| TeleTech Holdings: Human Capital |
| Corporate Spotlight | |||
| Written by John Zorabedian | |||
| Tuesday, 01 April 2008 | |||
 This business process outsourcing company leverages its broad reach and international workforce to service global customers.
 ohn Damian, senior VP of business development John Damian, senior vice president of business development at TeleTech, said global companies are looking for higher quality and more cost effectiveness than is commonly found in India. “There is a flight to quality that’s going from India to the Philippines in a big way,” Damian said. “What we’re seeing right now is a big strategic move by companies that were once doing business in India and are now looking outside of India. From a cost perspective, the Philippines is a very attractive place these folks are looking at.” TeleTech is not pulling out of India entirely, although in November, the company sold its 60% stake in TeleTech Services India to Aegis BPO for $7.78 million. TeleTech’s business strategy is to invest heavily in offshore operations globally, providing clients with a broad array of service options in various geographic locations, including operations on all continents save Antarctica. “Being one of the largest players in the BPO space gives us the flexibility of geographic diversity,” he said. “A smaller player is not going to be able to do this.” A frequent visitor to the company’s operations in the Philippines, Damian said providing tours to clients is one way TeleTech reassures them that their own customers are being handled with care and quality connections. Noting that outsourcing of back-office functions and customer services is still relatively new, Damian said reassuring customers is important to growing TeleTech’s business. “What puts the customers over the top is when they see the quality that’s actually there and how the calls are being handled.” The company’s focus on recruitment and retention of employees at its global delivery centers includes a training program that intends to create the “look and feel” of the client company, to make customer services abroad almost indistinguishable from centers in the US or by the client company’s direct employees. It’s a tall order, but the proof is measured in results—TeleTech has posted double-digit growth for each of the last nine quarters. Selling service BPO is not limited to customer service, but includes a wide range of front- and back-office processes, including human resources, payment processing, and other services. At its field locations, TeleTech employees handle outgoing as well as incoming inquiries and an increasing number of customer e-mails or online chats. The company’s focus is on business clients among the largest in the world in financial services, telecommunications, retail, healthcare, and other vertical industries. TeleTech’s aggressive growth can be at least partly attributed to its sales division, which is divided into units by geography and industry. Salespeople are also divided into those selling services to existing clients and those drumming up new business. “We have in our sales organization a group that sells to nothing but the existing customers and another group selling to new clients,” Damian said. “We feel that there’s radically different skill sets between those two, between a hunter and a farmer.” TeleTech also tailors its offerings to its clients’ needs, providing dedicated training to client employees as well as its internal employees to enhance, customize, and unify the customer service experience for the clients’ customers. “Very few companies that are large, global companies—the key market segment we go after—outsource 100%,” Damian explained. Global banks, cable companies, and telecoms may have multiple inhouse centers of their own, in addition to outsourcing abroad. To grab a larger share of the clients’ outsourcing, TeleTech sells its product offerings on quality of employees, the efficiency of its technology, and the variety of geographic locations. “What differentiates us in the market is we can get the right talent, get them to stay, and pay them appropriately,” Damian said. “It’s very attractive in the bundled BPO offering, but companies that might have tens of thousands of their own service employees are also coming to us.” The company’s global centers are all connected by a virtual, voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) networks, ensuring quality and cost-effective connections anywhere in the world. TeleTech spent $250 million on its technology infrastructure, Damian said. “This scalable, enabling 2.0 technology is extremely important to our global delivery capabilities and contributes enormously to our success—we win business because we can ramp and scale faster than our competitors,” he said. And through its consistently applied training and operating processes, the company guarantees consistent service no matter where in the world its employees are based. “The associates feel and act and look as if they are employees of the big, global company that they support,” Damian said. “When we open up our 91st delivery center in Manchester, England this month, it’s going to have all of the same quality, the same workforce management tools, the same technology. A center in the Philippines is going to look and feel the same as one in Canada, Argentina, the US, anywhere in the world.” Finally, what makes its customer services so competitive is TeleTech’s ability to retain its workforce through incentive pay, on site services for employees such as healthcare, English training and advancement opportunities. “If you’re churning through your staff and they’re leaving, then you just aren’t going to have the quality,” Damian said. |
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© 2008 American Executive - RedCoat Publishing. All rights reserved.
American Executive is a RedCoat Publishing publication.
American Executive is a RedCoat Publishing publication.
