The annual Middle East Call Centre ‘2012 (MECC ’12) show organized by INSIGHTS in Dubai for June 5/6 will feature a special, stand-alone Conference track on Contact Centre Outsourcing (MECCO) to help regional organisations make optimum decisions regarding choosing an Outsourcing provider and, in particular, avoid entering into unsuitable agreements.

According to Dominick Keenaghan, president of show organizers, INSIGHTS, “the Middle East market is seeing the entry of many new Outsourcing Service Providers (OSPs) at present. Some of these are ‘local’ companies who are being driven by an opportunity and can’t really claim a large degree of market experience to date, whilst others are regional offices of overseas operations that have certainly delivered creditable solutions in other parts of the world, but again are currently lacking somewhat in regional experience. In both cases, organisations need to proceed with care due to the need to make Outsourcing agreements in the region as flexible as possible.”

“In addition” continued Keenaghan, “many regional organisations currently think that Outsourcing is solely about saving money and that indeed is often a primary benefit, but research indicates that a large number of such contracts ultimately fail when short term cost savings are the sole driver of the relationship. The more successful relationships and the ones that endure are where a company lacks a particular competency that the Outsourcer can provide, e.g outbound sales skills. In these cases the Outsourcer is providing some unique value in the arrangement and both parties benefit. Contracts that are solely cost driven mean, for example, that the Outsourcer doesn’t necessarily recruit staff of a sufficiently high calibre and tends to run the operation by “the numbers”. Invariably as these numbers run up against normal human tendencies this results in a stressful working environment, and subsequently high agent absence and attrition rates. None of this benefits the client’s customers and the conclusion by many is that whatever is being saved through Outsourcing is being more than lost through a combination of constant rehiring/staff training and, probably more importantly, through customer defections and brand destruction. Many UK banks went through this experience a few years ago and ended up bringing their outsourced call centre operations back in-house from abroad. They realized that they were losing control of the customer relationship and, in today’s world, the quality of that link is paramount.”

The Middle East Contact Centre Outsourcing Conference we will look to offer delegates in depth understanding of key Outsourcing concepts, how to prepare an Outsourcing business case, select an ideal Outsourcing partner, manage the Outsourcing partner and develop the Outsourcing relationship further. The aim is to equip delegates with the knowledge and insights that they can use to help their organisations enter into successful Outsourcing partnerships.

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