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overseas staff Archives | Optimal Outsourcing

Apr 09
bpo image 1

Why is Clark in Angeles City a Good Location for BPO?

By Outsourcing

The viability of Clark Free Port Economic Zone located in Angeles City as an outsourcing centre was started in the late 1990s after a call centre company (Cyber City Services) decided to set up its offices inside the former military base.

Clark has been home to the United States’ military forces since before World War II, until after the eruption of the Mt Pinatubo volcano coupled with a senate bill led to their untimely exodus out of the country.

This event led to the creation of the BCDA (Bases Conversion and Development authority) tasked with the conversion of the former U.S military bases (Clark included) into free-port economic zones. The Clark Development Corporation (CDC) was established to head and operate the more than 2,000 hectares of the free port.

The signing of Executive Order 619 by then Philippine president Gloria Macapagal Arroyo further pave the way for duty free shops to set up shops inside the Free Port and enjoy tax and duty incentives.

This first transformation of the Free Port enjoyed relative success for some time, creating various employments for the locales in Pampanga and the neighbouring provinces.

The BPO industry bloom in Asia particularly in India and Philippines particularly in Angeles City proved beneficial for the Free Port as well.

Here’s some valid points as to why Clark is the perfect location for your BPO business and outsourcing centre in Angeles City.

Setting Up Your BPO Business in Angeles City

Strategic Location

Located in the province of Pampanga which is nestled in the central plains of Luzon bordered by the mountains of Zambales in the west and Mt Arayat in the East, Clark Free Port Economic Zone can be accessed using multi-point motorways.

If you are coming from the north, you can take the Tarlac-Pangasinan Expressway (TPLEX) that leads directly inside the Free Port.

From the west you have the Subic-Clark Expressway (SCTEX) that can guarantee a 30-45minutes travel time. The North Luzon Expressway links the capital city of Manila and the south to the Free Port.

The Clark International Airport inside the free port ensures fast international travel to and from the business district.

Infrastructure

With infrastructures and utilities (cabled telephone lines, fibre optic internet connection) well in place, with building locations secured, fenced and gated, the Clark Free Port is the perfect venue for many outsourcing companies that want to set up their offices in Angeles City.

Low Cost

Being a Free Port, BPO locators are entitled to certain tax incentives and privileges. You can cut cost up to 70% instead of hiring in-house talents from your location.

Highly Educated and Young Work Force

The young and educated work force demographic prolife of the province also proved to be a big factor that draws a lot of BPO companies to do business in the Free Port.

With a literacy rate of 93.94 (Pampanga), university graduates of 9,869 (2012-2013 alone), with 32.20% of this coming from the Business Administration related field and 17.49% coming from IT-related disciplines, the province is brimming with highly capable, very educated and English speaking workforce.

Pleasant All Year Round Weather

The weather condition within the region ranges from dry and humid summer and a wet rainy season. The Free Port is located in an elevated section of the city of Angeles, almost on the foothill of the Zambales mountain ranges, sparing it from any major flooding issues during the rainy seasons as experienced in some areas around the city and major problem for Manila

Minimal to No Power Outage

The Free Port also has its own electric generating system ensuring brown-out free operations 24/7 all year round.

Outsourcing your office processes to Clark Free Port Eco zone ensures maximum delivery of services, with high degree of efficiency and accuracy of tasks without incurring high costs and worrying about other variables such as reliability of the infrastructure in the process.

Contact us today and we’ll help you set up your outsourcing office.

Apr 09
outsource to the philippines

3 Killer Reasons why Outsource to the Philippines

By Outsourcing

The number of international companies that have started to outsource their business processes to the Philippines continue to rise.

Why?

Unlike other Asian countries like China or India, the Philippines incorporates a culture that’s compatible with the Western world. Once a Spanish colony, the Philippines was ruled by the US from 1899 to 1946 – their influence is still very evident today.

English is the primary language for business and education within the Philippines though the official language is Filipino. With the robust presence of the U.S., the Philippines has developed a government that’s somewhat like the U.S. system. This makes Western corporations more comfortable doing offshoring within the Philippines.

Top Reasons to Outsource to the Philippines

Low Costs

Offshoring in the Philippines may be low-cost compared to other Southeast Asian countries. Salaries within the Philippines are a fraction compared to what the Western world offers their citizenry, with the daily pay set at around $8 per day.

Newly graduated outsourced staff with college degrees from respected universities are employed at around $300 per month. These low cost salaries also apply to some or all business expenses like office rental, utilities, supplies, and third party services.

Philippine outsourcing is usually aiming to be competitively low compared to costs within the U.S. and Europe. You’ll be able to expect to work an offshore staff at around 30-40% of the cost of a domestic team.

 Highly Skilled Workforce

The Philippines incorporates a 92% literacy rating with basic education offered to nearly the entire population. Filipinos are genuinely artistic and naturally expressive people that they naturally gravitate towards fields of learning like the arts, multimedia, freehanded drawing, and animation. There are many schools and universities that offer top-notch education and coaching in these artistic fields.

Because of its traditionally weak local economy, the Philippines has had many tough circumstances providing jobs to the many thousands coming into the manpower annually, inflicting a major portion to migrate overseas.

The Philippines owes its growing BPO business for providing local opportunities to employees that might otherwise need to leave their country.

For these reasons, BPO companies have very little hassle finding extremely qualified employees for their clients.

This is a stark contradiction with its neighbouring countries in the same business as it is a struggle finding candidates and keeping staff which is always a serious problem.

Government Support

The outsourcing industry has become one of the top revenue generators of the country that is why the government totally supports its endeavours.

It’s created special economic zones, established a Philippine Economic Zone Authority, and grants business enterprise and non-fiscal incentives like a 4-year or 8-year tax holiday to BPO players. Even Indian BPO service suppliers have established operations within the Philippines over the years.

IBPAP plays a large role in promoting the country because of the ideal location of alternative and in supporting BPO players.

Since talent is the primary driver of the business, BPAP is collaborating with government agencies to any improve the education system. It’s conjointly implementing industry-specific coaching programs to hone the abilities of Filipino employees and build them up for BPO work.

It’s no wonder the Philippines has gained a new reputation as the most popular BPO destination – a highly skilled workforce and home to a number of the warmest and friendliest folks in Southeast Asia.

We have a team set up ready and willing to assist you realise your offshoring goals.

At Optimal Outsourcing you can trust us to deliver where it counts!

Contact us today!

Apr 08

How to keep your Offshore Staff Motivated

By Outsourcing

Your offshore staff’s morale is as important as your sales or business’s goals are but not easy to measure.

An unmotivated staff member can be an inefficient and unproductive one, so the mental well-being and satisfaction of your staff is essential to your business’s success.

Not tending to this now could prove to be costly for your organization later – either through an ineffective workforce or high staff turnover.

In any case, encouraging a positive job atmosphere will not cost you an arm and a leg in the process.

Here are some hints to keep your offshore staff motivated

Offer Incentives

Did you know that incentives have direct effect on the productivity of your business? A study conducted by SITE Foundation (Society for Incentive Travel Excellence) released last 2015 offers these key insights:

  • “Impact on performance – Incentive programs aimed at individuals increased performance by 27 percent. Moreover, programs aimed at teams increase performance by 45 percent.”
  • “Significant goal achievement – Ninety-two percent of workers surveyed indicated that they achieved their goals because of incentives. In addition, 57 percent of corporations surveyed reported that objectives were met or surpassed, and 92 percent reported objectives were surpassed, met or at least partially met.”
  • “Quality and quantity goals affected equally – Incentive programs have an equal, positive impact on both quality and quantity goals.”
  • “Employee input is valuable – Incentive programs structured with employee input work best; however, only 23 percent of incentive systems are selected with employee input.”
  • “Long-term incentives are ideal – Long-term incentives are more powerful than short term (44 percent gain for programs beyond a year versus a 20 percent gain for programs less than one month).”
  • “Design and implementation key to success – While even poorly designed incentive programs improve performance, proper analysis of the performance issue, the design and implementation of the incentive program are key to success.” – SITE Foundation

Treat Everyone as an Individual

Every one of your offshore staff have different needs. ““Every incentive doesn’t necessarily motivate every individual,”” says Andrew Backhouse, national contract director at Timothy James, a 2010 winner of The Sunday Times 100 Best SMEs to work for.

Become acquainted with every individual from your offshore staff and demonstrate that you understand them by being flexible to their own circumstances.

For instance, if your offshore staff has to travel a long way during weekends to be with his loved ones, you might consider giving them the chance to leave early every Fridays. Subsequently, they’ll be more inclined to put additional hours amid the week to keep abreast with their workload.

Praise great work and offer input

It is vital to be real, so discover something that has awed you, regardless of the possibility that it is as basic as your remote staff’s presentation, and let them realize that they are doing it well.

Some organizations have presented a six monthly evaluations. This offers a decent chance to energize staff, clear up any issues, and re-set up with the team member their expectations of the organization and your expectations from them as well.

Communication is Important

By keeping the communication lines open especially by listening to your staff’s ideas, suggestions, comments and observations, they will feel a sense of importance and value.

A weekly one hour or even daily 15 minute huddles are nuggets that every organization should incorporate into their system.

These huddles can be good indicators of how your staff views the work place “climate” and their work in general.

Changes in the policies should also be properly communicated and agreed upon by your staff.

Also by demonstrating that you are addressing your staff’s concerns can be sufficient to help boost morale.

Keeping your staff motivated is a sure way to keep them working at their best.

In this way, your business’s sales targets and goals will be realised. It’s a win-win situation!

When offshoring staff be sure to pick a company that fosters a positive staff environment.

At Optimal Outsourcing we pride ourselves on retaining staff and providing a great work place environment which will help our clients’ staff perform at their best.

Contact us today!

Feb 24
offshore staff image 1

Why Hire Offshore Staff to do your Business Processes?

By Outsourcing

There is a growing list of business processes that you can now outsource to offshore staff located in the Philippines.

One of the greatest misguided notion of working with an outsource staff is that one representative can do everything for you. I call this the ‘Super Admin Assistant Myth’. There is no such thing.

It’s simply impractical and not true.

At Optimal Outsourcing we recommend that you clearly define the tasks that you want your outsource staff to perform when hiring.

Watch this short video to learn more

In the Philippines there are many well educated and highly qualified virtual staff who can work in specific areas ranging from accountants to medical typists and IT professionals. Of course there are also personal assistants and sales staff.

Many Australian businesses find building a group of specialized offshore staff can benefit the growth of their business. At Optimal Outsourcing we can help you build your own offshore staff in the Philippines.

Choose your Offshore Staff

Here is an example of outsource staff tasks available in our office:

  1. Admin Assistant
  2. Content Writer
  3. SEO Specialist
  4. Digital Marketing Specialist/Social Media Marketer
  5. Accounting Staff
  6. Email Marketer
  7. Radiology Typist
  8. Debt collector
  9. Booking agent
  10. Outbound and Inbound customer service officer
  11. Payroll officer
  12. HR manager

It’s critical to recognize and value that no one person can deal with these diverse tasks. It’s about utilizing what you have at your disposal, to get what you need out of your group by assembling a team to help your business grow.

At Optimal Outsourcing Corporation we see to it that you have the best competent outsource staff. We do this by having every candidate undergo a rigorous testing and selection process that includes a direct Skype interview with the client.

Contact us today and let’s start building your outsourcing success!

Feb 16
recruiting and hiring image 1

Recruiting and Hiring Tips before Outsourcing Staff

By Outsourcing

Recruiting and hiring is a multi‐step process that should ideally be tweaked to suit your particular business and needs especially if you are looking to outsource staff.

In the hope of helping you out on this important facet of the outsourcing industry.

Watch this short video to learn more:

I listed down some basic but essential suggestions.

Recruiting and Hiring Tips

  • Find an outsourcing company with a good reputation. It’s wise to look for a company with a team on the ground in the Philippines so that they can locate the best candidates from talent pools, which an online‐only company may miss. Optimal Outsourcing has an office located in Clark Freeport Zone Philippines.
  • Pick an outsourcing company with a dedicated Human Resource department to screen out and test the best candidates for your requirements. Optimal Outsourcing has a dedicated Human resources team led by Byron Dizon.
  • Use an outsourcing company that has an Australian office that is familiar with Australian business standards. Note there is only a 2 hour time difference between the Philippines and Australian Eastern Standard Time. Optimal Outsourcing has an Australian base on the gold Coast and In Sydney.
  • Opt for a company that will both screen and pre‐interview candidates for you. This is standard process with Optimal Outsourcing, this saves you time wasted sifting through the resumes of those who may not fit your needs.
  • Look for a company that will handle all payroll and administrative duties so that once you select a candidate they can take care of these details. Unless you have experience in these areas on an international scale, delegating them will reduce needless headaches and allow you to focus solely on your business.
  • Write a compelling and colourful advertisement for your business. Explain in ample detail what the job is, what qualifications you’re expecting in an employee, both technical and personal, and include a description of the type of skills you want a candidate to bring.
  • Mention the kind of personality best suited for the position, and indicate any particular interpersonal and communication skills you expect. The more clear and direct your advert, the easier it will be for an outsourcing company to assist you in finding the right people to fit the bill. Be sure to include your business’s strongest suits and merits to help attract the top candidates.
  • Set up Skype Interviews. At Optimal Outsourcing we set up Skype video interviews with your selected candidates at a mutually convenient time. Have a list of pertinent questions prepared to help you decide on the right candidate for the position.
  • Check references provided. Optimal Outsourcing will check the references provided by each candidate. This is a step in the process that should be mandatory for each contractor you interview. It’s not only necessary to verify experience and credentials, but it can be an ideal way to learn more about a potential employee. Or better still have the outsourcing company’s HR Department check the references on your behalf.
  • Set up a test for each candidate. At Optimal Outsourcing we have a written and oral test for each applicant. Testing allows you to judge the skills of a candidate and further evaluate their suitability for the position before you do any hiring.

Choosing your outsourced staff is a major key to your business’s productivity. It will save you time, resources and headache in the long haul.

Still if you are unsure about the whole process, give us a call, we are more than willing to help you out.