Tag Archives: Outsourcing

Bait and switch practices at outsourcing companies

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It is common for companies to tell prospective clients pleasant things to get their to sign a contract. However, once you read the actual contract it might be a lot less pleasant than what the salesperson talked about.

I had one company tell me that I could purchase as many hours of programming as I liked in a month providing I prepayed. I thought this was reasonable. When I received the contract, they were asking for a 40 hour per month contract which turned out to be their minimum order. The hourly price was right, but the minimum was crazy. My project is a small one that needs about 5-12 hours per month on an ongoing basis.

I told the provider that if they did a good job on the “test” project, that I had other projects in the pipeline that I would give them. However, they wanted to do the test only if I would upgrade to 40 hours per month soon after that.

I wish they would have told me about the minimum up front so I could have spent my time talking to the other companies on my list.

In any case, the process of choosing an outsourcing service provider is hard. The deeper you dig, and more people at the company you talk to — you will find that the story keeps changing. You need to know what you are getting at an outsourcing company BEFORE you sign anything. Additionally, for smaller projects, I am not sure that signing a contract is in your favor. It binds you to a legal relationship with a company that you might not even like.

The one out of three rule

Categories: Hiring & Firing, Outsourcing Articles | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

It seems to be the case in most companies that engage in some sort of outsourcing. I noticed that 1 out of 3 workers seems to do their work in a way that I like. If I try six workers at a company for various tasks, I will like 2. Is it possible to find a company where everyone is amazing? I wish! Well, my company hires amazing people, so with us, you can have your cake and eat it to! But, we are special in case you didn’t notice (or, at least we like to think we are).

Even at a place that offered chiropractic work, I noticed that I liked exactly 1 out of 3 of the practitioners. Bizarre. So, there is merit to the 1 out of 3 rule. The trick is to make sure you are ALWAYS working with workers who are favorable to you. If you do, the you will:

Have good dreams at night.
Feel happier
Notice that you start whistling for no apparant reason
Do nice deeds for other without your usual ulterior motivations
And more…

Hire the right people and be happy!

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Hiring people who can really think

What is your back up plan for outsourcing?

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Do you do outsourcing? Do you have a new company who you are assigning processes to? I understand how you feel. Or, perhaps you have a company that you have hired for years. Perhaps that trusty company is pretty good. Or, perhaps they have a number of employees who are above average, and some more who are masters of disaster! Sound familiar? Am I preaching to the choir?

My experience tells me that you need a back up plan. That way, if your main service provider starts being unreliable or playing games, you have a leg to stand on and a boat with a paddle on the Rhone. The problem is as follows. Let’s say that you have a mediocre service provider. Most service providers are mediocre — even the ones who charge more than average. Let’s say that these mediocre folks go down hill and become “Sub-mediocre”, if there is such a term. Or, let’s say that you raised your standards and want above average people working for you for a change.

So, you shop around, and you find nothing but MORE mediocre companies at best. At least, the ones who answer their phones are mediocre, but most don’t even answer their phones. You keep shopping. You decide that you need to talk to 300 companies. You can’t FIND 300 companies. You spend days, weeks, months looking for better companies. Is it this difficult? If you want a list of back up companies who get an A or a B then yes, it is that difficult. Be prepared for some major shopping around. Most companies are run by over-worked managers who can not tend to all of the details of running a company well. the other companies are run by people who either don’t know, or don’t care how to run their company well. Good luck finding a back up plan — you’ll need more than good luck.

If all else fails, resort to prayer.

There is an expression created by a linguistic comedian. It is in French, but means nothing in French. It sounds more like English with a thick French accent. It sounds like: “Paddle your own canoe.” It means — Not their Rhone that we — or perhaps — We are not their Rhone river.

If your outsourcing company fails you and you have no back up plan, you will feel like you are in a boat without a paddle in the Rhone river — helpless — floating — and without a prayer. However, I recommend that you have a back up plan so that you can:

“Pas de leur Rhone Que Nous”

Offshoring & Outsourcin​g — which country is right for your company to offshore to?

Categories: Outsourcing Articles | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

The world of outsourcing is baffling. So many of these companies out there are unprofessional and fly-by-nights. If you look at outsourcing directories, many host companies with disconnected phone numbers, or companies whose websites are long gone. It is a scary world, and is like a jungle. So, how do you play the game? First, find stable companies that have longevity and you will be safer. Get to know the company bosses who you will be dealing with as well. Visit these companies in person if the work you are giving them matters a lot. But, what country should you target?

India – My personal experience has been with India.
I live in Los Angeles where we have boatloads of people from all over Asia and Latin America. I am familiar with all of their cultures since I’m amongst them on a daily basis. But, I have not sampled life in their countries except for Taiwan which does more electronics and manufacturing and doesn’t engage much in the type of outsourcing tasks that we promote on 123outsource.net. India has more companies doing the type of outsourcing tasks that we promote than any other country, and they seek work more agressively than other countries as well.

Honestly, India is a very sloppy country where there is a hair raising incompetent way of doing everything. There are no doors on the inner city trains, so people can fall out and die (and they frequently do). Instead of picking a number at a hospital, you sit in a row of 50 chairs and play leap frog everytime the person in the front of the line is picked. All 49 of the remaning people move over one seat. At the airport, they always inspect my passport and then lose it under a bunch of papers — or drop it on the floor and then can’t find it (as a matter of practice). I always get diarrhea, food poisening or dyssentary almost every trip to India — otherwise I start asking why I didn’t experience any gastro-intestinal disorders. It is common for the sidewalk repair people to just abandon a large pile of dirt or bricks for months at a time on the sidewalk. The only traffic rule that exists outside of Mumbai is that you bribe the cop if pulled over. No other rules apply — not even driving on the left which is merely a recommendation and not a hard fast rule (or so it seems). 70% of rick shaw drivers either try to cheat me or proudly announce that their meter is broken.

If you hire companies in India, you will be dealing with people who grew up in this mess that I began to describe. PROCEED WITH CAUTION. I’m not saying don’t offshore to India. The cost benefit is definately there, but you will be putting up with a lot more nonsense than in most other places. More than 90% of companies in India do not even announce their company name when answering the phone — how unprofessional. Workers in India usually have some technical skills (varying degrees of competency), but lack people skills. The owners have good people skills, but those are not the people who will be doing the actual work.

Philippines
The Filipinos are catching up in the technical outsourcing professions. There are more programming and internet marketing companies in the Philippines than before. They are known for call centers and they just overtook India as being #1 in the call center industry a year or two ago. Medical transcriptions are another profession that is popular in the Philippines. Filipinos have very good people skills, and there are many who have excellent English skills. For jobs that require communication, you could start your search here.

South Africa
There are many types of outsourcing companies in South Africa. We have found many web design companies, and companies that do a lot of translations, editing and writing. There are many high end people who will do very professional work for you for a great price in South Africa.

Kenya
There are some call centers sprouting up in Kenya. These are popular with British clients since the Kenyans speak British sounding English. You will find a large work force with great people skills in Kenya.

Costa Rica
Known for its cultural affinity with the west, many companies find it easier to do business with call centers and web design companies in Costa Rica. They are swimming distance (well, not quite) from Florida, and on a similar time zone as the Eastern United States. Once again, just like the Philippines, Costa Ricans have comparatively good communication skills and there are many with supurb artistic abilities too.

Argentina
This is a country that we found to not be very businesslike. However, the artistic skills seem to be the best in the world, and at bargain basement prices. Web design or any other type of design should be done in Argentina — at least they should be the 1st on your list.

Vietnam
I am about to try out a company who has one leg in the United States and another in Vietnam. I have no experience or knowledge about outsourcing to Vietnam. There are many programmers there, but English skills are somewhat limited based on what I have heard and experienced with Vietnamese living in California. I do not know how their technical skills typically compare to those at smaller companies in India. Is Vietnam a hidden outsourcing gem that few ever think about? We shall soon find out!

6 Habits of Successful Outsourcing Companies

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I have been talking on the phone to some of the most successful BPO outsourcing businesses in the market. I bet that you are very interested to know what I learned about their habits. There are those who beg for BPO “processes”, and those who get so much work, that it would make you dizzy. So, what is the difference?

(1) Knowledge at your fingertips
The larger and more successful BPO companies have someone knowledgeable answer the phone. The phone rarely goes to voice mail. The person you talk to on the other line can answer most of your preliminary questions, and make you feel confident that their BPO company can get the job done. The difference I see is that some companies have a very sophisticated and knowledgeable person who will talk to you, while others merely have someone “adequate”, who knows the basic answers. Some people at BPO offices I talked to sounded a bit bored, while others sounded like amazing people. I talked to one gentleman who had been a consultant who impressed me. I asked him how he learned to speak English so clearly. He told me how he did consulting all over the United States and London. He is a breed of his own, and guys like him would be too expensive for most of us to hire. But, if you want BPO business, hire someone really good to answer your phones.

(2) 24 hour phone answering?
I just talked to a company that does IT related BPO processes in Delhi the other day (my day — their night). The guy on the other end of the line sounded bored, but he spoke good English and answered all of my questions. His company had hundreds of workers, so they were doing many things right. I prefer to speak to exciting and fascinating people, but someone who gets the job done is much better than 95% of the OTHER outsourcing outfits do.

BPO Business these days is global. If you want to catch calls from other countries, it might matter WHERE your office is — however, it matters more WHEN your office is. If you have an office in Delhi and you answer your line all night long (which is daytime in America), then you can get American clients. You will need an American phone number so you don’t scare off the Yankies. Having an office for BPO in America with locals answering the phone will make you sound local, but to me, knowledge sells much more than having an uneducated blonde on the other end of the line. Have someone who can answer basic business questions who answers the phone. Don’t make prospects work to talk to a salesman. You wait on them, they shouldn’t have to wait for you.

(3) Having the staff to do the job
Big companies have large staffs. They have staffs of different levels of experience, and different specialties too. No matter what type of BPO job you throw at them, they have the availability to get the job done. If you want to get ahead in your outsourcing outfit, you had better have people who are ready to jump on new projects, otherwise you will not get the new projects. Think ahead.

(4) Being flexible
I have notice that many of the companies with 20-40 workers can be very rigid. They want tight contracts that protect THEM, but put their client in a very constricting position. I noticed that the larger BPO outfits are often more flexible about terms. Since they have such a huge staff at large companies, they don’t NEED to lock you into a constrictive contract. In any case, you should be in business to make life easy for your clients if you want to have enough clients to have 200 workers. Think like the big guys — do you think they don’t philosophize about how to please their clients better?

(5) Having higher level workers
Many companies that offer BPO in India have low-end staff, and perhaps a few senior workers who have four or five years experience. If you want to get serious clients, please consider having high-end staff available. Some projects require higher level skills, while some require a mixture of levels of skill. If you only have low-end people, you will scare off the serious clients. If you want to grow your business big, you need big clients, and big clients want smart workers. Think ahead! Big companies in India who do outsourcing have a higher percentage of high skilled people, and they are more accessible than in medium or smaller companies where those “experts” are likely to be tied up on some other project and too busy for your new clients. If you want to get clients like the big guys, give them some skilled workers. It makes all the difference.

(6) Good communication
Some companies in India have great workers, and write good emails, but have a horrible phone manner. Little BPO companies in India almost always are horrifying on the phone. No respectable client would hire them to even pour a cup of coffee with their bad communication skills. The bigger companies seem to have a much better command of phone etiquette and English. However, even many huge companies in India still are far from perfect on the phone — phone manners seem to be a problem across the board in India. But, I will say one thing: the larger BPO companies are MORE LIKELY to have staff with good English and good phone etiquette than the smaller companies.

Are Outsourcing Contracts Just Another Trap?

Categories: Management | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

Sometimes, people need contracts.

You need one if you are a millionaire and you suspect your wife is marrying you for your money. You need one if you are buying a property or an office and you don’t know the seller personally (or maybe even if you do). You should have one with an employee or an employer or an attorney or a contractor who performs a service .

What about outsourcing? How much contract do you need, and how much is too much?

We are living in a time when people do not trust each other, and even if they do, there is always doubt. Things seem to change in a moment. Even if you have known someone for years, some crisis may strike and you will need to have something in writing to document your original understanding and agreement. Also, people are under a great deal of stress and two parties do not always remember things the same way. Finally, if you are outsourcing, you may not be familiar with the other culture, and it is good to put certain agreements in writing. Actually, a contract can tell you quite a bit about the party you are doing business with. These are all good reasons to have a contract.

However, most contracts are too complex for a simple agreement, and are one-sided: they do not protect both parties equally. Such a contract may show that the outsourcing company just wants to make money, and isn’t really interested in a good business relationship at all. When you see a contract like this, you may get the feeling you would rather not do business with this company at all.

One company we proposed to outsource some IT work to insisted that we sign a contract even before we gave them a one-hour sample project, and one wanted a contract even before they quoted us on several projects. We felt uncomfortable; this seemed extreme.

If you feel you have a good connection with a company, they should be willing to do a few basic things for you without a contract so that you can see how they work. Of course, if it involves giving them codes or confidential information, you will want some kind of understanding in writing. But if you do not already have a good understanding with the company by talking to them on the phone or in person, no contract will make it better…and if you do have a good understanding with them, there is no need to put in writing anything more than that understanding of details you already have and maybe a few details you have questions about. If the contract makes both parties feel safe, it may work…but the best contracts are drawn up by the two parties together , after they have had a chance to work together.

A good basic contract should include the names of the companies, responsible parties (business managers, project managers, or whoever is communicating the information), the scope of the work to be done, the dates, approximate number of hours, the fees, and time frame in which the work is to be completed. If the contract is for a call center, it may include training procedures and specific dos and don’ts plus frequent conferences and feedback. But it is fruitless to create an extensive contract before you have had a chance to work with the company on a short project. If a company wants a huge time commitment at the beginning–until you see the results, it makes no sense to sign a contract that binds you to a certain number of hours or fees plus extra fees for circumstances you never even wanted to consider.

In our experience, lengthy and confusing legal contracts up front only serve to show that at least one of the parties has had bad experiences or has not fulfilled some part of the bargain in the past. If this is true, you might want to keep interviewing companies until you find one you have a good understanding with. Nine times out of ten, when you find the right company, they will be willing to do a test project without an extensive, constrictive contract. After a test project, you can sign anything you think is needed–because you will have an idea of who they really are and how the work gets done.

You might also like:

International contracts to watch out for!
http://bpo.123outsource.net/2013/10/14/i-refuse-to-sign-international-contracts-to-watch-out-for/

How to gain clients for call centers — contracts!
http://bpo.123outsource.net/2013/04/05/how-to-get-clients-for-call-centers-contracts/

The Outsourcing Boat

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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/

Outsource: A special economic zone for “Difficult Workers”

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/

Tata Consultancy opens plant in the U.S.

Categories: Outsourcing Articles | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

On September 14, 2012, the largest Indian software company, Tata Consultancy, opened an office in Bloomington, a suburb of Minneapolis, where it already has 1000 workers. The new 50,000 sq ft software facility will house 300 employees, 150 of whom are new to this Indian software company. Tata is doing this in part in response to comments by U.S. presidential candidates that outsourcing is taking jobs from U.S. workers. Tata plans to hire 2000 more U.S. employees by March, 2013. Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton said that the successful Indian software company Tata will become a “very important employer” in Bloomington. With headquarters in Mumbai, India, Tata has had offices in New York City since 1979, with a total of 18 offices throughout the U.S. This Indian software company also does outsourcing and is known worldwide for business solutions. Its revenue? Over 10 billion a year–with a profit of 2.2 billion.

Tata will receive a $500,000 loan from the state of Minnesota, half of which will be forgiven if Tata creates 150 new software jobs that earn at least $27 an hour. As of June, 2012, this Indian software company had almost 250,000 employees worldwide, so adding a few hundred–to forgive $250,000 in U.S. loan dollars–is entirely do-able.

In 1981, Tata established India’s first dedicated software research and development center in Pune. This Indian software company now has 183 offices in 43 countries. Application development and maintenance are 45% of its business. In the area of outsourcing, Tata’s BPO is the second largest BPO company in India, with a facility in the Philippines. Tata also ranks as the world’s 7th greenest company, according to Newsweek. Tata made 24,000 offers to new graduates at various IT colleges in India, and plans to hire a total of 37,000 engineers by the end of 2012.

Blog Title Optimization — This Can Revolutionize Your Blog Traffic!

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Secrets of “Title Optimization” on the Internet

What is Title Optimization?
If you are a blog writer who regularly consults Google Analytics, you will realize very quickly, that certain blog titles do better than others, EVEN when the content of the blog entry is weak. You might get endless traffic on a very simplistic blog that has a title that people just want to click on. You might even get repeat traffic on such a blog. Or, perhaps, it shows up well on Google because of the keyword phrases that you used in the title! Keyword variations are very competitive on Google, but keyword phrases with four words or more can get on the 1st page easily! (remember that)

How do you do Title Optimization?
The best strategy for blog title optimization is to just write lots of titles, and see which ones are getting clicked on the most. You could write a single article, and rewrite it slightly differently several times — each with a different title, and see which variation did the best. This is called, “Optimization”. For the sanity of your readers, I would space out these articles at least four days apart. See which variations did the best, and then create incoming links from other blog articles you wrote, and from pay-per-click sources on social media sites or other mediums to your blog entry.

My experience
I learned through trial and error, that you should write lots of different types of blog entries within your industry and areas of expertise. I wrote about 400 blog entries relating to the outsourcing industry as well as general management and marketing as these apply to outsourcing. What I learned was that roughly 5% of my articles became popular on Google. Not exactly viral, but they are getting seen and clicked on two years after the fact. These blog articles are generally about marketing your services or getting a job. However, one was about transportation — who would have guessed. Additionally, even though we know that marketing entries work well on my blog, we don’t know which titles will do well until we try them!

Try different titles, wait and see
Just try out different subject matters for blogs, and try different titles. You do not know which will become popular until you try. If someone links to your blog from their site or their blog, you could become an instant hit overnight! Just try different things and see what happens. Subject matter optimization is as important as title optimization. Subject matter is the general topic you are writing about, and certain topics will be more popular with your crowd than others. Pay attention to that! But, certain wording variations for titles work better than others, and you should make a study of which word combinations get the best results!

If something works — repeat your success
If you have a successful blog title, write different variations on a theme. Write other related articles on similar yet different topics. Those other articles could become popular too, and you can link these related articles to each other for better luck as well! My most popular article was about getting business for your call center. I have since written about 20 other articles with unique and specific tips for getting call center business. Many, but not all of those articles became popular in very little time.

You might also like:

The future of marketing is information
http://bpo.123outsource.net/2013/06/01/the-future-of-marketing-is-information/

The miracle of blogging
http://bpo.123outsource.net/2011/04/05/the-miracle-of-blogging/

Offshoring & Outsourcing — why does it happen and is it worth it?

Categories: Outsourcing Articles, Popular on Twitter, Semi-Popular | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Do you have a company that needs to outsource part of its busy work to another company to save time? It is hard hiring staff to do odds and ends, or busy work in America. Costs are high, people are lazy, and then you have to deal with payroll taxes, unemployment taxes, EDD, and more! What a pain!

The government doesn’t get it.
If they really want to stop all of the offshoring that is going on, instead of having RULES that stifle offshoring, they need to have incentives for INSHORING (if that is a word). All of these taxes, payroll rules, and minimum wages create high unemployment and make it risky to hire anyone. Labor laws make it difficult to fire someone without risking being sued for wrongful termination as well. If you combine all of these factors with the laziness and disrespect which is part of the modern American culture — a logical person will draw only one conclusion: Take it overseas — and fast!

In foreign countries, people ACTUALLY want to work.
I know this might sound hard to believe, but it is true, and I am an eye witness. People overseas might not have the work skills or communication skills that you want, but you can get lots of work done really cheap if you know who to go to and how to handle them.

Offshoring takes skill
Many Americans are afraid to outsource because they are afraid of what people in foreign countries will do with their work. This is a legitimate fear. There is an abundance of sloppy and unprofessional behavior. It can get so unprofessional that you will say, “What is wrong with these people?” frequently. However, if you find the right people who really want to work (sort through them), you will find that you can get work done at 20% of the cost, and often much faster than you could get it done here. In addition to needing skills picking a company, you need to know how to HANDLE them. I have taken many rick shaw rides in India, and you have to know all of their tricks and how to manipulate them instead of letting them screw you. Either you have to be a player, or you will get played. Overseas companies can be very unresponsive and uncooperative, not to mention sloppy. You need to know when to bribe them, when to threaten them, and when to pack up and leave them. It is a lot like how dating is if you live in a low income neighborhood. It is a jungle out there, so if you want to thrive, you need to know how to play the game.

Don’t fear foreigners — You can get screwed right here on domestic soil
The typical white American feels so comfortable with other white Americans and so uncomfortable when in a foreign environment. Your feelings have very little to do with reality. Sure, if your senses tell you that an individual is trouble, you very well might be right, but outsourcing is not something to fear — it is something to master. I have dealt with many American companies. Although they are more professional on the surface, they are notorious for not returning calls, not returning emails, keeping you waiting indefinately, and even outright cheating clients out of thousands. Remember: when you get screwed in India you get screwed out of Rupees (2 pennies per rupee). When you get screwed in America by middle class white Americans and you can lose thousands. The scale of proportion is very different and you can lose big right at home. People here cheat all the time. My personal experience is that you will get screwed twice as much in India as you will here, but the one time you get screwed here will be of a monetary value of 10x what you got taken for in India.

Basically, I recommend trying to do some outsourcing and offshoring. Start on a small scale and try some companies out until you find someone you like. If later on, they are too busy or become uncooperative, you can try some others out. In the long run, if you learn how to play the game, you will increase your profit margin in ways that you might previously have thought were unimaginable.

You might also like:

An emotional experience with a Russian outsourcing company
http://bpo.123outsource.net/2013/10/18/an-emotional-experience-with-a-russian-software-outsourcing-company/

Are you dealing with a broker or an owner?
http://bpo.123outsource.net/2013/09/16/are-you-dealing-with-a-broker-or-an-owner/

Not understanding #tags will cost you

Categories: Social Media | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Not understanding #tags will cost you!

In my experience of internet marketing over the years, tags are a topic matter that eludes me. I use tags daily in my blogs and twitter posts, but which tags to use is not that easy. What matters is knowing which tags will get you found.

Blogging Tags
On my blog, I noticed that tags that were too popular didn’t do me much good, because the search engines wouldn’t pick me up under those tags. So, I started trying to use multi-word tags which worked a bit better. Google is complicated and will pick you up under a combination of a tag and other text in your article making it hard to understand what type of strategy to use. If you use tags on your blog, they will do you good, but how they do you good will change over time and be hard to analyze.

Tweeting your blog tags
On a brighter note, your main tags that you use frequently on your blog should be tweeted at least every 2-4 months on Twitter. I make the mistake of tweeting only links to blog entries, but rarely to tags. Tweeting to tags needs to be something you do on schedule. Work it into your daily or weekly routine! My advice is to create your tweets long ahead of time, put them in a printout, and enter them on Twitter manually one by one. Maybe one tag per day and mix them up with your other tweets.

Twitter Tags
Which tag to use on Twitter is not something that makes “sense.” You use tags that get you retweeted somehow. There are many people that follow the feeds for particular tags and might like your content. If those people see you, they will retweet you. If those individuals happen to prefer one tag over another, you will win if you pick the tag that they like. Once again, there is no logic to what makes one tag better than the other. You have to experiment and find out what tags work in general for your account, and what tags work for particular types of tweets.

In general verses particular tweets.
Obviously a tweet about motivation needs a motivation tag. But, if you tweet regularly about general business topics. a business, management or marketing tag might work well for most of your tweets. I was tweeting about outsourcing which is a specialize business topic. I got an average of less than one retweet per post. The minute I started using tags, I started averaging two or three retweets or favorites per tweet. That is roughly four times as much as I was getting before. The quality of your tweet makes a night and day difference, but your choice of tags is equally important.

Now I get 4x the retweets
Once again, by using tags more innovatively and properly than before, I am getting roughly four times as many retweets as before. I am going to be happy watching my accounts skyrocket now! One already is!