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A report by the International Data Corporation (IDC) "First There was Offshoring, now there is Homeshoring" reveals a rise in "homeshoring" among call center and business process outsourcing providers located in Asia Pacific countries. It is certainly an employee-friendly option as there are advantages such as cutting back in fuel consumption for agents with vehicles, a decline in time spent commuting and also provides extra time for employees to fulfill parental roles.
The study reveals a rise in "homeshoring" among call center and business process outsourcing providers located in Asia Pacific countries. Homeshoring is described as having individual customer care agents work from their homes, as long as a suitable computer and a secure broadband Internet connection are present.
Likewise, homeshoring, otherwise known as telecommuting in other companies, also aids in reducing the amount of vehicular traffic due to fewer people driving to work and disrupting the spread of respiratory diseases from interaction with people in the workplace. The report said it also provides possible employment opportunities for older but skilled professionals who cannot travel long distances.
The IDC report pointed out that the significant homeshoring trend was seen during the Asian outbreak of the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) in 2003. Companies that wanted to continue operations had some of their agents take calls from home.
The homeshoring concept can also apply to offshoring markets with established BPO operations such as Australia, Hong Kong, New Zealand and Singapore.
IDC believes that homeshoring is a viable and attractive alternative to offshoring in the Asia-Pacific region, particularly for markets such as Australia, Hong Kong, New Zealand and Singapore. For economies that are more sensitive to offshoring, homeshoring could help shave costs from the need to be located onshore.
Homeshoring enables business process outsourcers to create new delivery options of their services. But because of homeshoring's radical approach, its processes and infrastructure have to be slightly changed, including the adoption of a different management style to ensure that objectives are still met even as agents are not located in one area.
But IDC identified several challenges to the growth of homeshoring, most important of which is the conservative management culture of many company executives who prefer seeing their employees in one place.
Among the other challenges are the availability of electrical, telecommunications and Internet infrastructure, massive training of homeshoring employees, relocation of companies to save on operating cost and also more demands from employees.
But according to Mitch Locsin, executive director of the Business Process Association of the Philippines (BPAP), the adoption of homeshoring is still far off among contact center operators and BPO providers in the Philippines, most likely because of unavailable network technologies that guarantee uninterrupted communications among agents, the main office and the clients.
Likewise, service quality levels may be put into question if agents cannot be monitored by their immediate supervisors.
"We have an agreement with our clients [on] the level of service that we deliver but homeshoring may not guarantee that. However, we expect adoption of this to begin after five years when communications technologies get better," Locsin said.
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