MT India Newsletter - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MTIndia

15 Feb 2003
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ANNOUNCEMENT
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We have created a separate MT Jobs Newsletter for job vacancies, to
subscribe:
mailto:MTIndia-Jobs-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

Also, the Job Section in the Classifieds has been taken down.
Please use the Job Center:
http://www.mtindia.org/JobCenter/default.cfm

A Happy Valentines Day!

The MTIndia Team
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Marketing "Offshore" Outsourcing

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Dear Friends,

I understand price frustration. I have been getting tired of
paying Rs. 50 for a two liter bottle of Coke so I thought I'd try
and save some money.:) Coke is largely sugar and water with some
fizz added, and I figured that I could approximate it well enough
in our own pantry for just a few paise. Finally I was ready to let
our employees do a taste test. If they liked my home grown Koke we
could save a few bucks every day!

Before our employees came in the room I switched the drinks - the
Pepsi I poured into the no wrapper bottle, Coke I put in the Pepsi
bottle, and my Koke I put in the Coke bottle. They tasted all
three, kinking up their faces, they are real discerning consumers,
aficionados of the soft drink. Finally they rendered their
judgment: the "Coke" (actually my Koke) was by far the best, the
"Pepsi" (really Coke) was just OK, and the "Koke" (actually Pepsi)
was gross. [Off topic - just thinking aloud - was this THE reason
why the Indian team outdid even themselves in the World Cup
today??]

They knew that the stuff that comes in a Coke bottle was the best,
regardless of what it's made of.

When a company puts up a US front office they are bottling their
business for display to the client. It's important you put it in
the right bottle if you want it to sell. Branding is the key!

There are some real potential advantages to outsourcing MT services
and process development, such as the ability to accelerate
deployment by leveraging economics of scale and the time
differential, but what you get depends on where you go. And someone
who is not going anywhere, is sure to reach their destination!

Offshore companies have about a 3x cost advantage, sometimes more,
but it is not uncommon for them to spend 2x as many hours on the
project due to lower efficiency and possibly talent, skill, and
project management shortcomings.

Communications are always more difficult, a problem if the work is
not very clear and simply-defined. They do offer a cost savings in
terms on what the client will get invoiced for, but in my
experience they tend to be slower than US firms and are a "wee bit"
out of touch with the U.S. market.

The right U.S. front office can help you brand your company and
fuel sales, the difference between Koke and Coke. Your "front
office" should be a marketing team that can bring your customers to
you. Front offices are a store front, whether or not they actually
render the services themselves, or get them executed around the
globe.

Nearly anyone with money can set up a front office, but the real
issue with your front office and mine is not setting them up,
but getting queries, no, business from them.

Nobody is buying Koke. And the lowest price is not necessarily the
best solution :)

Done rightly, the little guy with a good service will be able to
compete with the deep pocket company offering the same service and
the el cheapo crap businesses will fall to the sidelines... just
like in the real world.

Cheers!!!

Maj (Dr.) Amit Chatterjee, SM
Strategist / Founder ~ mailto:amit@...
MT India ~ www.MTIndia.org
"The Community of MT Professionals"

"It takes years to become an overnight success! Inch by inch, it's
a cinch."

*****************************************************************
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*****************************************************************
NEWS AND VIEWS :
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1) ITeS turnover to rise to $2.4 bn in FY03

IT-enabled services turnover is expected to rise to $2.4 billion in
FY03 from $1.5 billion in FY02. The strong growth is likely to come
despite the global economic slowdown, said Noshir Kaka, principal,
Mckinsey & Company, India, at the Nasscom conference in Mumbai.
However, the industry will have to be wary of the geo-political
risks, he added on a cautious note.

'The Indian companies can earn more than 30 per cent margin even at
the commoditised prices by focusing on capital efficiency,' Kaka,
said on the issue of commoditisation of the call centre and medical
transcription segment of BPO.

'Outsourcing also has a social impact on corporates in the
developed countries in terms of lay-offs, and the consequent
negative publicity,' said Phaneesh Murthy, founder of
Primentor-USA. As 82 per cent of the US economy is linked to
services industry, outsourcing to a large Indian company is
different from outsourcing to US companies. Outsourcing to Indian
companies results in cost reduction to the tune of 30-40 per cent,
and will lead to layoff in the US. The Indian companies have to
develop strategies to face the challenges, he said.

The Indian companies should focus on process maturity, technology
sharing and investment in framework and not on labour arbitrage,
said Murthy. America will remain the largest BPO market but will
post a slightly slow growth compared to other regions.

http://in.biz.yahoo.com/030212/77/210tg.html

2) Overseas Transcription - Is It Foreign Aid?

Transcription firms that outsource overseas are feeling the heat
about sending jobs out of the country while addressing hard
questions about security issues.

"This practice has been going on a long time, and I have not seen
that there is an increase in the number of unemployed MTs," says
Beth A. Tribelhorn, CMT, president of Preferred Physicians
Transcription, Inc., Greenwood Village, Colo. "In reality," she
adds, "this is probably not as big a problem as people think." More
overseas transcription companies have begun to realize that it is
difficult to deliver extremely inexpensive transcription, she says,
adding, "It costs them the same amount of money required by a
U.S.-based company to produce quality medical transcription."

Overseas transcription firms employ MTs in several countries,
including India, Pakistan, Great Britain, and the Philippines,
according to Kim Andosca, CEO of the American Association of
Medical Transcription (AAMT), Modesto, Calif. While the AAMT is not
an international organization, it does offer basic services to any
MT who asks to join, regardless of his or her country of residence.

According to Conover, CBay has grown by approximately $15 million
over the past four years. The firm now employs more than 130 MT
professionals in the United States and is the nation's largest
employer of Indian MTs. Bearing this in mind, are they able to
provide the quality U.S.-based clients demand? Absolutely,
according to Conover. "The professionals we employ in India are
every bit as good as those we employ in the United States," he
says.

David Iwinski, Jr, CEO of Acusis, says there are a couple of
reasons why overseas outsourcing is likely to increasingly become
the transcription "trend of the future." The high cost of in-house
transcription, coupled with the shortage of U.S.-based
transcriptionists, will mean that a greater percentage of
transcription service will be performed outside of the United
States, as well as outside the hospital or clinic.

http://www.fortherecordmag.com/fortherecord.asp

3) Philippines MT service providers expect significant growth this
year

Two IT sectors - medical transcription service providers and
wireless solution developers - are expected to post significant
growth this year as foreign-based medical and telecommunications
companies continue to generate demand for outsourced services,
according to Center for International Trade Expositions and
Missions (CITEM) executive director Felicidad Tan-Co.

There are at least 17 companies in the Philippines that provide MT
services to US clients either directly or via partnerships with
American transcription firms. Tan-Co said these companies employ
approximately 1,200 professionals with medical backgrounds.

http://www.mb.com.ph/news.php?art=27624&sect=8&fname=IT03021327624f
.txt

4) Cost factor may trigger innovation in BPO

The current recessionary environment is forcing companies to reduce
costs. Market pressures will increasingly force organisations to
focus on cost reduction. This will lead companies to initially
consider process optimisation and labour arbitrage as an
opportunity to achieve cost reduction. This is what the current
vendor players are focusing on.

Higher cost economies rely on technology and process efficiencies
to deliver the cost reduction that customers demand. Cost reduction
continues to matter and to be a key goal of outsourcing. Businesses
must constantly increase both their efficiency and quality and
therein drive greater profits to their bottom lines, according to
Michael F. Corbett, Chairman and President of Michael F. Corbett &
Associates Ltd., who was in Chennai recently. Call centres and
medical transcription outsourcing companies, while lucrative, were
at the bottom of the value chain and need to either quickly expand
in scale and efficiency to be the best possible vendor in their
space or face consolidation.

http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/stories/2003021402021700.htm

5) Wireless Networking Being Installed At Erlanger

Symbol Technologies, Inc., a leader in enterprise mobility
solutions, is set to deploy its new Symbol switched-wireless
networking system throughout Erlanger Medical Center's 22-building
healthcare campus.

Seeking to maximize staff efficiency and improve patient
satisfaction, Erlanger will connect mobile medical workstations to
the Symbol wireless network for mission-critical hospital
information system (HIS) applications.

Today, nurses at Erlanger collect patient data by taking notes with
pen and paper. Later, at fixed nursing stations, usually located
outside patient rooms, this information is manually keyed into
computers, creating the possibility for transcription error. When
wirelessly connected at the bedside, nurses will be able to
directly input data into the system and securely access vital
information in real time, officials said.

http://www.chattanoogan.com/articles/article_32372.asp

6) Brooktrout's products enable HIPAA compliant voice and fax
applications and services

Brooktrout Technology, Inc., a leading supplier of products for
voice, fax and call processing used in the development of
applications and services for the New NetworkT, is exhibiting the
latest in voice and fax enabling technology for healthcare
applications at this year's Healthcare Information and Management
Systems Society (HIMSS) Annual Conference and Exhibition. Several
leading information technology application vendors including
Biscom, DVI, IVS/inTeleCare, and Optio Software will display
Brooktrout's voice and fax technology as an integral part of their
healthcare and Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act
(HIPAA) solutions such as medical dictation and transcription
systems, and secure network fax solutions.

http://www.telephonyworld.com/cgi-bin/news/viewnews.cgi?category=al
l&id=1044928924

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Thank you for your interest in MT India!

The MTIndia Team
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