing their country. UAE is a country that is managed like a business, and the result is that they are not only prosperous, but very popular with folks from all around the world. It only makes sense that the government might ponder the idea of engaging in value added services that would make the lives of their citizens and upper class residents even better than it already is by using some innovative techniques that no other government has ever thought of.

In the UAE, maids are brought in from other countries with contracts. You cannot legally live in Dubai without employment, and you can’t get in the country unless you already have a job if you are a laborer. Upper class people have the cash to be able to come as a tourist to Dubai and make connections, but poor people don’t have that option. The basic problem is that an employer has no idea how good the maid is at their duties. Language compatibility is not always ideal either. There is also no guarantee that there won’t be personality clashes as well. If the relationship goes poorly, the maid has nowhere to go unless the employer pays for their return trip. Part of the solution is training and evaluation. Which facets should be taught though?

Laundry
This is an easy one. Most people know how to do laundry, but perhaps with a little instruction, their folding skills and ability to handle difficult situations might be enhanced.

Language
Maids coming to Dubai are typically from the Philippines, Pakistan or Ethiopia. They might know some English, but do they know Arabic? It makes sense that prospective maids are taught the language of their prospective employers to ensure that communication is smooth. Special attention to vocabulary relating to maid type duties could be emphasized during this training.

Cooking
Food is cultural. If a lady from Ethiopia is a master chef, but then comes to Abu Dhabi for a job, she might not know how to cook the local specialties. She might not have ever heard of these specialties. It might be nice if a government operated maid dormitory / school could teach them all of the local dishes, and perhaps a few dishes from India or other regions where employers might be from, or popular foreign dishes that they might like such as boeuf bourgignon!

Child-care
I know nothing about this because I am a guy, but there must be some advanced techniques for taking care of infants. Burping 101, diarrhea relief methodology, and crying reduction therapy.

Cleaning
Once again, this is not my department. Come to my apartment and you will be unpleasantly reminded that I’m not joking. Cleaning techniques can be complicated. There are many types of sprays, bleach, and scrubbing brushes. Knowing the right tools to use for particular tasks can be a daunting undertaking.

Maid Testing
Before a maid is given a long term assignment, I think that the government would be doing the community a huge service by testing these maids out, to ensure the highest likelihood of a happy experience as possible. Families who were willing to test maids out could be given a discount on maid service in exchange for their feedback which would be translated into analytics. Families could give a report card for each maid that they tried out for 3-7 days with scores for cooking skills, repetoire of recipes, language skills, personality, how good they were with small children and not so small children, cleaning, reliability, and responsibility. A simple survey with about 20 questions on a scale from one to ten with a comments section would be enough. It is a common mistake in the survey business to ask hundreds of questions and drive the survey taker crazy and leave no room for individualized comments. Short and simple wins the game in my opinion.

If the families testing these maids gave scores that differed drastically from other families offering feedback, they might be deemed to be unreliable in their analytics and dismissed from the testing program. Reliability in analytical feedback is critical, so you need individuals who systematically submit data that looks reasonable. I will note that personality analytics would be the one analytic that could vary extremely from person to person, so there is no way to know if that analytic is “reasonable” since some people get along well and others clash!

Each maid could be tested by four families before being dispatched on a real assignment. Although, I think it would be better if real assignments didn’t have any more than a week to week contract in the beginning, these assignments would be given with the intention of being long term.

Try four and pick the best.
It might even make better sense to let families try out four maids one after the other, and then pick the one they liked best. Each maid could be tried out for between one and four days. Families could even have the option to try as many maids as they wanted if they were willing to pay the associated fees involved in trying them and buying an “option” on the maids they liked. The maids would return to the dormitory for classes after their tryout was done to ensure that they would be available if picked. Once the family had sampled the work of each maid, they could pick the one they liked the most, and that one would be guaranteed to be available! What a system.

Scoring the maids using maidalytics (maid analytics)
Since these maids would have been tried out by many families and given scores, those scores could be tallied up and the maid could be assigned a score. Rather than clunky scores such as A, B, C, etc., it might be better to have scores on a 100 point scale with an explanation of how many percentage of maids are at each score level such as in the 70’s, or the 80’s, etc. If a family wanted a maid, they could request a maid with higher score if they were willing to pay more. Or, they could request a maid who was stronger in communication or culinary analytics if that is what they wanted.

Summary
The basic idea behind maidalytics is to ensure that families in Dubai get a maid that they will be ecstatic about. Why force people to be in miserable contract with a maid you can’t stand when you could get someone you adore? Using my very sensible system, families can get the optimal maid for them with minimal effort and no strings attached. Maids also have the right to quit if they feel a particular family doesn’t treat them kindly enough or works them too hard.

The Indian software trick

September 24, 2010 by 123outsource
Categories: India | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

It is amazing how dishonest so many companies are. In America they sell you on 20 hours a week when they don’t have a single hour available. Is it optimistic thinking? Are they just being unrealistic, or just plain dishonest? In India, they have different tricks. In India they have the hours, they just don’t necessarily want to allocate their best software developers to your dumb project.

Indians will try to pass off a beginner as a Senior Developer and charge you a higher rate. The problem for them is that I have them bid on a project as part of the screening. I know how long a senior developer takes on this type of project, so I can tell if they are either giving me a really slow senior developer, or a really inexperienced junior developer.

In any case, Indian companies who care about their reputation, as well as the reputation of their country should realize that India will get ahead much faster if they develop a reputation for honesty. Yes, most of the rest of the world is also crooked, but that doesn’t mean that you should be that way too.

Personally, I feel that government agencies should monitor what software companies do. There is too much fraud and trickery going on and it is just not funny. In the long run, honesty gets you long term reliable clients that you can grow your business with. Trickery gets you disgruntled clients who will dump you fast. How fast will your company grow if you lose your clients as fast as you get them?

You might also like:

How to ensure that the software company you hired will deliver
Click here

It is done — said the outsourced programmer
http://bpo.123outsource.net/2012/10/10/it-is-done-said-the-outsourced-programmer/

They got customers they never knew existed

September 23, 2010 by 123outsource
Categories: Marketing | Tagged | Leave a comment

Once upon a time, there was an outsourcing company in Mumbai called Cardamom coding. They were tired of being an inexpensive chop shop (or sweat shop — their AC broke.) So, they decided to do something more. Rather than engaging in a pursuit purely for the purpose of making money, they created a system that solved their customers most nagging problem. Service — reliable service with a smile.

The owner, Pratip, wanted to create an outsourcing system so convenient and pleasant that everyone would be happy. Little did he know that his door would be broken down by thousands of clients who he was unaware even existed. But, let’s stick to the story. By the way, this is just a story. There is no Pratip. Okay, there are many Pratips, but none like the one I am describing. At least not to my knowledge. And if there are, then I wish them the best of luck!

Pratip didn’t just do business. He listened.
He talked to his American, Brittish, Australian, and French clients. He learned about what they had to say. He felt their frustration. He empathized with their pain. He wanted to help, and he knew how. There was none of this, “But, how” nonsense with Pratip, because Pratip was a doer, not a talker. Okay, he was a talker, but he was ALSO a doer, and that is what matters. The main complaints that his overseas clients had were that they couldn’t communicate effectively with the workers. The writing and pronunciation skills of his programmers was dismal. His staff in reception were better, but not that much better. Follow up communications were never on time. And sometimes programmers got stuck on easy problems and didn’t follow directions. There must be a solution!

24 hours service — well almost.
Pratip decided to not only solve these problems, but more. He created a company so nice, that people wanted to be there. Pratip’s new company was open 17 hours per day. You could call day or night and there would be people to answer the phone. This was mainly to accommodate the concerns of overseas clients who were on different time zones. The result was that Pratip got twice the amount of labor for the price of his rent, since every work station could be used for two shifts!

Enhanced communication
Pratip hired people to answer the phone who were very smooth in English. Sure, it cost him more, but he wanted to provide an experience. Customers could come visit without even asking, and there would be managers waiting to help. Additionally, there were people there to socialize with clients. You could hang out in the lounge and enjoy samosas while Vikas and Angeli would chat with you. This company gained many clients simply because of the rapport that was gained from the friendly and engaging staff.

He also hired staff to teach his programmers how to write better emails and how to stay in touch better with the clients giving them better feedback. He also hired more lower level managers to keep track of how far along everyone was with their projects so that customers could be contacted with details. In addition to customers receiving regular feedback emails every 24 to 48 hours, they got regular calls from Vikas and Angeli which involved a lot of enjoyable chit chat. These two socialite twins could talk knowledgeably and entertainingly about any topic under the sun, moon, and even topics regarding other planets such as the weather on Titan — that condensed methane rain is really something! He also hired higher level programmers to inspect the quality of coding and to clean up messy code. They had the squeakiest PHP code in all of India and foreign clients were very impressed.

Cardamom became the only company in the history of mankind to get work done on time, and correctly every time, and with a smile and some chatter. Soon Cardamom had more clients than it could handle. I guess you could say that Cardamom became too big for its pod! So, Pratip went that extra mile and started a second office in a resort town in India. His workers could enjoy a relaxed, ideal lifestyle while making a comfortable income. His clients could fly over, and take a vacation while having daily meetings with project managers while their work got done. The entire staff at Cardamom and their clients had loads of fun, and became the largest software company in all of India and the world.

Many years later, Cardamom decided to merge with another company called Cloves & Ginger. They moved to a tea plantation near Darjeeling. They had all of the ingredients of Chai, so they called their new company Chai Software — a software company so caffeinated that it never sleeps!

The End

This story is not real, but emphasizes how it is possible, and highly desirable for outsourcing companies to work a lot more on designing a wonderful customer experience. I get a soothing and calming experience whenever I go to a spa. Wouldn’t it be nice to get the same or even better experience when at an outsourcing company?

Outsource: A special economic zone for “Difficult Workers”

September 23, 2010 by 123outsource
Categories: Of Interest | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Have you ever wondered why there is so much unemployment in the land of opportunity? Is it because of outsourcing, automation, or is it the economy? Is it because the government makes it hard to hire people without paying minimum wage, liability insurance, unemployment insurance, payroll taxes, accounting, etc? What a headache! No wonder people want to outsource to Manila!

But, there are other reasons why unemployment is so high in America! Difficult workers! Many managers simply don’t know how to deal with difficult workers or don’t have the patience! It also might not be economical for them to deal with these stubborn workers. What if there were special government programs that were specifically designed to help deal with challenging types in the work place? Better yet, what if there were a special economic zone where unemployed people could go where they were guaranteed a job! Not necessarily a job they would love, but at least food on the table! Additionally, these impossible humans would be given some specialized education that would help them conquer their bad habits from within!

Types of difficult workers

(1) The late type.
Some workers are just late wherever they go. Maybe they operate on Middle Eastern time. People are always late in the Middle East you know. Maybe these workers should just pack up and move to Egypt? My solution is to have companies that the government pays to hire ONLY workers who show up late. The entire company could be configured to pay these workers based on productivity and NOT based on when they showed up. Or better yet, in order to gently refine the habits of “The habitually unpunctual”, there could be incremental small penalties for tardiness. A few pennies per minute during their first several months on the program. As time went on, the penalties could slowly increase. It takes months and years to reform bad habits, so let’s give these people a chance in an environment that is engineered to understand them.

(2) The argumentative type
Don’t get me wrong. The argumentative types are often late, and then will argue with you about how it is YOU who are the late one, or how YOU never told them that they had to be there at a specific time. With these types, everything needs to be in writing, otherwise you will lose the argument. But, imagine a company who is forced by the government to ONLY hire argumentative types? It might not be a nice place to work — HEY, IT’S a GREAT PLACE TO WORK — be quiet — no YOU be quiet…. but, they would at least not be unemployed and taking up food stamps. Instead, the government would give the company who hires them extra money as a reward for hiring these difficult people, and money for training them to be a little less argumentative — even though they are not argumentative — even though it is YOU who are the argumentative one and problem need the argue-reduction training more than they do.

(3) The careless type
A zone for these people already exists. It is called India. The entire country caters to careless people. You can’t paint a house in Tamil Nadu without spattering paint all over the walk-ways and the leaves of the trees. Has anyone ever heard of a drop-cloth? If people are too careless to hire, they need help! Special companies could be set up and given some funding by the government if they would just hire these careless types and try to keep an eye on them. Maybe they can learn to not make quite so many blunders with a little guidance!

(4) The missing deadlines type
If you have work that is not time sensitive, you might be able to work with these types of people. Some people come to work on time, but they can’t get any actual finished products delivered on time. What can you do? Special companies would be created to give work specifically to people who miss deadlines. That describes 90% of Americans, so this special economic zone will be a place where you won’t be lonely for long!

(5) Liars and cheaters
Good god. This group is larger than you think. Good luck trying to work with them. Special companies that monitor their workers carefully would be set up to hire these people.

(6) The drama type
Do you know people who are always stimulating, creating, or nourishing dramas in the work place? There is always a problem, or a scare with this type. You have to have a degree in Psychiatry to know how to deal with them.

(7) The slacker type
There are people who come to work on time, but the minute you stop watching them, they slack off. Such people need to be paid by the job. If you pay them by the hour, pay them based on what their productivity was the last month. If they did almost nothing, then pay them almost nothing. Minimum wage makes it impossible to hire such people, so our economic zone will not have a minimum wage. If you are worth $1 per hour, then that is what you get paid!

(8) The not following directions type.
You need to keep an eye on these people 24/7. The minute you stop watching them, they are going off on a tangent. Special following directions exercises need to be given to them to keep them sharp. Following directions is a skill that many of us are not good at. Those who are worst at it need to be helped! Otherwise unemployment will be through the roof.

Jobs? What types of jobs could be given?
Any type of jobs. Just because someone is a difficult worker, doesn’t make them any less intelligent than anyone else. I know tons of very gifted people who are like pulling teeth to work with. They all have trouble holding jobs, but they are all excellent at all of the tasks I give them. So, what gives? Quality of work is only one analytic. Coming to work on time, and getting things done on time is another aspect of work. Manufacturing, programming, teaching, writing, office work, and car repair are examples of jobs that could be dispatched in this zone. Ideally, this Special Economic Zone would have every conceivable type of work, so that the maximum number of people could be helped!

The goals behind this zone would be:
(1) To give jobs to people who might be able to function under specialized supervision
(2) To help unemployed people fix the problems that are within them that cause them to be unemployed.
This would reduce unemployment and benefit society in many ways.

You might also like:

Special economic zone for insourcing in Oklahoma
http://bpo.123outsource.net/2013/09/04/a-special-economic-zone-idea-for-insourcing-in-oklahoma/

A free economic zone in America?
http://bpo.123outsource.net/2013/08/03/a-free-economic-zone-in-america/

Improper tagging habits have cost me thousands!

September 23, 2010 by 123outsource
Categories: Social Media | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

After four years, I came to a realization. Improper tagging habits have cost me thousands!

I have been involved in social media for four years. I hired an outside firm to help me with my Twitter, Facebook, Linked In, and other social media tasks. I do my own blogging, and enjoy it thoroughly. I do it myself because others can’t do it. Others can’t think of interesting ideas and write about them. Professional bloggers want to charge an arm and a leg, yet can’t deliver consistent good results. How sad!

After several years, I wanted to become smarter about social media, so I created my own twitter account that only I would have access to. I wanted to experiment with different types of tweets and see what worked. When I give tweets to the marketing firm that handles my Twitter, I have to give the tweets to them weeks before those tweets will be published. So, there is a huge delay in seeing what works, what doesn’t, and why! I typically will give them 80 tweets all at once labeled, “May 2014 Outsourcing Tweets” and arrange them by the day.” This system works well for the operators who input my tweets into the system. But, my personal Twitter lets me get results right away.

I can tweet the same four variations of the same tweet and see which one is most popular. I can also experiment with a variety of different tags and see which one helps the most! After four years of social media involvement, I am finally beginning to understand that my tagging strategy has been horrible. The reason why is that I never got immediate feedback from my experiments. Now, I’m able to get at least double the retweets, favorites, and interactions for each tweet simply due to my optimized tagging strategy.

I learned a lot about tags on Google. You can look up tags for specific industries, try them all out, and see which get you a better following. For the travel industry, the normal tags are #travel and #traveltip, but #ttot and #tbex, #lp, #nomnom for foodie topics, #traveltuesday and a few others worked well. You can look up tags yourself and find out what works. If you get retweeted from someone whofound you on a particular tag search result on Twitter, you might be able to maintain a presence there for a longer period of time, which could help you gain more followers!

One of my biggest problems with Twitter has nothing to do with Twitter. Two of my twitter accounts are in niche markets. The audience for my services are very small, especially since in those two markets, but followers don’t seem to like Twitter (not sure why.) The only way to get followers is to reach out into larger markets. I run an outsourcing twitter for example. There are very few active members in that industry on Twitter. But, by using more general business tags like #business, #marketing, #management, #motivation, etc., I am able to get seen, at least for a few minutes on keyword search results on Twitter, and that has gotten me a lot of retweets! Obviously, don’t use tags recklessly, the tag has to fit the tweet, otherwise you won’t get retweeted on the search results for that tag. But, experiment because you don’t know who is watching the search results.

There are internet “trolls” who sit and watch twitter search result feeds all day long. Some of them might like you and might retweet you regularly — it is a very personal thing. Even if your tweet doesn’t exactly match the tag, if the trolls hold you in high regard, they will retweet you. I sometimes tweet about travel topics and get retweeted by #foodie types. Food and travel are related topics that go together, but are not the same. People who travel typically like to enjoy some good street food, or an unusual gourmet restaurant. So, don’t prejudge – experiment with tags, and have your employees do the same. Make sure your employees document their results so you can see what type of results they are getting.

Outsourcing Attorneys using LPO Companies

September 23, 2010 by 123outsource
Categories: LPO | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Outsourcing Attorneys & LPO Companies
 
Legal costs in the United States are high enough to make a grown man cry.   I need to talk to an attorney in Los Angeles, and costs were around $350 per hour and up.  Just to have them give me a quick consultation and write a letter would be $750 and up.  I learned that attorneys were cheaper in Texas at around $200 per hour, and I outsourced work to Texas for some corporate minutes paperwork a few years ago. 
 
Many aspects of legal work are just going to be expensive, and can not be outsourced to an LPO company in India.  Many American clients are unwilling to have inexperienced attorneys do any of their work, which drives the price up even more.  But for a very affordable price, you can hire law firms in Delhi or Bangalore to do document reviews, litigation support, document drafting, legal research, and many other labor intensive tasks. 
 
Another advantage of Legal Process Outsourcing is that you can hire a team in India instead of an individual in the USA.  You can get multiple opinions, and several people could be looking for evidence in a huge pile of paperwork that are working all at once.  The time necessary to get a result might be much faster and cheaper this way.
 
Many LPO companies in India are hiring experienced American attorneys to work for them, so you might be getting very seasoned service from India which you might not be expecting.    If you can’t afford your legal expenses in America, consider hiring a company in Delhi or at least getting to know them a little bit