By guest author Tony Scott Jumping on the KPO Bandwagon and the Coming Shakeout Tony: Have you seen other competitors doing what you are doing? Alok: Yes, there are a lot of competitors now. Until 2004, when we created the term KPO, nobody knew this segment. But then what started happening in India in 2005
By guest author Tony Scott Global Delivery and Talent Acquisition Tony: Obviously, to do that kind of knowledge-based outsourcing requires specialized talent. How do you build that capability? Alok: We are hiring people in four centers: in India in New Delhi; in Shanghai; in Chile just north of Santiago to cover Latin America; and in
By guest author Tony Scott Knowledge Process Outsourcing: Labor Arbitrage or Value-Added Knowledge? Tony: So you are defining the market space as anything that’s a knowledge-based process? Alok: Yes, whatever is a knowledge process where you need domain expertise. Legal, consulting, and accounting and CFO-type solutions all require a lot of domain expertise. Investment banking
By guest author Tony Scott I recently talked with Alok Aggarwal, the chairman and cofounder of Evalueserve, a pioneer in providing knowledge process outsourcing (KPO) services, a term the company coined in 2003. Evalueserve is at the opposite end of the spectrum from typical call center outsourcing companies because its focus is providing customized research
By guest author Tony Scott Managing in a Truly Flat World Tony: Do you see your customer base continuing to be predominantly in the United States, or do you look to expand outside of the country with companies in other markets where offering a call center model might be attractive? Matt: Our clients will predominantly
By guest author Nalini Kumar Muppala The year 2010 promises to be an exciting year for smartphones, but it is easy to get carried away by all the talk about their power and capability. It is time to take a reality check. Not every player has had it easy competing in the smartphone market. For
By guest author Tony Scott Labor Arbitrage and Fully Burdened Costs Tony: What’s the general price differential that you have in terms of percentages between a domestic at-home agent versus a similar quality offshore agent? Matt: That depends on the market that you are in and the client program. The Philippines and Central America can
By guest author Nalini Kumar Muppala Retailers such as Target have recently started accepting coupons from smartphones. However, in much of the Western world one still has to make in-store electronic payments with a plastic card. Consumers in advanced mobile markets such as Japan and South Korea routinely pay using their phones.