Although the insurance market may seem to be saturated, there are still segments not fully tapped that presents growth opportunities for those with the right product offer. One of the programs offers Life Insurance product that provides benefits for hospitalisation, monthly living allowance and compassionate allowance.  The other program offers its Takaful product that provides benefits for cases caused by accidents such as hospital stay benefits, death and total and permanent disability. There is no conflict of interest for TCSB in serving these two clients as they are targeting different market segments with different product benefits.

This new venture marks a milestone in TCSB’s history as it reflects the capabilities of the company to deliver and operate in such a demanding environment. The financial sector is known for having strict regulations and guidelines which is closely monitored by the Central Bank. To service this industry, a company must adhere to the same strict standards that are placed on the financial institutions.

Prior to signing the agreements with these new clients, TCSB went through a stringent review by both parties to evaluate its IT, operational and managerial capabilities. Both parties have found that TCSB meets all the criteria set upon it as an outsourcing partner. According to TCSB’s Managing Director, Hizam Ghazali, the company has made several capital investments to ensure that the IT infrastructure meets the requirements of this sector. It was also necessary to source for the right talent pool as this was one of the critical success factors for these two projects. “With the best combinations in place, we are confident of delivering our promise of bringing our clients further” said Hizam.

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During the 2 year contract period, TCSB will reach out to existing SingTel’s customers based in Singapore and promote the content packages available on mioTV. Among the packages being offered by SingNet include box office movies, sports channels, drama, reality programs and variety packages. These packages come in various languages to cater to the multiracial market in Singapore. There are foreign programs on offer as well which are currently popular in the region.

Malaysia was chosen as the outsourcing location because of the similarities in culture and language. This advantage allows Malaysian telesales agents to have better interactions with SingTel’s customers which is critical as they can advise the best package to sign-up to.

Currently, TCSB’s performance is being benchmarked against another of SingNet’s outsourced service provider in a different country. After just 2 months of operations, TSCB has shown higher than expected results as the packages sold by its telesales team has exceeded SingNet’s monthly target.

SingNet and SingTel are confident that TCSB is capable of delivering the services required to meet their business objectives. This first initiative paves the way for a longer and more concrete partnership between the organisations and places TCSB on a firm pathway to becoming an international outsourcing service provider.

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 About SingNet

 SingNet is a subsidiary of SingTel and the leading Internet Service Provider (ISP) in Singapore. Established in 1994, SingNet offers a full range of Internet services with different usage plans to cater to differing needs of home and business users. It was the first ISP in Singapore to introduce broadband services using ADSL technology.

 SingNet also offers a comprehensive array of affordable consumer and business applications on its high-speed fibre services. Leveraging the Next Generation Nationwide Broadband Network (Next Gen NBN) deployed by OpenNet (NetCo) and SingTel’s own extensive Operating Company’s (OpCo) fibre infrastructure, customers can look forward to a wide range of high speed fibre services with downlink speeds of up to 200Mbps, uplink speeds of up to 100Mbps and international bandwidth of up to 25Mbps.

Under the agreement, the centre will collect payment on behalf of RD for customers who fall under the categories of bad debt and default payment. Customers who fall in any of these categories will receive a call from the centre prompting them to make their due payment. Payment can be made immediately over the phone with a credit card, or through other methods such as cheque, bank draft, money order, postal order or online payment via RD’s website.

Outsourcing is not a new strategy for RD as it has outsourced other functions to other service providers before. As a multi-national company (MNC), RD believes that customised service is what its customers are looking for rather than a standardised experience. With presence in major markets all over the world, it is important for RD to be able to connect with the individual customers it is serving. A local service provider with market expertise and knowledge would be better equipped to deliver this form of customisation. As it was, TCSB met the requirements that RD had in mind and became the right choice when it came to delivery partner selection.

The centre is ready to meet the challenges set out by RD in this market with its team of fully trained agents. In the first week of operations, it has shown remarkable results in achieving its monthly collection target. According to the project manager of the centre, a percentage of RD’s customers who were contacted paid up immediately stating reasons such as “forgot to pay” or “technical errors in the payment”.

Overall, the outlook for the project looks promising and has potential to develop further in the long run. Going by the performance of the centre, RD has indicated interest to grow with TCSB as an outsourcing partner. Plans are already being discussed on additional functions which can be outsourced to TCSB with the possibility of serving other countries within the ASEAN region.

Tender2U provides notifications on public tenders to companies or individuals who have subscribed to the service. Customers can select how they wish to receive the notifications through the method most suitable to their working environment or lifestyle. This can either be by emails or SMS which can be received anytime and anywhere. Customers will also have access to an online portal which allows them to view tenders that are currently available in the country.

One of the portal’s features is a filter mechanism that enables customers to view tenders that match their business offering. The benefit of this is that it saves time and money as it reduces the need to search for tenders from various sources such as newspaper and notice boards. With Tender2U, customers will receive all tender notices from one source whether it’s from the government or private sector.

CASB currently operate and manage their own contact centre which looks after sales and customer service. However, for the next 3 years they target a higher penetration rate to increase the subscription base of Tender2U. The partnership with TCSB will give them the boost needed to meet this business objective. The services provided at the outsourced contact centre include creating awareness and interest of Tender2U, increasing the customer base for CASB and guiding traffic to their online portal.

He said the Economic Transformation Plan had targeted the shared services and outsourcing (SSO) as a growth sector to contribute to about RM2.4bil in incremental gross national income and create over 13,290 high-income jobs by 2020.

“At present, there are 130 SSO companies – from major local players to multinationals – under Multimedia Super Corridor flagship.

“This is not a small number. It is an indication of the growth potential in this sector,” he said at the ceremony to declare IBM Global Delivery Centre (GDC) Malaysia open for business there yesterday.

Mustapa said that over the last few years, the outsourcing services sector had grown rapidly in Malaysia as it had served as an important enabler to both the manufacturing and services sectors.

He said SSO also had a multiplier effect on Malaysia’s economy through the creation of jobs and the provision of value-added support for downstream activities.

- Bernama

As an outsource service provider, Telecontinent will be managing contact centre operations for clients from various industries including telco, finance, ICT, retail and the government sector. The inbound services will be handling calls related to customer service, complaint management and technical support while the outbound services will look into revenue generating calls such as telesales and telemarketing including revenue assurance services such as telecollection. The company value adds the services by providing consultancy to their clients through business intelligence and analytics.

Hizam Ghazali, Managing Director of Telecontinent, says that they are confident of the capabilities of this centre as this is the flagship operations centre for the company. “We have pooled together the best resources and practices in the form of human talent, business processes and solutions to deliver the most effective services to our clients”, said Hizam. With the launch of the centre, Telecontinent is positioned to become a regional player in the outsourcing industry landscape.