Americas Summit 2003
The Contact Center & Strategic Sourcing Summit of the Americas
January 22-24, 2003 The Mayfair House, Coconut Grove Miami, Florida
Sponsors:
RMH | InfoAmericas | CINDE | InfoCision | PRIDCO | CRESA Partners
Official Publications:
Contact Professional | SITE Selection
Speakers:
James Beatty, NCS International Inc.; Steve Brubaker, InfoCision; Eli Feinzaig, CINDE; Bob Frederickson, PricewaterhouseCoopers; Jean-Claude Goldenstein, JCG International Inc.; Terry Hueneke, Manpower Inc.; Paul Kavanaugh, KCG Consulting Inc.; Deepak Khandelwal, McKinsey & Company; Jim Moylan, CallCenterJobs.com/TelePlaza.com; Chris Nein, Entel Call Center; Richard E. Northup, Northup Communications and Military Services; Patrick F. ONeal, Sento Corporation; Juan Carlos Orozco, Avaya; Philip Peters, Zagada Markets; Gerald Pisarzowski, Greater Toronto Marketing Alliance; Karen Rumble-Needel, RMH; Richard Shapiro, The Center For Client Retention; Bruce Sinclair; InfoAmericas; Charles Sykes, Sykes Enterprises Inc.; James W. Tiller, Verizon Enterprise Solutions Group
PROGRAM
Wednesday January 22
Pre-Summit Workshops: The Ins and Outs of Contact Center Partnerships
9:00 am - 12 noon Attract Investors to your Location
Jean-Claude Goldenstein, Managing Partner of JCG International, Inc.
Make the short list. Attract contact center project investment to your region and community by attaining crucial strategic tools and the essential tactics needed to win out over a competitive location. Understand the process that international economic development agencies require to pinpoint potential qualified investors quickly and win them over. Whether the potential operation is small, medium or large, learn to perfect your marketing methods to obtain successful results.
1:00 - 4:00 pm The Architecture of Outsourcing
Jim Moylan, President, CallCenterJobs.com and TelePlaza.com
Paul Kavanaugh, President, KCG Consulting, Inc.
Gain an understanding of the critical foundation of this most important partnership. Develop your business model on the essential list of checks and balances to develop your strategic plan. This workshop will take participants through the process of identifying the outsourcing options that should be considered, developing a business case for outsourcing, and the detailed process of selecting an outsourcing partner. The establishment of concise and effective procedures are fundamental to successfully realizing the objectives set forth in the business case.
6:00 - 8:00 pm Opening networking reception
Thursday, January 23
8:00 - 9:00 am The Vertical Horizon
North America, Caribbean, Latin America: A Site Location Overview
Bob Frederickson, Senior Manager, Business Location Strategy Practice, PricewaterhouseCoopers
As the Americas market continues to evolve into a highly sophisticated, multimedia contact center environment, the site selection picture has become vastly more complex than it was a few years ago. Expansion into new and evolving markets, along with tried and true business locations, has business leaders constantly re-evaluating their options. Tax incentives, lower labor costs and a highly educated and motivated workforce, along with access to high-quality voice/data infrastructure, are all contributing factors when coming to the right location decision. This session will examine current demographic research which highlights the critical elements in determining your future site.
9:00 - 10:00 am Site Selection Case Study:
Costa Rica Opportunities Abound with Rich Rewards in the Center of the Americas
Eli Feinzaig, Investment Director, Costa Rican Investment Board (CINDE)
Charles E. Sykes , Senior Vice President, General Manager Americas, Sykes Enterprises, Incorporated
The Costa Rican Investment Board (CINDE) will be the host of this dynamic case study. You will explore the opportunities, challenges, success, growth and benefits as experienced by Sykes Enterprises, Inc., which chose to set up operations in Costa Rica. As Sykes has grown to 43 contact centers around the world, four site selection criteria Availability and Quality of Workforce; Political & Cultural Stability; Appropriate Service, Technology and Communications Infrastructure; and Business Incentive or Tax Considerations remain crucial to their success in each location. Charles E. Sykes, SVP, General Manager, Americas for Sykes Enterprises Inc., will present how Costa Rica meets each of these criteria and in doing so helped with Sykes' ongoing success in the region as the company expands its support to different industries and services, and takes on increasingly more challenging programs.
10:00 - 10:15 am Refreshments
10:15 - 11:15 am The Power of Partnership
Improving the Customer Experience ... and your Bottom Line
Karen Rumble-Needel, Vice President of Business Development, RMH
Simply acquiring new customers is not enough to maintain a healthy bottom line. In today's marketplace, the true value comes from the care, retention and growth of those acquired customers. Building a strong, unique, long-term partnership requires the seamless coordination of all human, technical and strategic resources in your organization. This presentation will focus on the three win-win strategic elements needed to build your customer relationships and discover the power of partnership.
11:15 am - 12:15 pm Monitoring Outsource Partners from the Customer's Perspective
Richard Shapiro, President, The Center For Client Retention
Most customer satisfaction measurement systems do not adequately measure the satisfaction and loyalty effect of the callers who are contacting your call centers on a regular basis. Whether or not you are utilizing the services of an outsource partner, effective measurement puts you in control. What are the advantages/disadvantages of various measurement methodologies: telephone, mail, e-mail and IVR? Discover the importance of in-depth telephone measurement as a primary tool for providing the information your company needs to build long term loyalty, increase revenues and improve profitability.
12:15 - 1:15 pm Lunch
1:15 - 3:15 pm Vertical Horizon Panel Exposι and Discussion
Facilitated by James Beatty, President of NCS International, founder of www.callcentersites.net, and author of the recently published "Manual for Technology-Led Economic Development"
USA Snapshot of a Community Based Call Center
Site Selection Case Study focusing on Gallipolis, Ohio
Steve Brubaker, Senior VP, Corporate Affairs, InfoCision Management Corporation
Dick Northup, Executive Director, Gallia County Community Improvement Corporation
This case study will cover areas from InfoCision's initial search for a new expansion call center, evaluating basic demographics, extensive market research (IMC did more than 100 surveys) and quality of the workforce, through the Center's opening and then growing their operation in Gallipolis, Ohio. (Question and Answer session to follow)
Canada North of 49
Toronto: The World Within a City
Gerald Pisarzowski, VP Business Development, Greater Toronto Marketing Alliance
A case study of successful call/contact center operations that have either been outsourced or built in the Greater Toronto Area, the sustained growth they have experienced and the benefits afforded these organizations for operating out of the largest multicultural city center in Canada and one of the most desirable and sought after places to do business in North America. (Question and Answer session to follow)
The Caribbean
Puerto Rico: Global Reach, Close to Home
Salvatore Casale Esq., Deputy Director, Puerto Rico Industrial Development Company
This session will highlight the positive business experience of operating customer contact centers, network operations centers and back office support operations within the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. Salvatore will discuss how companies locating operations within the Commonwealth are able to leverage skilled labor with business cost minimization strategies to enhance the consideration of near shore offshore operations.
Latin America
The Advantages of Centralizing your South American Call Center Effort
Chris Nein, Entel Call Center National Sales Manager
Entel will discuss the advantages of going with a "centralized" versus decentralized call center solution to serve both South and Latin American customers. Large outsource providers and corporates continue to weigh the advantages of localization and risk-management versus decreased costs and operational efficiencies associated with a centralized system. Highlighting Chile as a real world example of how to mitigate technology risk and overcome cultural barriers, this presentation will demonstrate what makes Chile so unique and business-friendly, and what key role it plays in the South American business environment.
3:15 - 4:15 pm Interactive Forum (Refreshments will be served)
This is your opportunity to debate hot topics with your peers, benefit from each others' knowledge and experience, and to develop innovative solutions to some of today's outsourcing and site selection and contact center strategy issues.
4:15 - 5:15 pm Human Capital It's Still All About the People who Deliver Your Vision
Terry Hueneke, Director, Manpower Inc.
Declining growth rates of the population in the Americas naturally leads to a slowing of the growth of the labor force. In addition to this challenge, the contact center of the future, which includes faster growth of the multi-access environment, will succeed in direct correlation to the success of recruiting, training, motivating and retaining staff. This session will focus on the changing contact center's key asset human capital including pay rates and differentials, turnover rates, retention tips, assignment responsibilities, performance metrics and more.
5:15 - 7:00 pm Networking reception
Sponsored by Puerto Rico Industrial Development Company
Friday, January 24
7:30 - 8:15 am Networking breakfast
Sponsored by InfoCision Management Corporation
8:15 - 9:15 am The Emergence of the Latin America Offshore Service Market
Bruce Sinclair, Technology Industries Director, InfoAmericas
InfoAmericas provides market research, competitive intelligence and strategic consulting services throughout Latin America. In this detailed presentation, an analysis of the rapidly emerging Latin America offshore service market will enable you to gain an in-depth understanding of both the business and the research challenges of Latin America. You will learn about the current state of the supply market as it relates to call center, IT-enabled business processes and IT knowledge outsourced services, and where the end-user clients are based and what they are looking for in terms of these products and services. Outsourcing costs comparatively in the U.S. and in offshore locations will be examined, as will the emergence of indirect sales channels using real life case studies.
9:15 - 10:15 am Benchmarking to Achieve Breakthrough Performance
In a constantly changing global economy, the challenge is how to achieve extraordinary excellence and profits for your customer contact center. How can you translate your mission into improved customer satisfaction, eliminate service inefficiencies and ensure your customer operations hub performs as a profit center, not a cost-drain for your company? More importantly, how can you do it with a breakthrough operating model that insures a superb return on investment with speed and flexibility?
10:15 - 10:30 am Refreshments
10:30 - 11:30 am Driving Strategic Value in the Contact Center
Leveraging for Optimum Revenue Growth
Deepak Khandelwal, Principal, McKinsey & Company
The challenge is not only to create sustainable competitive advantage but to translate this advantage into tangible benefits that promote future revenue growth for the business. This involves developing the right strategy, aligning the organization, and putting in place technology and front-line processes to drive revenue growth without negatively impacting cost or quality.
11:30 am - 12:30 pm The High Performance Organization
Bridging the Gap from Traditional to High Performance Results
Patrick O'Neal, President and CEO, Sento Corporation
Demand for a more rapid response, innovative and customer centric organization is redesigning traditional business approaches. This "high-performance" organization is proving extremely essential in the call center/contact center support industry where many have lost their spirit, are unable to retain good employees, provide only meager service and find it impossible to identify root causes for poor performance. This presentation will focus on a proven methodology that will demonstrate in detail how a traditional organization can transform into a competitive, high-performance organization capable of exceeding customer and employee demands with long-term, strategically aligned results.
12:30 - 1:30 pm Lunch
Sponsored by CRESA Partners
1:30 - 2:30 pm New Technology What's Hot, What's Not
Juan Carlos Orozco, CRM Business Development Director, Avaya Caribbean & Latin America
Novel technology or trendy philosophies, new technological advances suggest that they can deliver superior performance on existing infrastructure, enabling new services and reducing costs. These developments are consistently the subject of much discussion by contact center executives looking to further enable personnel performance and operational profitability. Our speakers will define the characteristics of the most recent and popular technological innovations being implemented and deployed in leading-edge contact centers.
2:30 - 3:30 pm The Caribbean Connection
So Much More than a Vacation Location
Philip Peters, CEO, Zagada Markets Inc.
Shift your perspective from looking at the Caribbean region and its people as merely a fun stop over. Take a look inside the intellectual, social, political and economic infrastructure that has built this region into a strong, competitive contender in the gobal contact center community. Our speaker will highlight corporations that have developed successful operations in the Caribbean Basin, and how this region's world-renowned sense of hospitality has expanded into one of the strongest emerging contact center growth regions of the world.
3:30 - 3:45 pm Break
3:45 - 4:45 pm Empower Your Strategic Options
James Tiller, Vice President of Application Services, Call Center Solutions Group, Verizon
Propel your Executive Mandate to the Highest Level of Performance Excellence
Take Advantage of Hidden Opportunities
Position Your Corporate Initiative with Supreme Competitive Advantage
