⌛ Hello! Business advice needed

My name is Bjorn... Howdie!

I work for a company in Boston, MA, USA that processes enrollment verification requests for U.S. companies. Essentially, we verify that people who try to get student discounts actually are students.

My father has recently married a woman who lives 3 hours from Dumaguete. We have been thinking about outsourcing part of our business before, and I thought this may be a great opportunity. Knowing that Dumaguete has a high degree of educated people and that English proficiency generally is not a problem, I'd like to pursue this further.

We would set up a small processing operation as an experiment to start with (5 people) and grow from there. All our tools reside on the web, so we would need reliable internet access.

I obviously have tons of questions, and I hope to get some answers through this forum... Any help is much appreciated. I'm planning on visiting Dumaguete myself in a relatively short time to do more research. However, we will need help from some feet on the ground, so this could also be a business opportunity for you if you already live there.

• Do any of you have experience with setting up businesses, especially the kind referred to above? Or do you know somebody who could act as consultants in this capacity?
• What are the commercial internet connections like?
• Where do I start to find office space? Cost?
• Where do I start to hire people?
• How good is generally people's English? What would your guess be on salary for a person who is proficient in English and using the internet?
• Any other evident risks, such as power outages, etc?

I'm an entrepreneurial soul and am really excited about this opportunity. The potential is outsourcing the majority of our call center and accounting operations - up to 50 people.

Best,
Bjorn

 

Hi Bjorn,
I've can't help you with your questions but I'm quite sure you will get answers soon. Welcome to the forum.

 

Bjorn, recommend you PM Dumaguete member "the dane"....i think he may have some unique experience in some of those areas you mentioned.

ronin

 

Did Bjorn ask for the coldest SML in town????:D

joke na lang. The Dane is a good source and like Ronin mentioned made some unique expierience here in Duma.
I sent you a PM as I don't post about business here in the public. but in general you find in Duma all you need.
You also might use the search function of the board, as many points are covered in different threads.
But also be aware that they are from a private point of view not busines. As there are callcenters in town there is good internet - coverage with a good bandwidth and speed. The powersupply in Duma is way better as the power supply 15 km south.
Have fun browsing DumagueteInfo and ask all question. I am sure you can get great information.

Rhoody

 

bjorn, I suggest that you come out here to Dumaguete and visit for two weeks. Maybe make it a vacation/business trip.

 

Thank you for your suggestions so far - both in private messages and here. I have not heard from The Dane yet, but hopefully he'll help a fellow expat Scandinavian out.

What can you guys tell be about the business environment in Bacolod as an alternative?

 

There are a couple of call centers up there in bacolad. They have around 200 seats. You are only looking at starting at 5 seats and growing into 50 right?

You could open a small office and at night or during the graveyard shift run the call center and during the day run an internet site/copying/etc store.

I would suggest that you contact the American Chamber of Commerce here too. This might be helpful for you.

Lastly, you might want to look into operating this business in an economic zone. Look up Home on the internet. The site will show you where and what advantages specifica areas might have for you. Also, there maybe some tax advantages that you can enjoy too. Good luck

 

Try this site. the other is for Ireland! boi.com.ph

 

I have been involved in the call centre industry in aussie and was speaking to an australian guy last week who is based in manila and uses call centres in manila and cebu to service australian businesses. As well as the power and internet connection mentioned above, the other issues he mentioned were:

Time difference - it's easy for him to get experienced agents as the aussie work is predominantly day shift (perth and manila are on the same timeline, sydney 2hrs different).
Night shift - consider the time difference between your clients and your business as there is very high staff turnover on night shifts.
Training - a typical filipino graduate needs about 100 hours intensive language, confidence and customer service training before they "go live". The training should be conducted by a person with the same nationality as the client base to get the accents right. If your clients are in the US I suggest there are a number of very impressive americans on this board who would be ideal trainers and they also would provide you with a wealth of local knowledge.
Recruiting - You could approach the universities but there are people from all walks of life, especially retail customer service, who have become highly successful call centre agents. You could advertise on the net to get experienced staff from manila or cebu. I suggest a 3 person interview panel with at least one local person. The personality traits best suited for call centres are intelligence, communication and comprehension skills, confidence, teamwork and an outgoing personality. Often the best call centre agents have very "out there" personalities. So don't just pick the cute ones !
Staff management -if you pay the same rates as they do in Manila and Cebu, I'm sure you will get good staff. Set clear performance indicators and meet weekly with staff to discuss. You must respect cultural differences when managing staff performance. I think you can only learn that by living in the Philippines but people will quickly lose respect for any manager who is a "dummy spitter".

I think Dumaguete is an excellent place for an outsourcing/offshoring business so best of luck.

lofty

 

At the moment, there's five call centers in Bacolod. One just opened. And a sixth is in the pipeline. There may be smaller operations that I don't know about. We do have a nephew working at one of the big ones and for informational purposes..he's on $500 USD a month (just over 20k pesos). There is some competition there for experienced staff, and he's been approached. Loftyone gave some very valuable tips. Either location would probably suit. Dumaguete would have a more relaxing lifestyle, Bacolod better infrastructure. Definitely a good idea considering lack of local competition in such a specialized offshore activity. I think it would work well.