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Posts Tagged ‘Media’

BPOs turn to social media monitoring

September 19th, 2011

Indian business process outsourcing (BPO) firms are getting smarter with social media websites like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. Companies want to know how, when and why they are mentioned on these websites by different consumers and BPOs are there to help them now. Last week had two important
announcements in the $14 billion Indian BPO industry signifying this trend. Genpact, the country’s largest BPO acquired EmPower Research, an integrated media and business research company with capabilities in social media research, media monitoring and measurement. Though the amount of the deal is undisclosed, but analysts feel it could be $35-40 million. On the other hand, 24/7 Customer, a Mumbai based BPO firm mapped its plans to recruit over 5,000 social and interactive media (SIM) advisors in India.

Gaurav Sethi, senior vice-president, mergers and acquisitions at Genpact says, “There are a lot of unbiased chats happening on social media websites. Companies feel the need to track social media conversations to understand consumer preferences and perceptions towards their products and services. This process is less expensive and faster as well. We will help them derive critical insights through unstructured texts on social networking websites. In the last 12 months or so, we have been seeing a difference in the way companies want to approach their customers.”

NV “Tiger” Tyagarajan, president and CEO, Genpact remarks: “We are seeing a significant increase in demand for our smart decision services, and EmPower Research adds tremendous capabilities in extracting insights from social media, a fast emerging source of data about consumer behaviour. This aligns very well with our vision of supporting our clients in smarter decision-making and in delivering improved business outcomes.”

The sectoral growth drivers for this demand are the banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI), telecom, retail and consumer packaged goods (CPG) verticals. BPOs feel there is definitely a need for such services and this data mining will help their customers in better margins and revenues.

Though BPOs have been concentrating on business analytics for quite some time now, social media monitoring is pretty new on the cards. Pankaj Kulshreshtha, senior vice-president, analytics and research at Genpact says, “We have been doing business analytics and research from the very day of our inception for GE and now for other customers. But, media monitoring is new for us. We will be adding another 360 people with EmPower acquisition, to our existing analytics team of 5,000 employees.”

Animesh Jain, chief delivery officer at 24×7 Customer says, “We have hired over 1,000 employees for social and interactive media careers in the past nine months.

Careers in SIM offer candidates a unique opportunity to be part of reshaping the future of customer service as they learn to support emerging digital trends for Fortune 500 companies, using cutting-edge, predictive technology.”

Genpact acquired EmPower Research, which provides a comprehensive range of services including social and traditional media monitoring and measurement, event impact research, brand tracking, and data management. The services of EmPower Research are used by some of the largest pharmaceutical companies, PR agencies, technology firms, and consumer packaged goods (CPG) companies in the world.

Jain from 24×7 customer feels that it is high time that BPOs provide their customers a lot more than just voice services. “A lot of challenges can be surpassed through social interaction on the Web. There is huge opportunity in this area for companies like us,” he concludes.

Source:http://www.financialexpress.com/news/bpos-turn-to-social-media-monitoring/848418/0

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Tags: BPO Media Social

Retailers up IT spend; betting big on IT to tap new customers, geographies

July 21st, 2011

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Beth M Jacob, executive vice-president and CIO at Target Corporation – the second biggest US discount retailer — is at the cutting edge of business where companies are scrambling to sell through iPads, online social networks and mobile phones. Technology and outsourcing is at the core of Target’s vision to become a $100 billion retailer over the next few years, from around $67 billion in annual revenues right now.

In many ways, Jacob’s over billion-dollar IT budget reflects the changing ways of technology buying, which is shifting to newer online models and is driven by expansions in fresh geographic markets. Led by the world’s biggest retailer Walmart, which is now outsourcing software projects to Infosys, Cognizant and Wipro , US retailers are asking vendors to offer insights into businesses, beyond labour arbitrage and back- office projects.

According to Jacob, 49, Target today also holds its third party vendors accountable for helping drive increased revenue. “We absolutely want them to help us on the innovation agenda, so I expect the third party to go beyond the base expectation of pounding out work. I would expect them to bring value add in form of competitive pricing, better quality and fewer defects, new ideas in business process that we can engage in. The expectations from our partners are fair and high,” she said.

Even as consumer confidence in the US remains tepid amid stubborn unemployment and economic uncertainties, retail giants like Target are stepping up IT spends. The $67-billion, US-based retailer has increased its IT budget by over 12% in the past year as it puts its weight behind future bets and gets ready to roll out its e-commerce platform next month. “The past year we grew it by over 12%. That is just about continuing to invest in our core, growing the business along different product lines. So its about the whole core of the business including dot com,” Jacob said “We are investing in building for Canada. So, our investment in technology is actually far greater than the number I gave you,” she said. Target is making its first foray outside the US into Canada where it plans to open 100-150 stores by 2013.

The second-largest discount retailer in the US after Walmart, Target has its own information technology set-up in Bangalore, employing more than 2,000 techies and works with almost all the large Indian IT services providers including Tata Consultancy Services , Infosys and Wipro. Though the company does not reveal its total spends on IT, industry watchers say it is likely to be nearly a billion dollars, divided between multiple vendors.

Consumer shift towards shopping on smarter devices, global expansion and a push into online have been driving global IT spends in the retail industry and Target is no different. The company, which is aiming at revenues of over $100 billion in the next six-seven years, is set to launch what it calls the “largest e-commerce development in the world right now” next month. This coincides with the end of its contract with Amazon, which has been hosting its online platform so far. Target started work on its e-commerce platform two years back. Developed to look and feel like its brick and mortar stores, the portal also focuses on areas like personalisation, recommendations and social media.

Source:http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/tech/retailers-up-it-spend-betting-big-on-it-to-tap-new-customers-geographies/articleshow/9304498.cms

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Tags: IT Media

Keep social media outsourcing under control: Facebook, Telstra

June 7th, 2011

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Organisations looking to promote their brand through social media channels like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn should manage it with internal resources to avoid outsourcing the public image of the company, according to representatives from Facebook and Telstra.

Kristen Boschma, head of online communications and social media at Telstra, said organisations at least need to have someone who is going to be the “intermediary” between the in-house marketing team and a social media outsourcer.

“It’s okay to outsource social media consulting, but you also need someone who is going to recognise a good idea for the company and champion that idea,” Boschma said.

Equally, organisations need someone who will recognise a bad idea, so there is a need for both in-house and third-party social media skills, Boschma says.

[See this recent three-part CIO guide to social media: Part 1; Part 2; and Part 3.]

The head of Facebook in Australia and New Zealand, Paul Borrud, said marketing professionals talk a lot about “knowing your language and brand” so it would be difficult to manage social media completely external to the organisation.

“It’s certainly really critical have a focus internally to keep it connected,” Borrud said.

Borrud recommends finding “owners” of what the business is trying to do with social media, says but once it’s started, it’s “always on”.

“It’s not the six-week microsite strategy that will live and die, and then you start over,” he said.

Borrud and Boschma shared their views during a panel discussion on social media at the CeBit 2011 conference in Sydney last week.

See photos and all the action from the event.

A general consensus was social media tends to be more of a challenge of companies that don’t live in the digital world and it’s always difficult to outsource a company culture. An outsourcer might know about the public brand of a company, but not the internals of the company so the social media split has to be at least 50-50.

Telstra’s Boschma said marketing in the 80s was all about the product, and then it moved into the “new marketing” era which was about “you deserve this car because you are amazing” and now we are in the era of “us marketing”.

Telstra is running a blog and coaching people to become better bloggers and then sending them to Africa to become citizen journalists to help “improve the world”.

“It’s not enough to just build a community,” Boschma said. “It’s like organising a party and you don’t have a plan – it’s the same thing with a closed group forum.”

Source:http://www.techworld.com.au/article/389086/keep_social_media_outsourcing_under_control_facebook_telstra/

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Social Media the future of customer service?

April 14th, 2011

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Over the past fifty years, customer service has played an increasingly important role in the success of both B2B and B2C businesses. This development has driven the growth of call centres and has resulted in the creation of the multi-billion dollar BPO (Business Process Outsourcing) industry.

According to a recent onepoll survey conducted with 1,000 UK shoppers, over half the shoppers in the survey said that they expected companies to monitor social networking sites and forums as part of their customer service processes.

43% of the participants went on to say that they would be impressed by a company that responded to complaints made using these channels. This trend was particularly prevalent among people under the age of 34.

Due to the lack of any real alternatives, until recently the telephone was the sole means of customer service interaction. However as the communication tools available to people have become more advanced so to have the ways in which people interact, creating a number of potential PR nightmares for companies who fail to cater for their customers’ needs.

Spending forty minutes on the phone or getting an email response two weeks later around a complaint is no longer acceptable. Today’s customer is far less trusting and brand loyal, if they have a bad experience they will simply go elsewhere and worse tell their friends.

The telephone no longer drives business communication; rather it plays a complimenting role alongside email and social media.

As a business focused on customer service, having a call centre dealing with phone calls and emails will not suffice in the future. Successful companies need to be where their customers are, and if customers are spending 70% of their time on Facebook, then that is where they need to be.

This trend has already started to show in the BPO industry with international players like Stream and Teleperformance integrating social media into their core offerings.

One of the world’s leading brands, Dell has also realised the need to move beyond traditional forms of customer service adapting their communication strategy to align with their customer’s exact needs.

As a global brand with a target audience spanning all age groups and cultures, Dell understands that not all their customers are willing to communicate via telephone or email. To cater for this, they have embraced the benefits of social media providing support via their Twitter account, Dell customer forums and instant messaging services.

In the local market, social media as a customer service tool is still very much in its infancy, but with major brands like FNB, Vodacom, MTN and Cell C integrating Twitter into their customer service offering, it is surely only a matter of time before this becomes the norm in South Africa.

Understandably businesses are concerned by this shift, but they should not view it as a threat, but rather an opportunity to improve communication with their customers through a simple easy to understand medium.

In response to a growing demand more and more call centres have started integrating social media into their day to day offerings. This trend has been especially prevalent in the US, where call centre agents are being trained to deal specifically with customer queries via social media.

The good news is that more communication channels does not necessarily mean more staff. It is rather a shift in responsibilities that is required, with staff being trained if need be in both traditional communication tools, such as telephone and email as well as social media.

By allowing customers to interact with a site like Twitter they can post their feedback, without having to speak to four different operators only to find out that the first operator should have dealt with the query. By training a broad based pool of call centre staff on social media, when a query does comes through, the most relevant person can respond immediately.

Judith Middleton CEO of DUO Marketing + Communications believes that business success in the future will be driven by effective customer service. Gone are the days where companies dictate how the customer should interact, in today’s world it is the customer who will drive communication.

Source:http://mybroadband.co.za/news/general/19689-Social-Media-the-future-customer-service.html

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Tags: Media Social

IT Vendors Slow To Adopt Social Media

September 29th, 2010

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Despite their technical acumen, only one-third of IT vendors are using social media as part of their marketing and partner communications strategies, according to a study by Amazon Consulting.
Technology vendors are beginning to increase their use of social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube, with 45% now experimenting with social media in their partner communications, the study found. But 32% of those polled said they do not know how to effectively use these tools with their partners, Amazon Consulting said.

When it comes to solution providers, only 14% use social networks to find partners or foster partner-to-partner collaboration, the study found. However, 40% of solution providers use social media for customer acquisition and 28% use the technology to seek-out new employees, Amazon Consulting said. In total, 70% of solution providers use social media for some aspect of their business, the study determined.

Channel partners expect to expand or move into social media for marketing and partnership opportunities. In fact, 46% plan to market their solutions and services to customers; 27% plan to network with similar-minded people involved in the same markets, and 23% will look for complementary solution providers for potential partnerships, the survey found

Neither solution providers nor IT vendors have many systems in place to measure social media’s success or failure.

“More than half of solution providers (52%) don’t track the revenue impact of using social media vehicles. And although many vendors are wading into the waters of social media to support specific product launches or major events, a sizeable percentage (32%) indicated they have a lack of understanding of how to use social media effectively with their partners, or they are lacking demonstrable ROI in their activities here to date,” Amazon Consulting said.

Businesses across industries continue to grapple with the benefits and risks associated with social media. Regardless of vertical market or area of expertise, most small and midsize companies are using these technologies to promote their businesses, according to Daryl Willcox Publishing

Source:-http://www.informationweek.com/news/software/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=227500890

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IT leaders stay quiet on social media, survey finds

August 17th, 2010

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Nearly 90 per cent of large and medium-sized Canadian enterprises view social media networks as having a potential impact on their corporate brand, according to newly released data from SAS/Leger Marketing. But that hasn’t inspired IT managers and CIOs to take a very active role in the trend.

The survey — which reveals the latest data from a March 2010 poll of 1,022 private and public sector business leaders — pointed to the CEO as the biggest social media champion, with 28 per cent of survey respondents citing the top business leader as the person most responsible for driving social media tactics.

The head of IT ranked near the bottom of the list, with seven per cent citing that role as the top social media driver, just ahead of the CIO at five per cent.
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Along with this finding, the survey suggests that despite strong support of social media initiatives, only 16 per cent of respondents said it is the most important aspect of engaging the public about their brand. Another 31 per cent of survey respondents cited social media projects as a major marketing initiative that trails traditional marketing tactics, while 42 per cent said social media strategies play a limited role in their business.

As for how often organizations keep tabs on social networking sites, over 60 per cent of responding executives said their companies sometimes or always monitor social media channels, while 32 per cent said they rarely or never monitor.

Lori Bieda, a consultant with SAS, said that because the social market is still evolving business leaders are often outsourcing their social media monitoring to hosted solutions. She added that the volume of data is too large and sophisticated for many in-house IT shops, as it involved Web crawling, text mining, analytics, natural language processing and more.

As social media evolves, Bieda expects more IT involvement from companies that want to start “layering their data” and understanding the richness of it. This could mean IT will get more involved providing feeds from customer records, call centre logs, internal blog content, and market research.

“Social media data is one of the richest data sources the industry has ever seen,” she said. Bieda added that IT will be tasked with making room for these new data sources, organizing it, and linking it up with their existing customer databases.

For Tim Hickernell, lead analyst with London, Ont.-based Info-Tech Research Group Ltd., IT’s lack of involvement is not surprising. He even downplayed the influence from the CEO and higher business executives, adding that most social media initiatives come from bottom-up in the marketing, sales or other service departments.

Source:http://www.itworldcanada.com/news/it-leaders-stay-quiet-on-social-media-survey-finds/141317

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CSC signs IT outsourcing contract extension with MBDA

July 14th, 2010

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CSC today announced that MBDA, a world-leading missile systems company, has extended its information technology (IT) outsourcing contract with CSC. The new contract extends the companies’ long standing relationship, which began in the U.K. in 1994, until December 2014 if all options are exercised. This contract was awarded to CSC during the company’s fiscal 2011 first quarter that ended July 2, 2010.

Under the new agreement, CSC will continue to provide MBDA with a comprehensive range of IT services, including infrastructure and applications management.

“We are delighted to sign a new contract extension with CSC,” said Jean-Claude Carepel, group IM director at MBDA. “This extension builds upon successful service delivery and acknowledges the excellent working relationship that has been established between our two organizations over the years. It will also allow both companies to expand this relationship outside the UK and build on recent successes in France with the implementation of SAP HR.”

“CSC is pleased to extend this important relationship with MBDA,” said Eileen Sweeney, president of CSC’s Manufacturing Group. “Building on our 16 years of experience and service to MBDA, we look forward to continuing our successful relationship and delivering significant operational results that support MBDA’s business goals.”

Source:http://www.outsourcingage.com/?p=723

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