Rural outsourcing - an emerging IT service

Rural outsourcing refers to a method in which jobs are transferred away from higher cost urban areas to lower cost rural areas.  With increased level of salaries to the employees, real estate prices, and high attrition rates has escalated costs incurred by the BPO industry.

Benefits of Rural outsourcing:

1. Lower cost of operations
2. Producing loyal and efficient employee base
3. Lower operating costs
4. Absence of communicational or cultural barriers
5. Lower attrition rates
6. Proximity to the clients
7. Shifting the main business of the rural areas from agriculture to service oriented
8. No time zone problems, thus ensuring rapid services
9. Politically more acceptable

Disadvantages of Rural outsourcing:

1. Lack of availability of financial resources and IT skills
2. Lesser experience than the giant outsourcing firms

It is without doubt that the trend of outsourcing abroad isn’t going to disappear anytime soon but looking for virtual team members in small towns, in the form of rural outsourcing would be a triple advantage for your firm-good workers, good for small towns and lower costs.

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The problem of Transfer Pricing in the Indian BPO sector

We all have heard much about the BPO boom in India and its remarkable benefits that it has served India with. But in recent times, the future of the industry is predicted to become bleak due to the government’s imposition of Transfer Pricing Agreement and additionally levying an increased tax rate at 12%. This is one of the many issues that is seen challenging the BPO industry’s growth.

What is Transfer Pricing?
It is the price that is being charged by one part of the company for products and services it provides to another part of the same company, in order to calculate each division’s finances separately.

Its purpose:
To ensure that a fair price is charged, tax authorities make sure that goods and services are sold at a price the company would seek from an unrelated third party. The purpose is to make companies reflect the fair amount of profit and not avoid tax.

What is the fuss about the Agreement?
The BPO companies in India feel that the new Transfer Pricing Agreement is arbitrary and that the taxes are being too much demanding and unreasonable.  The BPO companies make an argument that until last year the BPO companies which were operating under the Software Technology Parks of India, were entitled to full income tax rebate. But now the companies are worried about this year’s profits fearing that it will be taxed, proving burdensome for the already burdened industry.

On the contrary, the income tax officials are keen on this tax as they prove enough evidences of companies showing deliberate lower profits in India and then transfer their surpluses in some other company thereby evading tax payments.

All in all, the government’s legislation in this order to reduce tax evasions is indeed an ideal step but in order to have an exact and balanced effect, it would be good enough to consider all the parties and then come up with a suitable legislation, which is fair to all the parties.

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Tips on choosing the right call center service provider

If you are an existing growing company and are keen on managing your telephonic traffic through the help of a call center service then you should consider the following suggestions:

1. Keeping in mind your budget, consider the volume of your present call and based on your estimates, the future call volumes. This will help you save time and money.
2. Keep up your expectations top on the list and accordingly choose the perfect service provider, which shall help you best in fulfilling your laid objectives.
3. Evaluate your geographical coverage and response time capabilities.
4. See if the call center service provider provides adequate facilities such as online chat possibilities, product query possibilities, inbound call center and outbound call center services, telemarketing services, etc.
5. Shortlist some call centers and compare their services and the price at which they are willing to work for you.
6. If possible, get a survey done of the call center’s services; this will help you gauge their level of performance.
7. Ask the call center service provider to provide you with a free trail project before signing a contract as this shall help them gauge their efficiency and performance levels.
8. Check if the call center service providers have good communication skills
9. Search for a call center service provider which will ensure quality work.

So, if you are a growing company out there and are wishing to flourish your base, outsourcing seems to be an only helpful solution and a great help provider. But before you do that, you need to ensure the enlisted tips are taken care off, for a call center service provider will either make or break your business, if not picked properly.

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India, a preferred destination for outsourcing call center services

Stable democracy, youngest and most educated population, India is all what can be called, a one stop shop for the offshore call center services.  The developed nations have been looking for a labor which is huge and educated and English speaking. India, with providing all the three solutions, has in recent time become the most preferred location for outsourcing call center services of the international companies.

There are thus many of call centers in India which have international clients like American Express, Delta Airlines, etc. These call centers hire the newly college graduates and train them in terms of making them deliver solutions in western accent, just so that the person who is seeking a solution, feels that the solution giver is just the girl/guy next door.

Now staff in the Indian call center obviously has an Indian name and they change their names, usually keeping a Christian name. so that the query holders feel connected to the call center staff.

Why choose India?

1. The 12 hour time difference between the western countries as and India has made it possible for India to deliver 24x7x365 days solutions.
2. India provides a perfect set of both inbound and outbound call center services, telemarketing services, lead generation services, direct mail follow-up services, email support services, chat support services, etc.
3. Large growing young and educated population
4. Since the population is young, educated and in huge number, the cost on training the man power, cost of capital investment and overheads can be nullified while setting up a call center in India.

The success of the Indian call centers has proved a fact that geography is redundant and that distance doesn’t matter anymore.  Kudos!

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e-Governance - renovating the governmental service delivery system

e - governance, a one stop online portals for information access for online citizen services, center and state specific e-Governance initiatives, providing awareness about governmental tasks.  In simpler terms it basically refers to the technology driven governance.

Models of e-Governance:

When we talk about e Governance, its main target groups remain the citizens, government and businesses. Hence what we have is Government to Customer or Citizen model, Government to Employees, Government to Government and Government to business.

Advantages of e- Governance:

• Helps improve public services and  strengthen democratic process
• Strengthen support for public policies
• Fight corruption and bureaucracy in Government departments
• Ensures transparency and accountability in governmental functions
• Integrated  government service at your fingertips
• The access can be made anytime, anywhere
• Improves overall productivity of the government
• Empowers the citizens, as information is a true knowledge

Advantages aside, what is more important is governance and not the ‘e’.  Electronic or technology is only a medium to facilitate better governance. While recognizing its probable benefits, a fact should be kept in mind that getting to better governance itself is a problem of heavy magnitude, one that must be tackled with more than electronics and computing.

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