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.
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.
StarTek’s Carlson: In the BPO World, It’s Getting Tougher to Find the ‘Right Conditions’
July 22nd, 2011
By Patrick Haller
In the U.S., executives are making decisions about Latin America based on emotions and not fact… in India, customers are now looking for something different… in the Philippines, wage pressures…. in Egypt, “superior” English skills… Western Europe, nearshoring to Eastern Europe….
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.
KM2 Solutions Opens New Contact Center in Honduras
April 14th, 2011Atlanta, Georgia – KM2 Solutions LLC, a leading provider of Near Shore BPO services today announced the opening of a new Contact Center in The Altia Business and Technology Park located in San Pedro Sula, Honduras.
Plans to develop operations in Honduras were initiated in response to both the needs of KM2’s fortune 500 client base and the continued growth in the market for high quality bilingual services located close to North American markets. The new facility, which includes state of the art technology in a LEED certified building and access to Honduras’s English language skills, will be the company’s fourth, location. The new location will allow KM2 Solutions to continue to grow with existing clients and implement new clients and services in a strategic location with modern infrastructure and access to Honduras world class telecommunications infrastructure.
“The opening of KM2 Solutions new San Pedro Sula office is an important step towards …
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, …
The Government of Honduras announced an aggressive plan for legal reform and a campaign to promote the country as an investment destination.
With the launch of web portal “Honduras is open for business” and a video of a speech by President Porfirio Lobo the Honduran Government announced the National Investment Promotion program 2010-2014, named “The high point of a deep institutional and legal reform to position Honduras as the most attractive investment destination in Latin America.”
During May 5 and 6 in San Pedro Sula, at the Expocentro fairgrounds, an event will take place including Exporters, Business Roundtables and an international business forum, in which participation of former U.S. President William Jefferson Clinton, former president of Colombia, Álvaro Uribe Vélez, Mexican businessman Carlos Slim and the president of the Inter-American Development Bank, IDB, Luis Alberto Moreno, is expected.
In search for accelerated economic and social …
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?
Central America is Not Keeping Pace
September 24th, 2010 
By Susan Arledge, President/CEO, Arledge Partners Real Estate Group
The nearest of the Nearshore outsourcing markets are gaining plenty of global attention, but are they prepared to react and adjust to market demands?
According to Indrajit Basu in his article entitled Latin America Offers New IT Outsourcing Challenge states: “Although work has not started running away from India yet, over the last few quarters, few new businesses of inbound voice back-office processes are coming to India,” says Ramesh Kamath of Aditya Birla Minacs, an IT-services BPO company.
The main reason: Latin America is getting fiercely competitive. “While Indian service providers are still conscious about margins, Latin American providers offer rates that are at least $3 to $4 cheaper than Indian voice process rates per hour,” says Kamath. “Consequently Latin America is not only emerging as more competitive in …
Exclusive: Where is ACS Going Next?
August 9th, 2010By Kirk Laughlin
Mike Wooden at ACS: Clients are pulling back from offshore
Multinational call center and CRM players like Teleperformance, Convergys and Stream Global Services aren’t the only major league operators looking to expand their presence in the Nearshore region.
Embolden by the deep pockets of its new parent Xerox, ACS rates high on our list of companies prime to leverage the robust interest many clients have to locate customer service operations in Latin America. Mike Wooden, senior vice president, market development, Business Process Services gave us some of his thoughts in this interview.
