Setting Up of an Offshore Call Centre - Essay Example

ANSWERS PART A Considerations which are most likely to be taken into account in deciding to go ahead with the setting up of an offshore call centre from UK to India include the following: Cost. Cost is the first priority in considering turning to offshoring. There should always be a firm basis to decide for an offshore facility. Hence, cost benefit analysis (CBA) should be performed. Among the significant factors which should be considered in the CBA would be the choice between single or multiple vendors and large or small vendors, knowing full well that large vendors would entail higher costs but more reliable service. Offshoring also allows companies to operate with lower investment and overhead cost. More importantly, offshoring helps organisations to survive a slump in market conditions without incurring heavy expenses. It also facilitates smaller expenses in risk management by spreading its risks and keeping the focus on their core missions (Neelankavil & Rai, 2009). Extent of the project. Read (2005) maintained that offshoring should only be considered for big projects with a minimum of 50-100 seats in one shift for a one year renewable contract. Smaller projects will not benefit the organisation in terms of time, expense and commitment. Facility of the English language. As pointed out in Read (2005), the greatest restriction in offshoring to most foreign countries is the language barrier. This should not, however, be much of a problem for India, which aside from offering flexibility of choice for talents, boasts of fluency and good customer service skills among its agents. Nevertheless, the usual practice of requiring additional training in accent neutralisation and culture of the country/region to be served by the offshore facility should be carried out. Training should include skills for recognition of idioms and slang of the country or region to be served, although agents should refrain from using idioms and slang in their dealing with the customers. Cultural factors. Call centre agents in India according to Read (2005) are known to be smart, quick and aggressive, but it was also observed that they do not have the level of empathy that their American counterparts possess. If the organisation decides to go through with offshoring, showing empathy should be an integral part of the language training in Mumbai. It should be taken into account that if British personnel are to manage the offshore operations, there may be a need to change supervisory style in to complement the Indian culture. Legal considerations. Another important consideration would be legal practices and regulations in some countries which hinder offshoring. Harvard (in Read, 2009) singled out India as one country whose contract law cases may drag up to 15 years to resolve. Extreme care must, therefore, be observed before the contract for the Mumbai offshore project is signed. There should be appropriate provisions in the contract which should fairly deal with issues of under performance between the UK mother organisation and the Mumbai vendor in charge of the offshore project. There should be commitment to comply with laws in the offshore country and the country being serviced by the organisation. Workplace restrictions. Workers in India enjoy employment protection against unfair treatment. For example, management should provide written notice of dismissal, sufficient warning and a chance to respond to the warning or dismissal notice. For organisations with 100 or more employees, management is mandated by law to inform the relevant government authority and that this authority should approve of the management decision before dismissal can be effected (OECD, 2008). This results in additional costs and paperwork. There should be ample research on the Indian contract law and other legislation pertinent to offshore projects. Space and location. The need for more training in accent neutralisation and education in cultural matters require offshore call centres to have more building space for training room. Hence, even going ahead with the offshore plan, the organisation should have advanced information about the availability of finding a building with the space requirements. There should already be estimates of building space requirements and a list of available property in Mumbai which answers to such requirements. It will be useless and very expensive to go to Mumbai and negotiate a contract if no building is available to house the offshore call centre facility. Additionally, the facility should be located on a property with available transportation routes, to ensure that agents can report for work on time. Voice, data and power. There should be a feasibility study or available technical reports which can ensure the availability of multiple voice and data connections, and that the call centre building can connect or is already connected to an available power generation facility Political instability and corruption. Historically, most of the so-called foreign customer offshorable countries are saddled with problems from political instability to border threats. Moreover, it is common knowledge that corruption is a major issue among developing nations. It may be safely stated, however, that the risk of political instability in India low based on the IMD index of 7.08 where 10 represents very low risk (International Institute for Management and Development, 2010). In terms of corruption, however, the picture does not appear that good based on a corruption perceptions index of 3.3 for India with the lower spectrum indicating high incidence of corruption. Comparatively, from the same index, the UK garnered 7.6 (Transparency International, 2010). This suggests that the management of the offshore facility in Mumbai would have to deal and handle with a comparatively higher level of corruption than their counterparts in UK. Public backlash. There is always the possibility of upsetting the English public and the organisation’s personnel who will be affected by the offshoring efforts in terms of lost jobs. If unionism in this organisation has a strong influence on its employees, then this must also be given some consideration to avoid complications stemming from union agitation. Neelankavil and Rai (2009) even maintained that offshoring does not reduce employment, but rather helps in increasing employment in the long run based on the US experience. PART B The network diagram is shown next page (page 6). In the network diagram, the critical activities are represented by the thicker solid line arrows. The thicker broken line arrows (Activities 3, 8, 12, 14, 16, 17 and 21) are considered part of the project but have actually zero (0) durations, since these are milestones in the project. The broken line notation is usually used to represent dummy activities. Since the milestones have 0 durations, they can best be represented as dummy activities so that they could be integrated into the network without having to introduce any non-conventional network notation symbols. Following is a tabulation of the activity code, description, duration, precedence, early start times, and early finish times of the project. (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9) AC No.1 Description Duration (in days) Prece-dence Start Date End Date Early Start Time Early Finish Time Remarks 1 Produce Business Plan 20 0 Jan 31 Feb 28 0 20 Critical 2 Presentation 1 1 Feb 28 Mar 1 20 21 Critical 3 Decision 0 2 Mar 1 Mar 1 21 21 Critical 4 Application Period 15 3 Mar 1 Mar 22 21 36 Critical 5 Interview 2 4 Mar 22 Mar 24 36 38 Critical 6 Prepare for trip 5 5 Mar 24 Mar 31 38 43 Critical 7 Mumbai Negotiations 10 6 Mar 31 Apr 14 43 53 Critical 8 Contract Signed 0 7 April 14 April 14 53 53 Critical 9 Identify Building 10 8 Apr 14 Apr 28 53 63 Critical 10 Fit out Building 25 9 Apr 28 Jun 2 63 88 Critical 11 Oversee Recruitment 10 8 April 14 Apr 28 53 63 12 Operating Staff Start 0 10, 11 Jun 2 Jun 2 88 88 Critical 13 Operator Training 10 12 Jun 2 Jun 16 88 98 Critical 14 Change Over 0 13,18,19 Jun 16 Jun 16 98 98 Critical 15 Counsel Staff 10 5 Mar 24 Apr 7 38 48 16 Issue Redundancy Notices- F/T 0 15 Apr 7 Apr 7 48 48 17 Issue Redundancy Notices- Cont. 0 15 Apr 7 Apr 7 48 48 18 Work Redundancy notice Period -F/T 10 16,17 April 7 Apr 21 48 58 19 Work Redundancy notice Period -Cont 5 16,17 April 7 Apr 14 48 53 20 Dispose of Site 50 14 Jun 16 Aug 25 98 148 Critical 21 Sale of Site 0 20 Aug 25 Aug 25 148 148 Critical 1 AC No. stands for Activity Code Number Earliest start and finish times. The earliest start and finish times of all activities are indicated in columns 7 and 8. For Activity 1, the earliest start time (ES) is 0 and the earliest finish time (EF) is 20. For the rest of the activities, the earliest start and the earliest finish times are as follows: Activity 2, ES 20 and EF 21; Activity 3, ES 21 and EF 21; Activity 4, ES 21 and EF 36; Activity 5, ES 36 and EF 38; Activity 6, ES 38 and EF 43; Activity 7, ES 43 and EF 53; Activity 8, ES 53 and EF 53; Activity 9, ES 53 and EF 63; Activity 10, ES 63 and EF 88; Activity 11, ES 53 and EF 63; Activity 12, ES 88 and EF 88; Activity 13, ES 88 and EF 98; Activity 14, ES 98 and EF 98; Activity 15, ES 38 and EF 48; Activity 16, ES 48 and EF 48; Activity 17, ES 48 and EF 48; Activity 18, ES 48 and EF 48; Activity 19, ES 48 and EF 53; Activity 20, ES 98 and EF 148; and Activity 21, ES 148 and EF 148. Critical activities. As shown in the last column (Column 9) of the table, the critical activities are 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12, 13, 14, 20 and 21. These activities make up the critical path of the project and are represented in the network diagram with thicker arrows. None of the activities in the critical path should be delayed. Delay in any activity within the critical path will result in the delay of the project completion time. Number of working days. The number of working days required to complete the project is 148 days. This value is based on the early start and finish times of the critical path, which represents the longest path of activities in the project. However, even when the late start and late finish times are considered, the required number of days for completion of the project is still 148 working days. Nomenclature: Note: Network diagram arrows are allowed to be drawn not to scale (meaning longer arrows do not necessarily denote longer duration) to enhance the aesthetic value of the diagram PART C 2 The Gantt Chart adopted a Monday-start work week. Dates indicated in the third row of the chart represent the start of the week. For example for March 7, it is actually the week starting March 7, a Monday. PART D 1 Based on the resource histogram shown in Schwalbe (2008, p. 172) Type of Resource Resource Utilization per Week February, 2011 March, 2011 June, 2011 July, 2011 August 2011 W 1 W 2 W 3 W 4 W 5 W 6 W 7 W 8 W 9 W 20 W 21 W 22 W 23 W 24 W 25 W 26 W 27 W 28 W 29 W 30 HR Dir 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 - - - 0.6 1.0 - - - - - - - - - - - HR Mgr. - - - - - - - 0.6 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 Ops Dir 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 - - - 0.6 1.0 - - - - - - - - - - - Ops Mgr - - - - - - - - 1.0 - - - - - - - - - - - Note: 1.0=5 working days/week; 0.6=3 working days/week 1 Based on the resource histogram shown in Schwalbe (2008, p. 172) Type of Resource Resource Utilization per Week Mar April 2011 May, 2011 June, 2011 July, 2011 August, 2011 W 9 W 10 W 11 W 12 W 13 W 14 W 15 W 16 W 17 W 18 W 19 W 20 W 21 W 22 W 23 W 24 W 25 W 26 W 27 W 28 W 29 W 30 HR Dir - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - HR Mgr. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Ops Dir 1.0 1.0 0.2 1.0 0.8 - - - 0.2 1.0 0.8 - - - - - - - - - - Ops Mgr 1.0 1.0 0.2 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 0.8 - - - - - - - - - - Note: 1.0=5 working days/week; 0.8=4 working days/week; 0.2=1 working day per week PART E Activity 5 could be crashed by 5 days at a cost of £100 per day An amount of £2,000 [i. e. 5 x (£500 - £100) = £2,000] will be saved by crashing Activity 5. However, since Activity 5 has duration of only 2 days, it can only be crashed 1 day so that an interview will still take place. This option will mean that Activity 4 will have to be shortened by 4 days. All other activities following Activity 5 will also be affected, since these activities will have their start and end dates earlier by 5 days. These activities are 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 20 and 21. Another possible scheme for crashing Activity 5 by five days would be to crash the interview period (Activity 5) by 1 day, and then crash the application period (Activity 4) by 2 days, and shorten or crash the preparation of the business plan (Activity 1) by 2 days. If this option is followed, the affected activities will include all the activities which precede and follow Activity 5. activities 1, 2, 3 and 4 will have to start 2 days earlier. Likewise, activities 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 20 and 21 will also have to start 2 days earlier. Activity 16 could be crashed by 2 days at a cost of £150 per day Nothing can be saved by crashing Activity 16. Doing so will cost the project £300 more [i. e. 2 x £150 = £300]since Activity 16 is not a critical activity. Granting that Activity 16 is accomplished two days earlier and Activity 18 which represents the work redundancy notice period for full time employees will also be shortened by two days (early finish time @ 56 after being shortened by two days), Activity 14 (the change over), which follows Activity 18 will not push through until the 98th working day is reached (early finish time for Activity 13). This is because change over will not be possible unless Activity 13 or the operator training will be completed. Crashing Activity 16 will only affect Activity 15 and Activity 18. Activity 9 could be crashed by 4 days at a cost of £350 per day An amount of £600 [i. e. 4 x (£500 - £350 = £600] will be saved by crashing Activity 9. All other activities following Activity 9 will also be affected, since these activities will have their start and end dates earlier by 4 days. These activities are 10, 12, 13, 14, 20 and 21. Activity 12 could be crashed by 8 days at a cost of £600 per day Nothing can be saved by crashing Activity 12. Doing so will cost the project £800 more. By shortening Activity 12, which has zero duration, it would mean that the preceding activity (Activity 10) will have to be shortened by 8 days and this will cost of £600 per day multiplied by 8 days or £4800. This action will shorten the remaining time to complete the activity also by 8 days multiplied by £500 per day, which costs only £4000 or $800 lower if Activity 12 will not be crashed. If cost is the only consideration for crashing Activity 12, the effort will not lessen the total project cost. References Read, B. B. (2005). Designing the best call centre for your business (2nd ed.). San Francisco, CA: CMP Books. International Institute for Management and Development (2010). Political instability. Retrieved December 5, 2010, from: http://www.business.nsw.gov.au/aboutnsw/ climate/ A9_riskofpolinstabil.htm Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). (2008). Employment protection in India. Retrieved December 5, 2010, from: http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd /25/55/42746132.pdf Schwalbe, K. (2008). An introduction to project management (2nd ed.). Florence, KY: Cengage Learning. Transparency International (2010). Corruptions perceptions index 2010 results. Retrieved December 5, 2010, from: http://www.transparency.org/policy_research/ surveys_indices/cpi/2010/results Read More