Are you the Ugly American? Travel Tips for Americans Overseas
October 31, 2006
(Budget Travel Online) -- Certain actions -- whether stemming from ignorance or arrogance -- will brand you a jerk. Experts offer advice to avoid the 10 most common faux pas among travelers.
Find the local rhythm
Americans have a hard time adjusting to a pace of life that isn't as fast as their own, says Jacqueline Whitmore, author of "Business Class: Etiquette Essentials for Success at Work." As a result, they're sometimes labeled as rude and pushy. "In Germany, dinner can take three hours or more," says Whitmore. "It's an experience. You can offend the waitstaff by trying to speed up the process."
Make a good first impression
"In some cultures you hug, in others you shake hands and in others you kiss," says Cindy Post Senning, a director at the Emily Post Institute. "It's easy to disrespect locals if you aren't familiar with how to greet them, both formally and casually."
Avoid careless judgments
Travelers love to talk about how places are different from home. Unfortunately, says Senning, innocent observations can come across as superior and judgmental, as in: "Your cars are so small here!" or "I can't believe this restaurant doesn't have ice cubes."
Mind your table manners
Educating yourself about local customs is the only way to know that Chileans expect wine to be poured with the right hand, and that the Japanese frown upon sloshing soy sauce on rice. As for those times when you're served food you can't bear to look at, let alone eat, but you don't want to disrespect your host? Smile and eat as much as you can, says Colleen Rickenbacher, author of "Be on Your Best Business Behavior."
Speak the language
You don't have to be fluent, or even close; you just have to make an effort. "It sends an offensive message when you don't even acknowledge 'good day' in the language," says David Solomons of CultureSmart!Consulting, which publishes country-by-country etiquette guides. "It's total and utter anathema to the French when an American starts a conversation without beginning it with bonjour."
Don't overtip
Monica Francois Marcel, of consulting firm Language & Culture Worldwide, says nobody tips as much as Americans (and that isn't always commendable). "It gets at the economics of a country," she says. "A taxi driver could easily interpret your tip as flaunting your wealth." Marcel recommends asking a concierge to explain local expectations, and then tipping the concierge the proper amount. Of course, undertipping is never a great idea, either.
Watch your gestures
The wrong move with your head, hand or foot can be a surefire way to get on a local's nerves, or even pick a fight. "We also fail to do our homework about space relationships," says Roger E. Axtell, author of eight international etiquette guides, including "Do's and Taboos Around the World." "Latin America and the Middle East have smaller personal 'bubbles,' so you must refrain from stepping away when they move close."
Dress respectfully
Classy everyday attire might have faded in the U.S., but it's always a good idea for tourists to look smart, says Whitmore. Conservative "global colors" -- grays, blues, blacks -- are generally safe bets. If you're going to a warm climate, avoid the temptation to pack only shorts and sandals. Include slacks and dress shoes, especially if you plan on dining at nice restaurants or visiting houses of worship.
Use clear English
Many people speak English as a second language, and it's hard for them to understand when tourists use slang and neglect to speak slowly. "We clutter our speech with jargon and sports and military terminology," says Axtell. "Try to stay away from idioms and slang, and watch for reactions to make sure communication is going well. Americans also forget to avoid phrases like, 'Hi, how are you?' in which we aren't really looking for an honest response."
Be a thoughtful guest
As in the U.S., if you're staying at someone's house or going over for dinner, bring flowers. Souvenirs from home -- T-shirts, refrigerator magnets -- are appreciated, too. Small gifts can smooth out everyday interactions. Marcel recalls the warm response when she handed out $1.50 bottles of Jim Beam to Russian officials checking passports on the trains. "It made the process a lot faster, and they looked out for me," she says. Gifts don't have to be expensive; as always, it's the thought that counts.
© 2006. Newsweek Budget Travel, Inc.
PI Outsource and TeleDevelopment: Recruiting Philippines Talent
October 28, 2006
Philippines Call Center Jobs - National Capital Region
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The explosive growth of the call center industry is creating many exciting new career paths for Filipinos. Demand for white collar “office” workers is growing rapidly. What is the result? An awesome selection of job opportunities for you!
Call centers have evolved in the Philippines. The call center is now a large part of the newer “Business Process Outsourcing” thrust.
The staff at PI Outsource wants you to remember that call centers have become total business enterprises with job offerings and positions for you in many types of agent and non-agent careers. Web designers, computer programmers, IT networking specialists, human resources, legal aides and security specialists are all part of a well-oiled functioning call-center team.
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Finding Offshore Customers for a Call Center Startup
October 20, 2006
Finding Offshore Customers for a Call Center Startup
By: Altaf Khan
Finding offshore customers for a call center startup is a difficult proposition. The real challenge, however, comes afterwards - delivering and meeting the expectations of those customers!
First things first though - how to go about finding your initial customers? The first question that you need to ask yourself is why some organization should outsource work to you? For them outsourcing is certainly an attractive, but high-risk proposition. It is attractive not only because it lets them concentrate more on their core activities, but also because of cost-savings. Their risks are primarily quality and reliability related. As a startup you should be prepared to address these risks in a satisfactory manner.
For starters, you should be able to back the quality and reliability of your service. This can be done in many ways: you should try to do them in as many as possible. A standard device guaranteeing the quality and reliability is a Service Level Agreement (SLA). You should develop an SLA defining industry-standard performance criteria for your company.
You should also show the prospective customer some evidence about your track record (e.g. list of customers and testimonials) in the running of call centers. As a startup, you may not have such testimonials. In that case, you should highlight the call-center-related experience of your key team members.
Call center customers prefer specialists over generalists. Try to select a niche for yourself, e.g., order taking, helpdesk, telesales, etc., and try to build your whole selling pitch around that niche.
Before making a pitch to prospective customers, try to understand how their business work and be ready to tell them the following: how they can make-more-money or save-more-money or get-more-business or enhance-the-quality-of-their-service or improve-their-product by outsourcing their call center function to you?
Do tell them about the processes that you have in place to assure the quality of your services. An industry-standard quality certification will be invaluable in this regard. Do develop a disaster-recovery plan and share it with the potential customer.
Here are a few more suggestions: get in touch with your country's expatriates in the target country for leads and other assistance. Register your company with country-specific organizations (like NASSCOM in India, PSEB in Pakistan) and international portals like offshorexperts.com. Write to other offshore companies in outsourcing powerhouses like India, Philippines, and Canada and see if they would like to develop a partnership with you.
Author Bio
Altaf Khan - - - www.altafkhan.com
Article Source: http://www.ArticleGeek.com - Free Website Content
Think Long And Hard About Offshoring
October 19, 2006
By: David Jones
Like outsourcing, but over more time-zones in different languages and cultures, offshoring is a huge step to take if you haven't done it before. Getting it right can open up new avenues for increased productivity for a whole host of your organisation's processes. Getting it wrong can mean the "O word" is never mentioned again and your organisation is burdened with costs that competitors divested long ago.
Offshoring Models - Take Your Pick
Should you be considering a lower risk & reward partnership with a Big Four consultancy who own the offshore relationships, or a more "do it yourself" approach where you put
all the offshore supplier relationships in place? On the other hand would you prefer to acquire or establish a business offshore? The typical risks and rewards of the models can be significantly different, so take a bit of time getting this decision right. Some companies take a progressive approach; they get help with the earlier offshored processes, and then ultimately transition to establishing their own organisation offshore.
Before You Do Anything
If you haven't offshored before, consider offshoring "back-office" rather than "front office" processes first and don't try to reinvent the wheel. Start by selecting the right project manager; someone who's "been there" and "done that" before. If you're not partnering with a "Big Four" consultancy and you can't wait for headhunters, give some thought to interim management as an alternative. Whatever route you take though, don't risk using someone who looks good, but actually hasn't done it before. You'll need someone who knows what actually happens, who really knows the key risks and how to mitigate them; someone who knows which are the emerging markets and those which are more mature.
Once you've found your experienced offshorer, give them unambiguous terms of reference and then build a full time multi-disciplinary offshoring team around them. If you think you can't afford to build a multi-disciplinary team, for the duration of the project, think again. Can you afford not to?
What's The Worst Case Scenario?
Before you go much further, get the team to work out what the likely benefits will be and also what your offshore disaster recovery plan is going to look like and cost. The latter may be a rapid re-onshoring of the process, but whatever it looks like, it's best to know what the worst case scenario is and decide whether the risk-reward ratio is right sooner rather than later.
Consider Re-Engineering Before Offshoring
In the rush to offshore, most companies overlook this, but whichever model you choose it's better to optimise your processes before you offshore them. This has several benefits. It ensures that the key steps to process success are documented formally, rather than them remaining carefully guarded secrets in your employees' heads. Understanding current process performance also helps to develop confidence about what level of improvements are likely to be achievable. The application of lean techniques can reduce the cost of a business process (before offshoring) by between 20-30% and reduce in process inventory levels and lead times by 50%. That way you capture the savings before the transition to offshore, otherwise your eventual supplier will retain them. Importantly simplification will help to make the process more robust, whoever's ultimately operating it.
Engaging With Offshore Suppliers
Identify what the key success factors for an outsourced relationship are, and issue a Request for Information (RFI) to potential suppliers. From this identify what additional benefits the offshore suppliers should be able to provide because they are specialists in the field.
Be absolutely clear about what your performance expectations are from the beginning. Set these as objectives when you first meet with long-listed suppliers, and repeat them for conditioning purposes at every important meeting. Back this up with a contract which includes comprehensive service level agreements (SLAs) as schedules; and where you want ongoing performance improvements draft clauses with win-win incentives.
Make sure that you get your "supplier quality assurance" assessments right. Run in-depth diagnostics inside the short-listed suppliers' businesses and let your process experts find out how suppliers really do things.
If you've comprehensively specified your requirements, give serious consideration to using e-Sourcing (e-Request for Information, e-Request for Quotation & Reverse e-Auctions) to minimise suppliers' prices, but don't forget to take account of any fixed costs which will be left behind and will have to be shared amongst the remaining onshore cost centres.
When you've selected your supplier, run "on-shore" trials with "offshore" employees to prove the concept and develop and train supplier "super-users", then run "offshore" pilots, before rolling the solution out on a grand scale.
Then when the relationship is established put full time supplier relationship managers in place, who understand in detail how the onshore process worked, and will work inside
your offshore suppliers to drive continuous improvement against the SLAs and maintain service quality.
Conclusion
Yes offshoring has its risks, but a carefully managed project led by someone who really knows what they're doing, can open up an entirely new range of opportunities to improve your organisation's performance.
Author Bio
David Jones works for Executive Interims - Supply Chain Practice providing supply chain interim management services - see
www.executive-interims.co.uk/interim_management/interim_management.asp .
Article Source: http://www.ArticleGeek.com - Free Website Content
