As it has been expressed, Refugees Dreams is a business process outsourcing partnership with social and humanitarian impact. Business Process Outsourcing is the delegation of one or more IT-intensive business processes to an external provider that in turn owns administers and manages the selected process based on defined and measurable performance criteria. It is one of the fastest growing segments of the Information Technology Enabled Services (ITES) industry4.
The Benefits of outsourcing are:
Reduction of Control Operating Costs.
Higher level of services for lower costs
Focus on core business since the operational details are managed by an external expert.
Increased efficiency
Reduced labor costs
Predictability of cost
Freeing up financial capital and human resources for other projects
Utilization of common applications
Exhibit 5 shows the advantages of BPO in the reduction of significant amounts of cost and maintaining higher levels of quality without compromising time.
The customers will not need to be responsible for payment of the employee’s taxes, insurance costs, as well as no fringe benefit expenses with employees for these tasks; they will be able to use their employees to develop other activities that the company needs but were not possible before due to the burden of thousands of data entry requirements.
Other benefit include the fact that they will be able to report the jobs given to DDD and to Refugees’
Dreams as consequence, as part of their charity donations for tax reduction purposes since DDD is registered as an NGO in the United States. It is also a marketing tactic that companies could use to
4 Official web portal. BPO India, BPO Industry in India – A Report. Retrieved by March 2011, from National Chengchi University: http://www.bpoindia.org/research/bpo-in-india.shtml
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shows their customers that they are a socially responsible and in this case humanitarian responsible, business.
Data Entry Refugees Dreams will provide the data entry services and digital preservation of data from a remote location. Refugees Dreams will serve a wide range of clients ranging from
International Organizations, and governments and NGOs working in the humanitarian and
development field, to private companies such as publishers, libraries, content hosts, and academic researchers world-wide.
Refugees Dreams services represent and extend the value of data, publications and records, making them accessible online or in any information system, since most of the software needed is facilitated by Digital Divide Data as well as by the customer according to their internal processes. Refugees Dreams will offer these services on the basis of a socially responsible and humanitarian model that generates opportunities for the world's poorest refugees to earn reasonable salaries and achieve their dreams.
Refugees’ Dreams plans to train and employ at least 100 talented high school graduated refugees from the camp. The staff will receive support from TBBC for training, which will empower them to move on to create their own business or offer their services among the refugee population.
Refugees Dreams will strive to graduate them from this entry-level job to self-employment that could represent for them more than the average aid refugees receive in the camps on the Thai-Burma borders. Refugees’ Dreams will also strive to be renowned for its commitment to customers, its quality and assurance of the services offered, as well as contributors to the fulfillment of the dreams of its employees and its impact in the refugee community.
3.1. Data Entry Services
Whatever assignment the client may wish from Refugees Dreams, will be assumed as long as we have the skills or resources to complete a task, or if the customers are able to provide us with the training or software needed.
The following is a list (not exhaustive) of the different services offered by Refugee Dreams:
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Mailing services and Maintain electronic mailing lists
Maintain vendor files
Data entry from Papers, Books or any printed material with the highest accuracy and fast turnaround time
Business Transaction Data entry like sales, purchases or payroll.
Business Card Data Entry into any Format
Receipts and Bills Data Entry
Catalog Data Entry
Manuscripts typing into word
Tapes transcription into word.
3.2. Alternatives and Usage Patterns
Companies outsourcing their businesses processes look for several qualities and guarantees in BPO Companies which are in accord with DDD procedures:
3.2.1. Quality Assurance System
To fulfill this requirement, Refugees Dreams will:
Never compromise on quality while providing cost effective services
Refugees Dreams will never use equipment or material that will not guarantee high quality of our service
A project manager will be assigned for every project to follow a procedure of preparing worksheets, table lookups, field confirmation, manual corroboration, cross checks and random checks
The superiority of Refugees Dreams services will depend on the variety of training that its employees will receive and consequently on how they will implement their knowledge while working. Training is a fundamental part of BPO companies, and thus of Refugees Dreams.
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Refugee Dreams will provide the following security of their data:
Encryption of the files, email and folders
Only authorized personnel will have access to the data
The use of CDs, floppies, and USB drives will be prohibited in its lab
Refugees Dreams’ Network will be protected by passwords
Each employee will be requested to sign an agreement of Confidentiality and Non-Disclosure
3.2.3. Deadline Commitment
Refugees Dreams’ procedures will guarantee accurate services provided to our customers ahead of their schedules. Refugees Dreams will contribute to the accomplishment of its customers missions by overcoming their 12hrs, 48hrs weekly and monthly turnaround expectations.
Refugee Dreams is in a unique position to provide its clients with all of the above qualities plus the benefit of knowing that they are helping refugees to not only to have a dignified life, but also to achieve their dreams.
3.3. Future Expansion of Services
Other services that are not in the portfolio of Refugees Dreams will be works that the customers do not have time or personnel to execute. Other jobs can be transactions that the client does not wish to do since they prefer to focus and put most of their energy into their core activities. Refugee Dreams will offer from a remote location an impeccable support to clients with their requirements. This is of considerable value to the customers.
Refugee Dreams will operate at the Karen Bible School since it is one of the areas with the best access to internet. It is not exactly in the area protected by the Camp commander, and any customer that wishes to visit Refugees Dreams operative office will be able to do it without
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requiring a camp pass. A room has been dedicated to the business in the school and rent will be paid for the use of the room.
An expansion of the services of Refugees Dreams is projected to be realized after year five, when the employees have already improved their skills and have already graduated from college in the areas of Marketing, Accounting, Finances and other technical skills needed to increase from low skills services to high skills ones, which are known as knowledge based services. Exhibit 6 shows the hierarchy of services offered by the BPO industry.
Data Entry jobs are in the lowest level of the pyramid, and require low skills and risks. Low-end BPO jobs include - data entry, scanning, simple translations, data conversion tasks (such as moving data from a document or database to a general ledger), and billing services based on pre-defined rules. These tasks require basic clerical and language skills and can usually be fully accomplished offsite, and that is exactly what Refugees Dreams will offer to its customers.
BPO’s clients are looking for strategic partners that can move beyond transaction processing and solutions to various cross functional business activities, and that is what Refugees Dreams will look to in their future expansion. That expansion requires improvements in the skills and knowledge or its employees and that will be Refugees Dreams line to follow when deciding which kinds of training to offer to them. This improvement will mean higher employee cost for providing these services as well as improved profit margins. However, at startup, Data Entry Refugees Dreams will focus its business plan in the starting stage of the BPO, which is data entry only.
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4.1. The industry and Market forecast
In today’s rapidly developing business world, data entry has become one of the fastest growing trends in the Business Processes Industry. Data Entry is the direct input of data in the appropriate data fields of a database, through the use of a human data-input device such as a keyboard, mouse, stylus, or touch screen, or through speech recognition software5.
Outsourcing data entry services has become a common practice among worldwide organizations.
Most of the companies have to manage enormous amounts of data in their day to day activities.
Since they do not have enough time to effectively process and manage that information, they prefer to outsource data entry work.
Most of the businesses and organizations in the United States are outsourcing their data entry works to countries like India. This is principally because of the improvement of IT enabled services in India. At present, India is the supplier of approximately 51% of global sourcing. India's comparative advantages have been the ability to provide low-cost services and the supply of a large English-speaking labor force, and that is why India is taken as a reference when studying the market and industry of BPO services.
According to a 2010 report prepared by the Asian-Oceanian Computing Industry Organization (ASOCIO) and KPMG, India's IT-BPO market could be valued at as much as US $285 billion in the year 2020. Global demand for outsourcing services is expected to rise at an average of 4.9% per annum between 2008 and 2020, if not more. There is gross potential for a productive skilled work force, especially those at very low cost. These populations have exposure to the technologies pertinent to BPO services. LDCs (least developed countries) have become more sophisticated users of information and communication technologies (ICT)6.
5 Official web portal, Business Dictionary, Data Entry Definition, Retrieved by March 2011, from National Chengchi University: http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/data-entry.html
6 Official web portal. Beyond Profits. BPO Opportunities as Part of the Poverty Alleviation Toolkit Post. Retrieved by April, 2011, from National Chengchi University: