Convergys Corporation (NYSE: CVG), a global leader in relationship management, announces its expansion into Colombia with a state-of-the-art contact center that will provide top quality customer care services for leading corporations in the Americas. The new facility in Bogotá will bolster Convergys’ presence in Latin America, where the company already has offices and contact center facilities in Brazil, Mexico, and Costa Rica.

Known as the “Athens of South America” because of the number of top-notch colleges and universities located in the city, Bogotá impressed Convergys with its large bilingual talent pool and advanced telecommunications and transportation infrastructure. Choosing the location for its latest foray into Latin America, Convergys has outfitted a facility located in one of Bogotá’s top commercial areas with the latest tools in contact center technology. Convergys is hiring for all levels of talent, including management, support staff and skilled contact center agents to begin serving clients from the site in the first quarter of 2011. Once fully staffed, the site will employ up to 2,000 customer service experts.

“Continued client demand for the high quality bilingual services Convergys provides from Latin America is driving our growth in the region,” said Jorge Robledo, Convergys Vice President of Operations in Latin America. “Bogotá boasts a highly-educated bilingual population ideally suited to help ensure that Convergys continues to meet our global clients’ current and future need for superior technical and customer support, sales, and back office services.”

Convergys Customer Solutions help optimize everyday interactions throughout our clients’ enterprises – turning the customer experience into a strategic differentiator. As a single-source provider of self-service, agent-assisted, and proactive care, Convergys combines analytics, innovative technology, and agent-assisted services to optimize the customer experience and strengthen customer relationships.

As defined by its core set of values, Convergys is committed to building from within by emphasizing talent development among its employees. Through a number of training and development programs provided, employees will be able to build a future with Convergys and move into bigger roles throughout the company.

Convergys is hiring in Bogotá. Interested applicants are encouraged to apply in person at Convergys’ state-of-the-art contact center located at Empresarial 93, Calle 93 No. 11 A-11 in, Bogotá, or online at www.convergys.com/colombia.

DJ Edgerton, co-founder and CEO of Zemoga, talks about the innovative fire coming out of Bogota.

Nearshore Americas has learned that global contact center giant Convergys, which serves half of the Fortune 50, is setting up a BPO  service center  in Bogota after receiving clearance to operate in a new free trade zone in the northern part of Bogota.

As many as 2,500 seats will occupied at the center within three years, according to two reliable sources. The center, which should be operational in June, will also offer financial back-office support services.

Colombia is without question one of the hottest outsourcing destinations in Latin America, and its transformation has been one of the biggest stories to hit the headlines in the Nearshore community in the last several months.

Convergys spokesperson John Pratt declined to comment late today on our report.

“This does not come as a surprise, really,” says lead BPO and call center analyst Peter Ryan, of DataMonitor, commenting on the development. “There is a lot of capacity in Colombia and the country has the potential to become the next big thing in South America,” said Ryan, comparing its rise to Chile and Argentina, which have become globally recognized outsourcing centers.

Pace of Growth: A Critical Question

Another major global BPO player to jump into the Colombian market is Teleperformance, which recently acquired Teledatos, which generated about $75 million in 2009. Teledatos operates six delivery centers in Bogotá and Medellín, employing over 5,000 workers.

The big question facing Colombia over the near term is whether BPO growth will come as a deluge or grow incrementally. If there is a huge spike in demand for call center services, for example, Ryan says this could trigger inflationary wages pressures. “It would be better if the growth is spread  over the next 24 months,” he says.

The other question confronting the growing Colombia BPO sector  is whether cities such as Medellin and Cartegna will be able to produce sufficient quantities of bi-lingual workers, says Ryan.

Convergys Retrofits

Convergys recently downsized in Canada, cutting over 800 workers, and shuttling those positions reportedly to the Philippines. The Cincinnati-based company says it expects to hire at least six thousand employees this year in the Philippines. The company employs over 20,000 workers in 12 sites in the Philippines.

Finally, Convergys also landed recently in Gartner’s Magic Quandrant, recognized for its service delivery in the CRM/Contact Center space.

“We believe that Convergys’ position in the Leaders quadrant for CRM Contact Center BPO providers is a positive validation of our leadership, execution abilities, and investments in our customer solutions portfolio.  Our solutions, which include agent-assisted care, automation, self-service, and analytic services, enable our clients to stand ahead of their competitors based on the quality and consistency of the customer experiences we help them provide, and the customer intelligence we bring to them.” said Andrea Ayers, President, Customer Management, Convergys.

By Karina E. Cuevas

Bogota employs over 30,000 people in the contact center industry

Plenty of heads shook with dismay across Latin America, and particularly in Colombia, when Bogota was labeled as the riskiest outsourcing destination in the world for 2009, according to publishers of the Black Book on Outsourcing.

Lots of rankings come out annually about outsourcing providers, specialty areas, regions and cities – but this particular announcement seemed to be so at odds with reality that it triggered a slew of condemnations across the Internet and raised serious questions about the methods used by authors Scott Wilson and Doug Brown. (For further opinion, see Nearshore Americas’ reaction here.)

Modern City on the Rise

A city that generates over $250 million annually in the call center/outsourcing industry can hardly be called a dangerous investment option.  “It [Bogota] has a big and modern economy with over 500,000 college students, a major international airport and the advantage of moving more cargo in Latin America [than any other country],” says Vladimir Ramirez, Managing Director of International Development Group, a management consulting firm with operations in Colombia, New York and Chicago.  “It was number one in foreign investments last year (in LATAM) making it the first port of entry in Latin America and having both Colombian and international Spanish call centers located in Bogota.”

With facts like these, it’s hard to believe the negative comments on Bogota, but Black Book of Outsourcing doesn’t stop there. It places Bogota under the radar as a dirty and polluted city with an immature legal system.  When contact about the report, authors Scott Wilson and Doug Brown did not respond to questions.

“Many people know very little about Latin America and nothing about Colombia, so I don’t know if those people have ever been here or where they get their data,” says Ramirez. “Colombia, within its political context, has never had a coup d’état, it has only entered in a recession once at the end of the last century and from a public order point of view it is no more corrupt than India, Indonesia and other countries in Latin America.”

Teleaccion: Training Plays a Key Role

Colombia counts on the expertise of a consulting and training company, unique to Latin America, called Teleaccion.

• It’s a 21-employee institution specialized in improving technology and BPO management within the country and nine other nations around Latin America.
  
• It has focused on three primary countries of growth for the call center market, including Colombia, Peru and Venezuela.
• “We have trained around 23,000 people within 157 contact centers in Latin America,” says Patricia Alzate, General Manager of Teleaccion. “We work for Latin American reality, not for American or European cultures. Our method is a practical and simple one that has showed great results.”

According to Ramirez, Colombia is a market waiting to be discovered by the international community.  Currently there are around 120,000 employees within the call center industry.  The largest call centers are located in Bogota which employs around 30,000 people. The country, with seven distinct regions, offers over 12 cities in which to base a company.  In five years, the call center/outsourcing industry is expected to generate $2.5 billion in revenue for the country.

Colombia has over 20 contact centers around the country all with different levels of success. Teledatos, located in Bogota, ranked number two in 2008 accounting for 13 percent of the market revenue.  With 15 years of history, Teledatos has become a leader in domestic services and has an open door policy for international business. They focus on the health care sector, air and land transportation with their services delivered mainly in Spanish, but also in Portuguese, English and Papiamento (the official language spoken in the Caribbean islands of Aruba, Bonaire and Curacao).  It has a consistent portfolio of loyal clients, one that has maintained a 14 year long business relationship and others that see their quality in customer service and have stayed for over four years and counting.

Over 55 Clients Served

“Teledatos is born in Medellin and then in Bogota, being it the capital it went on to be part of the growth strategy,” says Mauricio Velasquez, Commercial and New Business Vice President. “We employ around 6,200 people and service 55 companies from Europe, the United States and Latin America.”

Profile: Mauricio Velásquez M.

Commercial and New Business Vice President of Teledatos

Systems Engineer of EAFIT, Specialized studies in Management in Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana and in Direct Development in INALDE.

He is a professional and numbered member of the International Association of Outsourcing Professionals – IAOP, USA.

He was Manager of Business Development with an emphasis on Outsourcing for HP in their region MCA (Multicounty Area), Director of Sales for business lines of Telecommunications for Unisys in Puerto Rico, Project Leader of IBM, among other related positions within outsourcing in technology.

Since 2009, he is the Commercial and New Business Vice President of Teledatos S.A. company that thanks to the strategic vision of its management team, it has leader the transformation of the Contact Centers in Colombia, transforming them in to one of the most strategic sectors of development in the country.

In the national market they place as number one when it comes to number of employees and annual capital.“Latin American culture is very easy and it’s not the same as in Pacific Asia because they have a barrier which is the English language,” says Vasquez. In Latin America we speak English and we weren’t born with it as a main language, so for companies like Samsung or LG that cater to the Hispanic population it would be easy for us to take care of their needs in our language, but for Indians to learn Spanish would be a very difficult process.”

The Colombian government is taking English language training seriously and is developing incentives to bring more qualified workers into call centers and outsourcing.

Government Steps Up its Role

“For this sector and with the help of the Department of Economic Development and the local government of Bogota we created a program called Talk to the World that is currently training 575 future employees in English and we expect to train 10,000 more in the next four years,” says Monica Ramirez Hartmann, Investment Officer of Invest in Bogota, a nonprofit investment promotion agency created by the Alcaldia Mayor de Bogota and the Bogota Chamber of Commerce.

According to Hartmann, Invest in Bogota together with other government institutions such as Servicio Nacional de Aprendizaje (SENA) is training and helping employ as many people as they can within the contact center industry regardless of their career choice. They want to attract as many foreign investors as possible by offering them the best customer service at a low price and therefore making Bogota grow from its 60 percent annual revenue within the industry.

“Colombia is a country that for 20 years has had a bad image, but today’s situation is not the same, it’s a problem on how you perceive things and reality,” says Ramirez Hartmann. “This is the least expensive country in Latin America when it comes to payroll, infrastructure and telecommunications and it’s all very effective, they don’t offer any problems to companies. We are also in a great geographic position compared to India and the Philippines, since it’s a city where all the major airlines arrive making it therefore a convenient destination.”

Karina E. Cuevas is a contributing writer to Caribbean CRM Central. She is based in the Dominican Republic and can be reached at: kecuevas@gmail.com