Virtualization software is making news in the IT and contact center industry. People with technical background should be familiar with names like Virtual Server, Virtual PC, VMware, Hyper-V and Citrix. Basically, virtualization is one software-based platform. It allows a host machine to build and operate single or more number of virtual machines at a time.

These days, the use of virtualization software is prominent in contact centers and in the IT industry. Virtualization software is functioned to follow a computer system. It allows guest operating system to operate efficiently. With virtualization available in the market today, there are several benefits to combine. Some of these advantages include:

Reduced Costs:

Don’t worry about buying latest server hardware. Next time, if you have performance or life-cycle related issues, do not wait make Physical-to-Virtual migration to your own virtual server with convenience.

Server Consolidation:

Virtualization can increase space in the data or telecom center. This is another advantage of using virtualization.

Lowering the use of any physical server:

Virtualization reduces use of most under-utilized server machines. It reduces hardware failures, power consumption and maintenance costs.

Backup/ Failover:

The fully redundant hosts or backups of the live servers stand few clicks away. With virtualization you can carry out restoring services with a lot of ease.

Ensuring Flexibility in Operating System:

With virtualization, you gain the ability to deploy several operating system technologies on one hardware platform like Linux, UNIX, and Windows Server 2000, 2003 or 2008.

Have a virtualized contact center and ensure a positive influence on your own business.

Recently released report of the National Statistics Office (NSO) showed that call center firms remain the top revenue generators in the entire BPO industry. Amid continuous dearth of qualified professionals in the business process outsourcing industry, the new report brings about a sign of relief.

The NSO reports suggest that the preliminary outcome from 2006 BPO activities placed generated call center business at P56.7 billion (calculated in Philippine currencies). The estimated figure tops all the others engaged in the business process outsourcing (BPO) sector.

In words of Mr. Alfredo Ayala, the recent years has marked a steady shift in the back office operations. Other potential BPO activities in Philippines include consultancy, software and supply accounting to P11.1 billion as revenues. On the other hand, software publishing accounts for P5 billion in total, data processing includes P4.8 billion, hardware consultancy accounts P28.3 million ( calculated in terms of Philippine currencies).

The improved results have encourages Business Processing Association of the Philippines (BPAP) to implement diverse solutions. All solutions initiated are aimed to address some of the key problems of the BPO industry. Programs implemented include enhanced English proficiency program for the BPO workers shaped in the form of Advanced English pre-employment Training. The adept plan has been developed and created as academic-industry response to meet the increasing needs of BPO sector.

As per the Board of Investment (BOI) reports, the total employment in the BPO Services Association and BPAP was placed at 4, 35,000 (2008) to that 3, 72000 in (2007). On whole, Philippines BPO has been forecasted to earn in between $11 billion and $13 billion employing about 900,000 people by the end of year 2010.

Davao, described as the “next wave” BPO city of Philippines by the Business Processing Association of the Philippines or (BPA/P) on last April, 15, is currently striving hard to focus more on its communication and information sector.

At present, the IT and communication sector of Davao continues to concentrate more on building up a sustainable talent pool, enhancing business environment and improving the infrastructure. All these and more are to ensure reduced cost, carry forward business activities and to sustain an edge as the most choice-able destination for the business process outsourcing firms.

In words of Lizabel G. Holganza, the President of Information and Communication Technology Association, the steps initiated stand crucial in carrying forward the city to the very next level. Ms. Holganza also added that the business process outsourcing industry of the country will provide support beyond serving the basic call center services. These include some higher-value tasks like that software development, basic transcription and animation.

Andre Joseph T. Fournier, the industry consultant of Davao City Chamber of Commerce and Industry says that the Davao City is currently hiring a large number of the local applicants. This is to meet the human resource needs in the first place. However, the current situation is somewhat different from that of earlier years. In those years, most applicants from the nearby areas were found seeking employment opportunities in nearby cities like Metro Cebu and Metro Manila.

Call Center Representative- The Important Processes Involved Call center recruitment process include a lot of essential considerations. The common processes involved in becoming one call center agent are as follows:

Initial Interview:

The initial interview rounds are conducted by the human resource department of a company. It can also be carried out by any other outsource staffing firm. This is to test the attitude, speaking abilities of the applicant and the lastly the confidence of the applicant in responding to various questions.

Phone Screening:

The stage of phone screening also determines the voice quality of the applicant over the call. This is the process that also check out and test the attitude, speaking skills and how much confident the applicant sounds to respond to any question.

Examination:

Now examination for becoming a call center agent generally includes some kind of aptitude tests, computer-related call simulations, attitude tests and emotional quality tests or EQ.

The final interview:

The final call center interview is to assess the customer service, sales skills and the other technical skill sets.

Most businesses use the essential call center customer services to interact with the customers. Some of the examples include mail order catalogs, utility companies, customer support services for software and hardware. On the other hand, there are businesses that even carry out diverse internal functions through the call center services. One example of such services includes sales support and help desks. When you are applying for a call center job, make sure that you have gone through the following qualifications listed by the company.