Honduras Starts to Make Real Headway as a BPO Player
September 23rd, 2011By Peter Ryan
As the potential options for Nearshore delivery to the US continue to increase, Ovum notes with interest the slow but steady emergence of Honduras as a viable location for BPO delivery. Although arguably not a country on the shortlist of many prospective investors even two years ago because of concerns surrounding stability and crime, more vendors and their clients are looking at Honduras in a different light.
Honduras is Now More Competitive
September 9th, 2011Honduras has increased five points of its competitiveness index according to the Global Competitiveness Report by the World Economic Forum.
“The report states that in America, only Honduras (86) reached the rate of 3.98%, climbing five places its competitiveness compared to the period of 2010-2011”, mentioned the source.
Honduras reached a competitiveness index of 3.98, from a maximum of 7 and improved 5 positions in this new ranking.
In the previous year, the performance of its institutions, the macroeconomic environment, and quality of education affected the competitiveness of Honduras, despite the desire of the Government to improve the ability to attract foreign investment and diversify the export supply. However, this year, “the report demonstrates the recovery of confidence and coverage of education”.
CENTRAL AMERICAN REGION
The highest decreases in the region were experienced in some Central American countries – for example Costa Rica dropped five points from 56 to 61; from 78 to 84 Guatemala; …
Unosquare and KM2 Solutions Partner in Honduras
August 29th, 2011Unosquare LLC, with operations in Guadalajara, Mexico and Portland, Oregon, today announced a collocation and business partnership with KM2 Solutions in San Pedro Sula, Honduras. Through its established location inside the world class Altia Business Park, KM2 Solutions will provide Unosquare with infrastructure and employer services.
For its end of the partnership Unosquare will provide advancement and training opportunities for KM2 employees. Unosquare provides US customers with software development, testing, and application support services from its nearshore locations. KM2 provides contact center services from its nearshore locations and both companies leverage the lower cost labor pool and same time zone advantages for their US clients.
“This partnership will give KM2 Solutions call center employees, our most valuable resource, more options to expand their own career,” said Maggi Williams, Chief Global Strategy Officer for KM2. The partnership is intended to advance and expand the lifecyle of a nearshore contact center worker by giving …
Turn Over the Maple Leaf: Canada Takes a New Approach to LatAm
August 19th, 2011Source: Calgary Herald
Prime Minister Stephen Harper may have wrapped up his visit to Latin America where a number of trade initiatives were announced, but his government remains busy forging links with Canada’s neighbours to the south.
Diane Ablonczy, minister of state of foreign affairs (Americas and consular affairs), is travelling across Canada to discuss trade and investment in the Americas with stakeholders, including academics, business executives, researchers and members of non-governmental organizations who work in or have operations in those countries.
“You need to be talking to people, exchanging ideas, working together with them and forming partnerships on issues of concern,” Ablonczy said Wednesday, following a one-day stop in Calgary to meet with oil and gas representatives at Nexen and Talisman Energy, and University of Calgary researchers.
“This position here, the minister of state for the Americas, is a full-time focus on that kind of bridge building, partnership building and …
Harts and Hickey Join Strategic Forces in Latin America
August 9th, 2011Hickey & Associates, LLC, a global site location and public/private advisory firm based in Minneapolis is announcing the merger of its company with HartsGroup, Inc., a multi-disciplinary consulting firm serving corporate clients in the Americas.
The combined organization will draw on the talented group of leaders from both companies, and greatly enhance the collective effort to provide advisory services in strategic Latin American markets. The team of site selection and public incentive experts are based in key strategic markets throughout The Americas to leverage local knowledge and maximize client service.
As Founder of HartsGroup, Inc. Ann Harts blends nearly three decades of experience in corporate real estate, economic development, site selection, and incentive advisory. Ann is fluent in domestic and international site selection, providing strategy and services on corporate site selection and public incentive advisory to global companies, as well as Community Screening Studies for M&A transactions. She has recently completed projects …
Five Things That Might Scare You About Nearshore Real Estate
August 5th, 2011
By Patrick Haller
Nearshore countries say they want the IT and BPO jobs, but some are apparently not willing or able to provide the office space those jobs require. Dynamics vary from location to location, but finding the right facilities for your business is not typically going to be simple. Here are five risks you should be aware of when sourcing real estate in the region.
Source: MarketWatch/Business Wire
DENVER — StarTek, a leading provider of business process outsourcing services, announced today the signing of a lease for a new contact center in San Pedro Sula, Honduras. The center is expected to open late in the third quarter of 2011.
“The addition of a center in Honduras was driven by client needs,” said Chad Carlson, StarTek’s President and Chief Executive Officer. “We have experienced great success with our StarTek Costa Rica facility and went searching for another bilingual, educated population in a country with a stable democratic government which ultimately led us to Honduras. This further expansion into Latin America is consistent with our plans to continue to grow our global footprint.”
The center is located in the Altia Business Park in San Pedro Sula. The city of over 800,000 is home to seven institutions of higher learning and is the second largest city in Honduras.
Honduras’ Rising Mobile Use Means Opportunity for Operators; Texting Drives Increase
March 30th, 2011CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Despite a highly penetrated mobile market, operators in Honduras will see opportunities in increasing data usage along with the expected migration from basic handsets to text-friendly devices and smartphones, according to a new report from Pyramid Research (pyr.com).
Honduras: Smartphone Growth to Boost Flagging Broadband Penetration Rate offers a precise profile of the country’s telecommunications, media and technology sectors based on proprietary data from Pyramid’s research in the market. It provides detailed competitive analysis of both the fixed and mobile sectors, tracks the market shares of technologies and services and monitors the introduction and spread of new technologies.
“Despite recent political problems in Honduras, the telecom market has continued expanding, fueled by advances in mobile penetration and broadband Internet,” says Jose Manuel Mercado, Senior Analyst at Pyramid. “In 2010, the telecom market generated $1.36 billion and will expand at a CAGR of 5.1 percent …
Honduras Outsourcing Country Section is One-Stop Briefing Center
March 9th, 2011
Close followers of Nearshore Americas may have noticed in the last week we injected some new features and freshened up the look of these pages. (More improvements and a big expansion – next week – are on the way, so stay tuned.) One of the standout additions we have made is the launch of “Honduras Outsourcing“, a section devoted entirely to answering key questions investors and sourcing customers have about a county that is one of leading ‘cost-to-value plays’ in the nearshore region.
The section is the first true “Country Briefing Center” within the Nearshore Americas brand. For months, readers have asked us for better ways to navigate into sections of the site which look at single countries. The Country Briefing Center is our answer. Altia Business Park, a world-class BPO facility that recently opened in San Pedro Sula, …
COUNTRY PROFILE: Fighting Labor Scalability Issues, Honduras Kick Starts BPO Industry
December 8th, 2010By Tarun George
San Pedro Sula, home to the new Altia Business Park, generates about 60% of the Honduras GDP.
When Nearshore Americas reported on the ‘Nearshore Business and Investment Forum’ in San Pedro Sula, Honduras in September, we were impressed at the number of multinational firms in attendance. Players like Atento, Sykes and Sitel showed up, indicating there is no lack of “shoppers” poking around looking to better understand the Honduras sourcing equation.
With a long history in manufacturing, Honduras looks set to climb the value ladder to professional services. But analysts fear that the main ingredient for a strong call center destination – a skilled language proficient workforce – may be in short supply. Can Honduras produce enough talented labor to meet firms’ demand, or will the market become quickly saturated like so many others before?
