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SMS enability in BPO sector |
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Written by Vish Bajaj
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SMS has always been a quick and economical means of communication. SMS
is establishing itself as the communication medium of choice for many
people today. Applications like dating, games and contests are
increasingly being pushed by operators and third parties to drive SMS
usage further. They are still small in relative terms, but are growing.
Mobile messaging is going to grow at a rapid rate over the next two years owing to the key market drivers such as the cheaper mobile technology.
There is no doubting the success of the Short Message Service - the market in India alone has reached over one billion messages despite little proactive marketing by network operators and phone manufacturers. Key market drivers over the next two years such as the access of cheaper mobile technology to the masses will fuel this growth path.
SMS has evolved as a global communication facility with GSM network spanning in over 200 countries and more than 400 operators offering mobile services under its umbrella. In addition many CDMA operators also have embraced SMS in their bouquet of services. With SMS being the talk of the town, many technological initiatives have been taken keeping this highly cost-effective, globally approachable and secure means of communication directly in sync with the interest of the customer. Since, there is a network sharing understanding among most of the mobile network operators around the world, SMS becomes an obvious choice for expediting 2-way text based communication irrespective of the geographical location.
The business of providing outsourced services to various corporates in India and abroad has seen phenomenal growth in India. With this growth comes the challenge of providing excellent infrastructure and support to the employees working in BPO units. BPOs typically have large workforce, working at odd business hours. Providing a proper logistics support to the employees is very crucial for BPO administration. SMS technology is fast being adopted by BPOs to provide real time information to the employees. This information pertains to logistics, HR processes, and IT infrastructure management.
Mobile messaging can be efficiently used to contribute to the business drivers of the BPO industry which forms the backbone of the industry. Managed service BPOs and Process BPOs are using Airmail, the Email-2-SMS services to send critical server alerts. The messaging services have helped reduce the trauma that all process stakeholders used to go during process failures due to increased transparency of the information flow”
SMS Solutions: Employees send an SMS on a 4 digit number and information about their cab is sent as SMS to them. ValueFirst application ValocityPlus pulls all these SMS, queries the backend database pertaining to the mobile number and replies as SMS
Managed service BPO operations of companies like HCL Comnet, TCS and Kanbay have been the early adopters of the messaging service, but process BPOs have also deployed these services to send critical alerts in case of server failures. Airmail services are offered by renowned MVNOs to their respective clients, which convert a SOS Email generated as a result of server error into a SMS.
The clients of the voice based BPO have both inbound and outbound messaging requirements. Pull messages can be used to record customer query and call him/her back .
Mobile messaging is capable of contributing to the cost efficiency and process efficiency in the BPOs due to instant access to information and optimum utilization of resources. Improved efficiency in the BPO contribute to greater employee satisfaction as it reduces the stress levels in the organization and efficient deployment of resources lead to better employee welfare.
BPOs which have taken the lead in deploying the mobile messaging solutions are witnessing better productivity and have a competitive edge over other players in the market place.
Vish Bajaj
(The author is Chief Executive Officer of ValueFirst (www.vfirst.com) India’s leading MVNO (Mobile Virtual Network Operator), provides a one-stop mobile messaging solutions to enterprises)
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