Gearing for growth

“Sabio clearly understands contact centre systems and applications and has proven domain expertise in our key technologies which we’ve already deployed in the business. Thanks to Sabio’s specialist skills in these and other areas, we’ve been able to consolidate and streamline our core contact centre technologies into a more effective, ‘Any Agent, Anywhere’ multi-site model.” Director, Response

The outsourcing call centre sector in Europe has seen some impressive growth over the last few years, with over 150,000 workstations live in the region. It is estimated that this figure will have more than doubled to over 300,000 by 2007, making it the second largest employer in European call centres after financial services (source: Datamonitor).

The UK represent the most mature region within this marketplace with around 28,000 workstations currently active in over 160 registered companies carrying out outsourced call handling on behalf of other clients.

Diverse origins

The majority of the UK outsourcers come from two backgrounds. They are either the 'spin off' customer service operations of a handful of the large consumer organisations in the UK, largely from sectors such as utilities, retail or telecommunications, or they have come from a marketing bureau background.

However, in the last few years a number of next generation outsourcers have been established and are really changing the way the marketplace operates in the UK. Taking a slightly different approach to the market, they either focus on a particular type of transaction, say outbound, or on leveraging technology such as IVR in order to provide more specialist services to clients for particular types of campaigns. Normally they will be more financially competitive and take on more risk around the transactional volume.

In addition to this, a number of vertically oriented outsourcers have also been established that focus on only one type of transaction and by using the basic premises of 'economies of scale' can be more competitive and effective than an in house operation.

These market changes have lead to a significant shift in the dynamics of the UK outsourcing arena and have made it vital for some of the larger more traditional players to change their approach and gear up to provide more of a 'Business Process' Outsourcing service.

New challenges

Along with these competitive drivers in the UK, another threat looms larger on the UK outsourcing arena - the offshore opportunity. Much of the target market that the UK outsourcers are after is on the move to cheaper offshore locations, where costs can be up to 50% lower than an operation in the UK. This, when combined with better service and greater quality control that some of these centres are providing, is sending shock waves through the UK outsourcing market. The customers are very much in control and a lot of the work is now paid for based on the successful outcome of each transaction. It is key that outsourcers in the UK provide access to lower cost options as part of their offering in order to ensure their future.

With this new threat, outsourcers are having to become much more sensitive to cost control, especially around technology. Redundant equipment left over after a trial campaign, sitting on the balance sheet, is no longer an option. Supporting a whole myriad of platform's, each dedicated for a particular client with a technology support personnel overhead, is not allowing providers to meet the pricing model that is being demanded of them in the market. Changing the way that outsourcers acquire and support these technology assets is key to a successful future.

Leveraging technology

Sabio has a long history of helping outsourcers deliver successful projects for their clients within very tight timelines and on budget. Our breadth of technical skills allows us to provide a true end-to-end service covering all the areas of technology needed to deliver a campaign.

Once implemented, Sabio is able to provide outsourcers one service level across the whole solution and normally at a lower cost than if they dealt direct with each of the technology manufacturers. Our service capability extends from the complete outsourcing of the IT function including dedicated onsite staff, through to the simple specification and implementation of a particular technology i.e. a dialler.

In addition, because no one manufacturer has all the answers, Sabio carries a portfolio of products that it has selected to be most appropriate for different types of environments, saving you time and the costly mistake of selecting the wrong provider.