March 16, 2007
Updated 18:04:37 (Mla time)
DAVAO CITY, Philippies -- Internet cafés in Mindanao could increase their revenues by becoming call centers at the same time, a ranking Microsoft official said.
George Parilla, Microsoft Southern Philippines marketing manager, said this type of café operation -- called the new trend in business process outsourcing (BPO) -- had started growing in Luzon.
Parilla told the Philippine Daily Inquirer on Tuesday that this type of expansion or diversification could arrest falling earnings of Internet cafés.
He said Internet shop operators in the Visayas and Mindanao informed Microsoft officials about their problem of low revenues during a meeting on January 17.
"They could not immediately recover the investments (they poured into the business)," he said.
Parilla said Internet shop operators told them that their business usually ran in an eight-hour shift and remained unproductive during the rest of the day.
He said the idea of becoming part-time call centers was brought to the operators.
"When cafés are converted into call centers, the infrastructure as well as the equipment would be more utilized," he said.
Parilla said Biometrix, a company that provided a platform for interested companies, charged an investment of $155 per call center seat.
But Biometrix would also link the call center with prospective clients.
"They have direct accounts in the United States and the United Kingdom," he said.
John Marvin Cruz, Biometrix corporate marketing director, said the key in putting up a call center company was establishing contacts.
Through their platform, he said that Internet cafés could recover their investments in a span of six months.
Cruz said a client in Batangas started with 10 seats. The client, he said, now operated 30 seats and had plans to expand to 70 seats before the end of the year.
On human resources, Cruz said they also linked the cafés to training schools.
Parilla said Microsoft, on the other hand, would help Internet cafés by introducing them to financing institutions that would assist them in converting their operations into a call center operation.
Parilla said they could help facilitate financing programs to small and medium enterprises through Banco de Oro.
"We don't want to leave out the Internet cafes because they have a big impact on our society," he said.
He said aside from helping Internet shops grow their revenues, turning them into call centers would also encourage operators to use only licensed software.
Piracy of its operating systems and other products remains one of Microsoft's biggest headaches in Asia, including the Philippines.
http://services.inquirer.net/express/07/03/17/html_output/xmlhtml/20070316-55275-xml.html
2 comments:
That's good idea. Could it also possible here in Iligan City? We are very interested to convert our cafes to call center or MT office by night.
Felix C. Maminta
President
Iligan Internet Cafe Operators Asso., Inc.
I read your interesting post about your topic "Microsoft urges Internet cafés to double as call centers" and it was really an interesting topic.
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