Show Info: Everything every entrepreneur should know about outsourcing work to the Philippines and working with Filipino virtual assistants. Content includes blog posts, videos and podcasts. Plus a FREE exclusive eBook!
Offshore outsourcing has dramatically changed the way business is done. Big players and companies such as IBM and Microsoft have been outsourcing their help desks for years, cutting down their operational costs, and making a lot of products more accessible to consumers in the process. Yet despite all the excitement over outsourcing, a lot of entrepreneurs still get stumped on the most basic of questions: What exactly do I outsource? Or better yet, what can I outsource? Often, when people think of delegating or outsourcing a task, they begin with the ones that they often don't want to do. Although it may seem logical emotionally, it is the wrong metric to use (more on that later), and can be severely limiting to your business. Others get lost because they just don't know what's out there, which makes more sense. How can you buy something that you don't know is for sale? #1 Outsourcing Destination of Choice Entrepreneurs are often shocked by the amount of services available, particularly in the Philippines, where the services industry drives 54% of their GDP, yes, you read that right! The Philippines had long come second only to India in terms of offshore services (http://www.welive2care.com/), but recently that changed and the country is now known as the #1 outsourcing destination of choice. (http://www.outsourcetothephilippines.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/when-and-how-to-outsource.jpg) Services are usually defined as traditional "Business Process Outsourcing", or BPO, which usually covers entry to intermediate tasks. These are jobs that can be repetitive, extremely procedural, and require few independent decisions. "Higher BPO", or Knowledge Process Outsourcing, is usually mid to high-level jobs. These tasks require more analysis and creativity, usually done by independent consultants. To give you an idea of the difference in services offered, what follows is a list of BPO and KPO services in the Philippines. Traditional Business Process Outsourcing Top players such as Microsoft and Linksys have tapped into the talent in the Philippines to handle their customer service and technical support hotlines. In fact JP Morgan & Chase recently opened a huge facility in Cebu City (where I'm based), where thousands of Filipino workers served an International client base 365 days a year. The proliferation of contact centers in the Philippines is proof that the value found in lower labor costs is key to luring in clients, but that isn't why they stay. Most
