Thought Leaders in Outsourcing: Interview with John Meyer, CEO of Arise Virtual Solutions (Part 6)

Sramana Mitra: You mentioned Ireland as a region. How many people do you have working there?

John Meyer: Right now there are about 180 in Ireland and 1,400 in the U.K. In Canada we have about 3,000. So much is based on the customer and the acceptance of the customer. >>>

Thought Leaders in Outsourcing: Interview with John Meyer, CEO of Arise Virtual Solutions (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: What is the total population of people who are working through your system?

John Meyer: Right now the network is about 26,000 people. Some of it is seasonal. Right now we have a giant demand for retail because this is their big period, and a lot of e-commerce transactions are going on right now. So we bring in a bunch of people for retail. >>>

Thought Leaders in Outsourcing: Interview with John Meyer, CEO of Arise Virtual Solutions (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: Let’s talk about another customer scenario. When you introduced the model, you were very specific about certain people, like diabetics. What kinds of requirements are you seeing from your customers, and what do you do to source people with those kinds of profiles?

John Meyer: I mentioned referrals before, but we also use more traditional media to track people. We leverage the crowd. Some networks are self-propagating, because the more people you get and are treated well will tell everyone else, and it becomes a growing area. >>>

Thought Leaders in Outsourcing: Interview with John Meyer, CEO of Arise Virtual Solutions (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: I think there is a huge unmet need of women looking for flexible jobs while raising children. This is a category that is under-served and is looking for work, and looking for ways to make money and raise families. That is why it doesn’t surprise me that this is the bulk of your workforce. When I mentioned freelancers, you made a specific point in saying that they were home-based businesses. Why did you make that point? >>>

Thought Leaders in Outsourcing: Interview with John Meyer, CEO of Arise Virtual Solutions (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: You are providing a certain set of outsourced services to small businesses. Is that the business?

John Meyer: We actually do crowdsourcing. We strike a relationship with a very large telecom company. They say, “I have a need to have people answering their phones for me, either in customer service or in technical support, and I need 500 of these people.” We would go out and crowd-source people who have those specific skills and capabilities, we would certify to make sure they have those skills, and then we would contract with them to become part of our network in support of that telecom company. >>>

Thought Leaders in Outsourcing: Interview with John Meyer, CEO of Arise Virtual Solutions (Part 1)

John Meyer is the CEO of Arise Virtual Solutions, a leading company in the outsourcing/crowdsourcing industry. Arise connects individuals and companies with other companies to provide services such as customer service, sales, or technical service. John has previously served as CEO for Acxiom and as president of the Global Services group of Alcatel-Lucent, and he has more than 28 years of leadership experience. He holds an MBA from the University of Missouri and a BS in management from Pennsylvania State University. In this interview he goes into detail about Arise’s activity in the outsourcing industry, explaining how Arise helps companies find people to do part or all of their call center needs and the selection process involved with it. He also give us a few interesting stories of individuals who managed to grow a multimillion dollar business from scratch.

Sramana Mitra: John, let’s start with some of your personal background as well some background on Arise Virtual Solutions. >>>

Thought Leaders in Outsourcing: Interview with David DeWolf, CEO of 3Pillar Global (Part 7)

Sramana Mitra: But you have to be careful. Remember what happened in the media industry. All newspapers started giving out content free. At the beginning they hadn’t done that. If they had given some content free and had the kinds of payrolls and paid content strategies [they do now], giving some of it free and for the rest you would have to pay, they wouldn’t be in such a soup. Now they are trying to go for more viable business models. The problem with the market is that if at one point you make everything free and get people used to this free drug, people have a very hard time paying for it later. >>>

Thought Leaders in Outsourcing: Interview with David DeWolf, CEO of 3Pillar Global (Part 6)

Sramana Mitra: Based on what we have discussed so far, what trends are you observing and aligning yourself with?

David DeWolf: The biggest trends we are looking at are the trends of what traditional industries are doing. As we look at product development services, what we are noticing is that more and more traditional industries – services companies in the financial sector, in the media, or in healthcare – are becoming software companies. >>>