Costa Rica Call Center Blog

• 10 years ago two companies hired people with multilingual skills, today they are 14
• Portuguese, German and Mandarin, among others, are becoming stronger to provide services

Mastering English is not enough to get a job. Service Companies in the country are increasingly looking for professionals with different language skills.

Ten years ago, only Western Union and Sykes hired multilingual staff to provide services. Currently there are 14.

“The biggest challenge is to find the academic preparation combined with language proficiency,”  said Ericka Mora, human resources manager for DHL.

According to the CINDE, the 14 companies located in Costa Rica provide from services to financial and technical support in seven languages.

Companies like Intel, Sykes, Concentrix, Baxter and British American Tobacco SS Americas offer technical and financial support in English, Spanish, French, Portuguese, German, Italian and Mandarin.

Even the multinational DHL announced that, shortly, will offer financial services in Czech, Dutch, Swedish and Danish.

CINDE statistics indicate that 100% of service operations, 80% are in English, Spanish 8%, 7% in Portugal and the remaining 5% in other languages.

In line with the increased demand for multilingual personnel, Universities report a 235% growth in the number of people studying other languages besides English.

The Alliance Française also recorded a 20% increase in the number of new students.

Executives of seven companies surveyed said that to stay ahead, the country needs to keep up with supply of people.  They recommended not only graduating more professional in finance or engineering, but also encouraging them to be multilingual.

“Costa Rica has a very good level of training in general, however, the labor market demand has increased considerably in recent years,” said Arturo Barboza, director of public relations for Sykes.

Of the 2,800 employees working at its headquarters in Heredia and Moravia, 90% (2520) does in English-Spanish and the remaining 10% (280) does in German, French, Italian and Portuguese.

Another example: Intel has a global service center in Heredia where 45 people offer marketing assistance in Spanish, English and Portuguese.

“For us, the main challenge is to maintain the high standards of productivity, education and availability of languages to ensure that the model is sustainable over time,” said Rudy Sanchez, manager of British American Tobacco SS.

British American Tobacco, Hall employs 90 people for financial support: 70% Spanish, 20% English and the remaining 10% French-speaking markets.

CINDE has recorded 95 service companies here, which generate little more than 28,500 jobs.

Source: La Nacion

By Christopher Heine, ClickZ, Mar 5, 2010

Seventy-eight percent of Fortune 1000 companies are not employing social media sites to market to Latinos, according to survey results released yesterday by Hispanics-focused agency Orci. Hector Orci, co-founder of the Los Angeles-based firm, said some advertisers “are leaving money on the table” while stating that 80 percent of Hispanics use social sites and collectively total $1 trillion in buying power.

Orci pointed to the Spanish-language capabilities of Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace as potential messaging opportunities gone amiss. From his work for companies like Honda and Jack in the Box, he suggested that developing dialogue between a brand and Latinos on social sites is an excellent means to capturing some of the demo’s market share.

“What we have found is Latinos are extremely social,” Orci said. “So they are very eager to communicate with whoever wants to communicate with them.”

Of the companies utilizing social media to reach Hispanics, the survey found Facebook was the preferred site to focus efforts upon, with Twitter coming in a close second.

Orci surveyed 9,300 senior marketing and advertising executives from Fortune 1000 brands in consumer and business-to-business verticals. Fifty-one percent of the respondents indicated they do no marketing at all towards the Hispanic demo, which is expected to total 50 million – or 15 percent of the U.S. population – in the 2010 Census, according to the agency’s prepared release.

Depending on the individual product categories, between 78 and 89 percent of the respondents said they believe Hispanics will dramatically impact the following areas in the next five years: food, fashion, beauty, entertainment, and technology/communications.

Still, Orci said the survey data showed that the biggest advertisers were among those targeting Latinos the least. “About 50 of the Fortune 500 firms are not marketing to Latinos at all, via cyberspace, TV, or radio,” he said.

As the survey results clearly indicate, the practice of online marketing to Hispanics seems to be at a nascent-but-curious stage. Dedicated efforts by big-budgeted companies like Ford and the National Football League last year didn’t exactly go gangbusters, seeing only decent-to-somewhat-encouraging results.

Source: Click Z

IBM will expand the services it provides from Costa Rica by starting the a consulting practice and management of databases to improve the effectiveness of marketing and sales services they provide to their customers.

Rodrigo Cal, from IBM said that Costa Rica was selected to provide these new services because of education and skill of the staff hired to speak different languages.  He also stressed political stability and geographic proximity and time with the U.S.

Irving Soto, from CINDE, said the decision of the company shows the evolution of the service sector, which is evolving to higher value added services.

The expansion will generate 1,200 new jobs over the next two years from the current headcount of 800 employees.

IBM came to Costa Rica in 2004 to provide human resources for 325,000 employees of its customers in 13 countries in Spanish, Portuguese, English and French.

The number of companies providing services rose from one in 1995 to 81 in 2008. This year CINDE expects at least 10 new companies will join the industry.  Currently 24,000 people work in services.

Source: La Nacion

Corporations that require bringing foreign executives and technicians to work in Costa Rica will be able to make immigration procedures quickly through the Internet.

Through a pilot program of the Ministry for Competitiveness and the Costa Rica Immigration Office, intends that applications for residence permit for these workers to be processed in 10 days.

The Pilot Project will start on Tuesday with participation of four companies: Intel, T Menos Costa Rica, Ericsson and Surf Factory.

The initiative unveiled yesterday Jorge Woodbridge, Minister of Competitiveness, and Mario Zamora, director of the Immigration Office.

To make the online transactions interested companies need to register and subsequently include the data and documents of workers who they want come to reside here.  Once immigration officials to analyze the roles and approve the residency cards will be sent by courier to the respective companies.

Although the pilot starts with four companies, and there are 58 companies registered to use the system, said Zamora.

The head of Immigration said the unit daily receives about five requests for multinationals to bring in workers from other countries.

Alejandro Rodriguez, a lawyer representing T Menos (banking software company), Ericsson and Surf Factory, said the digital system will allow companies to save time and money on immigration proceedings.

Woodbridge said this is an additional step by the government to “eliminate unnecessary an bureaucratic procedures”.

“For businesses, time is money and this step will improve Costa Rica’s competitiveness,” he added

Source: La Nacion

• Services are provided in French, German, Mandarin, Russian, Italian and Portuguese
• Twelve percent of work is done in languages other than English and Spanish
• Among the services provider are financial services, tech support and customer service

Although English is the primary language with which multinationals operate, the need to provide services in other languages takes strength from such companies.

Increasingly multinational hire staff who speak French, German, Portuguese, Mandarin, Italian and even Russian.

These languages are required to handle calls for customer service, technical support, or financial and administrative tasks for businesses in Brazil, Europe and Asia.

During the Bilingual Job Fair, organized by Cinde at the beginning of the year, six of the 30 participating services firms sought employees with a third language.

Currently, for every 100 transactions conducted by the companies, 12 are made in languages other than English and Spanish.

“Market demand made companies in the country start its services in English, but there are interesting opportunities in other languages” said Gabriela Llobet, director Cinde, is responsible for attracting foreign investment.

Llobet added that in recent months has noticed the interest of corporations to provide services to companies in Brazil from the country.

Western Union, IBM, Emerson and the Shared Services unit of British American Tobacco, consulted by La Nacion, said they did not have trouble finding staff that speaks languages other than Spanish and English.

Good result. The expansion of staff in other languages is a natural happens in most companies after they have established a successful operations in English and want to expand either provide service on their captive operations or outsourcing.

An example is Western Union (money transfers), which arrived to Costa Rica in 1998 and only gave call center services in English and Spanish, but in 2004 brought new business to date and expanded to eight languages.

“Every year, the company makes three rounds of hiring’s with 20 to 30 people fluent in French, German, Portuguese, Mandarin, Italian and Russian, on each round” said Christian Rodriguez, vice president of Operations.

Of the 1110 employees of the company, 250 (23%) serve the process of fraud prevention and support for agents in Europe, Middle East and Africa. They also do finance and accounting.

Confidence. Multinationals such as IBM (services in human resources outsourcing) opted to do since arriving here from their business in English, Spanish, Portuguese and French.

“IBM is a globally integrated company, and therefore, we work with clients from different geographies,” noted Andrea Melendez, manager of Human Resources at the company. At IBM 80 out of 800 workers speak Portuguese and French.

Emerson Process Management also decided to give its engineering services in automation processes in English and Portuguese, following its opening in 2008.

Melissa Bonilla, manager of Human Resources Emerson, said it made “to provide added value to customers. About 10% of our staff speak Portuguese and 30% are in classes”.

Concentrix arrived in Costa Rica to take advantage of the multilingual labor pool. From its center in San Jose provides technical support in Spanish and French and plans to expand to German, Italian, Portuguese and Russian in the near future. “Costa Rica has built over many years a strong capacity to train people in different languages. The country hosts 9 French language schools, 6 in German, 5 in Portuguese, 7 in Italian. In addition to that about 10% of the workforce in those languages are nationals of those countries that reside in Costa Rica”, stated Manfred Kissling, country manager at Concentrix.

Source: La Nacion

Rochester, NY – January 14, 2009 – Concentrix Corporation, a global knowledge process outsourcing (KPO) company and wholly owned subsidiary of SYNNEX Corporation (NYSE: SNX), announced today the company has made an equity investment in Occidental Business Services, S.A. (OBS), a leading business process services company with operations in San Jose, Costa Rica. Concentrix now has the ability to service North American, European and Latin American markets with Spanish, the third most prevalent languages spoken in the world, as well as other language requirements.

This strategic location allows Concentrix to offer an outsourced solution in countries with closer proximity to the United States, known as “Near-Shoring”, an alternative for multi-lingual delivery of contact center services to its customers.

“Concentrix sought to acquire an established, high quality Costa Rican service provider,” stated Dick Rapach, Vice President and General Manager of Concentrix Corporation. “After thorough research, we invested in OBS, a leading Costa Rican BPO company with a successful track record spanning over several years. As part of that investment, OBS will rebrand itself as Concentrix Costa Rica.”

“The Concentrix brand has an impeccable reputation and is well established within the BPO space,” commented Manfred Kissling, Chief Executive Officer of Occidental Business Services, S.A. “By leveraging the Concentrix brand, we expect to grow our operations more quickly, utilizing our combined expertise of the Concentrix associates, Concentrix technology and the geographical assets. In addition, Concentrix has a proactive, entrepreneurial culture that fits very well into our existing organization.”

Costa Rica is known for its political, social and economic stability and has a highly qualified multi-lingual labor force. These elements, along with a competitive telecommunications infrastructure, have allowed the country to attract a strong contingent of companies seeking an effective near-shore service delivery option. With a population of over four million and a literacy rate of over 95%, Costa Rica provides an excellent location for Concentrix to provide near-shore services for its large United States client base. The country shares similar time zones with the United States and is easily accessible through air travel.

The growth into Costa Rica represents the most recent expansion by Concentrix, bringing total worldwide employment under the Concentrix banner to more than 4,500 associates.

“We are impressed with the talent pool that is available in this country,” Rapach continued. “Our strategy calls for recruiting the best people available to service both our existing and potential new clients in technical support, customer care and demand generation programs.”

About Concentrix Corporation
Concentrix Corporation is a global KPO company with award-winning expertise in providing our clients with services and support to enhance their customer relationships. From locations in China, Japan, the Philippines, the United States and Central America, our over 4,500 employees support clients in multiple languages and countries around the world. Concentrix Corporation is a wholly owned subsidiary of SYNNEX Corporation (NYSE: SNX), a Fortune 500 company. For more information, please visit www.concentrix.com

About Occidental Business Services
Occidental Business Services, S.A. is a leading Costa Rican BPO company with headquarters in San Jose, Costa Rica. The company provides a suite of complementary sales, customer care and support services. For more information, please visit www.obsamericas.com

61 companies sold $ 773 million this year, according to Cinde

• Sales in the sector are increasing at a rate of 30% per annum since 2002
• Signatures alien give technical and financial support to other countries from here

Hassel Fallas hasselfallas@nacion.com

The 61 transnational service corporations operating in a free zone this year exported about $ 773 million, $ 173 million more than in 2007, estimated the Costa Rican Coalition development initiatives (CINDE).

The calculation did it with data from the Central Bank. It took as a reference the average growth of 30% of the exports sector since 2002.

The services companies in free trade zones export software, financial analysis, technical support, graphic design, architectural and engineering and customer service.

Companies are conducting these activities for their own regional or global operations (captive operations) or to other firms (outsourcing), which is the case with many call centers.

The greatest benefit of export services from free zone is reflected in jobs and wages, said Gabriela Llobet, director of Cinde.

Timothy Scott, director of the association of Free Zones, pointed out that the average salary in the scheme is $ 1,000 per month.

Currently, 20,000 Costa Ricans working in transnational “added value” services. Cinde, are called so because their duties require more capable personnel.

The markets where they are sold U.S. (main), Europe, Asia and Africa. Among the exporters include Procter & Gamble, Western Union, HP and Sykes.

Good pace. The export of services companies in a free zone grows at an annual average of 30%, which exceeds by more than double, which have tourism services (11.6%) and financial (11.4 %).

That pace of growth is explained in part because in six years the number of foreign firms in services that were installed here rose from five to 61.

In 2007 Costa Rica exported $ 3,532 million in services, were $ 600 million in services in free zones.

Under the Free Trade Zone regime zone also operate manufacturing and processing firms, but its exports are accounted for in the category of property.

How is measured? Not being a tangible assets (such as microchips exports from Intel), the export of services from free zone is quantified by setting a price at that time an engineer used to repair a communication network, a person who answered an e – mail or a call made from another country.

There are two ways to charge for services: if the assistance was for the transnational operations in another country, the amount is charged to a corporate cost center, who transferred to Costa Rica. If services are for other companies, is billed to the customer, as do some call centers. At year’s end, the companies sent the report to the PROCOMER, which in turn passed to the Central Bank to cleanse the export figure, said Llobet.

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