Consilium Software to expand unified comms offering with investment

Singapore-based Unified Communications solutions company Consilium Software will expand its offering after attracting investment from venture capital company JAFCO Asia.

Consilium, which also has operations in India, S.E. Asia, Taiwan and Canada, develops Unified Communications software and solutions for enterprises and contact centres. Consilium's UNI range of products include Consilium UniAgent, UniInsight and UniQM. "This investment and backing from JAFCO Asia will enable us to further accelerate IP creation and product development, grow our managed service model into a disruptive technology, and bolster Consilium's position as a dominant player in the Asia Pacific and globally," Consilium president Pramod Ratwani said.

Consilium plans to launch Unified Communications solutions in a SaaS model on a hosted platform that will save on all the costs attached to developing and deploying solutions by individual providers. The SaaS model will ease the adoption of UC applications, including multichannel, multi-site contact centers, that were previously associated with high cost and complexity.

PharmCentre announces Indian expansion

US based medical and healthcare contact centre PharmCentre says it is increasing its presence in South Asia with addition of offices in India.

PharmCentre supports pharmaceutical, biotechnology, device, and healthcare industries. The increased Indian presence, along with other locations in the US and the Philippines offer 24/7 coverage of its services to global customers.

PharmCentre, a wholly owned subsidiary of MakroCare, says it believes that call management plays a vital role in retaining customers, protecting brands and reaching to patients effectively. PharmCentre provides product hotlines, medical information, AE/SAE Triage, PV contact centre, product complaints, patient recruitment, patient retention, site management in clinical trials, EDC support and other BPO support services.

China Unicom launches hotlines for international travellers

Chinese telco China Unicom has launched a new international roaming customer service hotline for its users who travel overseas.

China Unicom mobile users who cannot access the local networks normally, or their mobile phones cannot be used normally when travelling to another country, can dial the company's new international roaming customer service hotlines opened in those countries. Instead of dialing the former international roaming customer service hotline, which may be out of service, the local hotline call is instead redirected to China Unicom's centres in China.

Users receive an SMS when they land in foreign countries displaying the particular hotline numbers for those countries and regions. By the end of June 2010, China Unicom says it will have launched the service in 37 countries, which are the most visited by Chinese travellers.

Philippine outsourcers have been urged to turn their attention to European customers to expand their markets.

European Chamber of Commerce and Industry in the Philippines executive VP Henry Schumacher said the Philippines is still unable to fully maximise the outsourcing market, which is currently being enjoyed by India. "India is doing well in marketing itself as a growth location for European investors. But the Philippines has a huge potential to even grab a bigger share," he said.

"Since Europe is also aggressively looking at opportunities from emerging countries in the east, now is the time for the entire Philippines to explore Europe since it is also the largest business process outsourcing market," Schumacher said. Schumacher said that while several European companies have already come to invest in the Philippines, the latter's lack of knowledge in understanding the European culture requires need for waging a more aggressive campaign when penetrating the foreign market.

 'your call' blog
by Dr Catriona Wallace

Developing a Service Strategy for Organisations and Contact Centre

This week I did not offend anyone in a public forum. Brilliant.

Instead I have been focused on writing the last pieces of a strategic plan and business case for a large financial services contact centre. Which got me to thinking that usually I blog about the research side of callcentres.net mainly 'cause everyone loves a good stat, but I thought that it may also be interesting to hear about some of the strategy stuff we are doing with both private and public sector.

Some of the most interesting projects we do now is working with senior teams on three year strategic plans for multi-channel service delivery. Typically we find, most organisations, even the major brand names, do not have an explicitly developed or written Service Strategy. Often when I say, 'Can you please tell me about your corporate multi-channel service strategy' most C-level executives respond "Multi-what? What's a channel?"

Read the full blog here .....

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