Outsourcing News

Last week I needed to cancel a flight I booked on Continental.com. I called them and I got a message that said something along the lines of “we are no longer taking phone calls.” They didn’t give me the option to leave a message or even send an email. The message said I should go to their website and ask my questions to Alex, their “online virtual assistant.” That pissed me off. I love flying Continental, but when I call a company I expect an actual human being to answer the phone.

View post:
How Honesty Makes All the Difference

I’ve been really busy the last couple of weeks and I haven’t been able to blog at all, but now I’m back and I wanted to tell you about some of the coolest stuff I’ve found online last week. Free Tools to Improve Your Site My friend and social media expert Catherine Daar sent me this really cool link. Thank you! The Paradox of Choice Being free and having a lot of options to choose from is great, isn’t it? According to Barry Schwartz, a psychologist who happens to be a terrific speaker, more choices could lead to less satisfaction and happiness.

Read more here:
Some Seriously Cool Stuff

A number of outsourcing companies have sold or are now selling their subsidiaries after less than stellar performance these past few months. In what had been previously hailed as the need for diversity in outsourcing offerings, some companies are now realizing that they may have bitten off more than they can chew. The most recent company to announce the sale of a subsidiary is Michigan-based company TechTeam Global (NASDAQ:TEAM), who announced the sale of TechTeam Government Solutions last week. The company announced on the 4th of June that they are selling TechTeam Government Solutions for $59 million in cash to construction and engineering firm, Jacobs Engineering Group (NYSE:JEC), in a move that was greeted with surprise by the market. According to Morgan Joseph & Co analyst Richard Paget , the deal was not the kind of needle mover that people expected from the company

View original post here:
Outsourcing Companies Sell Subsidiaries in a Bid to Specialize Rather than Diversify

Following the UK elections and subsequently, the naming of the country’s new Prime Minister David Cameron and Chancellor George Osborne has pushed government outsourcing contracts in limbo, as companies anticipate the stance the new government will enforce. When the news broke out on the 17th of May that the new UK government would be splitting large outsourcing orders into smaller deals in order to cut government spending by as much as 9 billion this year, it was Indian company Tata Consultancy Services (NSE:TCS), who suffered negative feedback as its stock fell as much as 2.6% . TCS currently has a £600 million contract with the Personal Accounts Delivery Authority (PADA) for the NEST scheme administration services. The NEST deal had already seen its fair share of controversy before, when fellow bidders of the deal such as Logica (LON:LOG) suddenly withdrew from the bidding, leaving TCS as sole bidder.

Read the rest here:
UK Government Outsourcing Contracts Fear Sword of Damocles Overhead

Sometimes we get so carried away by new tools, trends and advice from business gurus that we forget to do the most basic things. Think about it: when was the last time you called one of your customers and asked him about his experience with your company? When you lose a prospect to your competition, do you call her to find out why she didn’t choose you? In this article I share some of the questions I ask my clients – the clients that leave and the prospects that decide to go with our competition. What You Should Ask Your Clients When you decided to hire us, have you considered other options? If so, why did you choose us?

More:
Ask Questions and Grow Rich

The other day I was talking to a friend of mine who was really frustrated because his business wasn’t making as much money as he wanted to make. I asked him a few questions and we realized that the niche he is going after is very small and that the gross profit he gets per sales is very low.

See more here:
Are You Ever Going to Make Money?

The Big Blue is making the state of Indiana and its residents see red. In a series of events that began with the signing of a very profitable outsourcing deal between the state of Indiana and technology outsourcing company IBM, the deal has now ended up with IBM (NYSE:IBM) filing a countersuit against Indiana late last week in an affair that began as, well, somewhat good, to bad and now, to worse. The deal began with the best intentions in mind, from Gov. Mitch Daniels , who envisioned that the deal would make, “America’s worst welfare system better for the people it serves.”  As early as May 2006 , there was already much talk over the proposed deal. IBM and Accenture (NYSE:ACN) were the original contenders and at the time many concerns were raised over the two companies’ “spotty track records”. IBM and Indiana signed the $1.16 billion deal on December 2006, with IBM leading a group of ten companies, the group included now Xerox (NYSE:XRX) subsidiary, ACS. The contract was a ten year agreement to manage and process the state of Indiana’s applications for food stamps, Medicaid and other welfare benefits for its residents. What follows is a sordid affair of failed attempts at the automation of the welfare system and software problems that plagued the deal, leading to delays in food stamp processing and loss of benefits

The rest is here:
IBM vs. Indiana: Big Blue Makes Indiana See Red

FollowUpThen I don’t have a calendar. I email myself reminders when I need to do something on a specific date. I had been using MemoToMe.com and it’s a good service, but when a friend of mine introduced me to FollowUpThen, I knew it was exactly what I needed. Do you want to get a reminder in 2 hours? Send an email to 2hours@FollowUpThen.com. Do you want to get a reminder in six months? Send a message to 6months@FollowUpThen.com. If you want to get an email on a specific date, such as May 31, send an email to may31@FollowUpThen.com. Pamela for Skype In case you’ve been in a cave for the last five years, Skype is the leading software for computer-to-computer and computer-to-phone calls

Follow this link:
5 Internet Marketing and Productivity Tools

Writing a press release that grabs the media’s attention and makes them write about your company is extremely hard. That being said, there is a lot you can do to increase your chances of success. Make it Newsworthy Ask yourself this question: if I were a journalist, would I write a story about this? If the answer is no, find an interesting angle for your story so people will want to write about it. Start Strong Your first paragraph has to be strong and clear, and it must summarize the entire press release. This is the only part of your press release that most journalists will read; if you fail to write a great first paragraph, your release is doomed to fail. Format It Right This is what press releases look like: (Image from http://www.publicityinsider.com/release.asp ) Make It Fun to Read and Engaging The most common mistake that most press releases make is to be boring. Make yours exciting, engaging, and fun to read

Go here to see the original:
How to Write an Effective Press Release

The big three of Indian outsourcing companies have a lot to evaluate, as their lower ranking rival Cognizant (NASDAQ:CTSH), is slowly starting to emerge ahead of the pack following the company’s first quarter results.  This comes with the continued albeit slow rebound of the outsourcing market this year. Days before the release of Cognizant’s results, analysts were already forecasting a strong showing for the company with estimated revenue of $939.1 million or a revenue growth by up to 26% , especially with the solid results received from its other Indian rivals, Wipro (NYSE:WIT), Infosys (NASDAQ:INFY) and Tata Consultancy (NSE:TCS). Upon the release of the company’s first quarter results for 2010 last May 4, many were pleasantly surprised by the results posted by Cognizant, with a 34% increase in profit surpassing everybody’s expectations.  The company earned $151.5 million, up from a profit of $113.1 million in the first quarter of last year.  Revenues rose 6.3% to $960 million , compared with the prior quarter. Cognizant is even now expecting a $55 million increase in revenue for this quarter and fiscal 2010 revenue of at least $4.1 billion, up 25% compared to 2009. Performance is strong for the company, as it continuously beats estimates quarter after quarter, signaling continued improvement in the company’s operations.  Case in point is Cognizant’s last year revenues which increased at least $200-500 million dollars more than its rivals. Aside from that is the company’s laudably low attrition rate with a 12.4% rate on a twelve month basis.  The company increased its workforce last quarter by more than 7,100 people indicating the strength of the company’s business for the quarter.  Notably, last year, the company gave 200% bonuses to its top performers after its strong growth last year.  As of last quarter, Cognizant’s workforce numbered at around 85,500. Eyeing the trend that Cognizant has been following, it seems plausible that the company will reach its 2010 end of year forecast, and will pleasantly surprise us all once again by being ahead of estimates.  As Kaufman Bros analyst Karl Keirstead so ably put it, “Cognizant should still be able to outgrow its larger peers in 2010.” If the company continues its current performance, then yes, Cognizant just might.

Continued here:
Cognizant Outlook Bright; Emerging Ahead of Competitors

According to the latest stats, about 9 out of 10 people who add products to online shopping carts leave the websites without placing the orders. That’s insane! Think about it: 90% of the people who are interested enough on your products to add them to their carts never end up buying them. Luckily, there is a lot you can do to decrease your shopping cart abandonment rate. These are some of the most powerful tactics to make it happen. Isolate Every Step of the Checkout Process The only way to understand what’s causing people to leave is to isolate every step of the checkout process to figure out where people are dropping out. Google Analytics lets you track events and page loads. This way you can see what’s the last thing people do before leaving. Is 50% of your traffic leaving when you ask how they found you? Then get rid of that question. The only way to understand the real reasons for shopping cart abandonment is to track every step of the process

Original post:
How to Reduce Shopping Cart Abandonment

Blogging is a lot more fun when you have the right tools. ScibeFire ScribeFire is an extension for the Mozilla Firefox Web Browser that integrates with your browser to let you easily post to your blog: you can drag and drop formatted text from pages you are browsing, take notes, and post to your blog. WordPress Scanner This plugin searches the files on your website, and the posts and comments tables of your database for anything suspicious. It also examines your list of active plugins for unusual filenames. Broken Link Checker This plugin will monitor your blog looking for broken links and let you know if any are found. Zemanta Zemanta is a tool that looks over your shoulder while you blog and gives you tips and advice, suggests related content and pictures and makes sure your posts get promoted as they deserve to be. FeedBurner Although blogs have RSS feeds built-in, most of them won’t show you how many subscribers you have. FeedBurner allows you to see how many people are reading your blog through RSS readers.

Link:
5 Essential Tools for Bloggers

I decided that each week I’ll start sharing the best articles I’ve found that week. I read 64 Internet marketing blogs and each of them has, in average, four posts per week. That means that I’ll be reviewing around 250 articles per week and I’ll be choosing the best four or five. Here are the best posts of the week. 30 SEO Problems & the Tools to Solve Them I really enjoyed this post because it shares some of the best SEO tools in the market and how to use them. Part one of this post is here and part two is here .

Read more here:
The Best Internet Marketing Articles of the Week

Use Decoy Offers Have you ever wondered why some stores sell an item for $100 and in the price tags says “Was $200″? That makes the current price look a lot better. Some people might think $100 is a lot of money for that item, but hey, it was $200, so you’re getting a great deal, right? Well, believe it or not, it works. This is because everything is either a great deal or an awful deal based on what you compare it with. Psychologists call this “the principle of contrast.”  How can you use this to your benefit? My favorite way is to present two or more offers.

Continued here:
5 Internet Marketing Tips

Start Networking When You Don’t Need To Most people start networking when they need something. This is the worst time because you’ll tend to ask people for things, and networking is all about giving, not asking. If you don’t “need” more connections now, start working on getting some! Use Social Media to Learn More About Your Connections Last week I met with a prospect. Before meeting with her, I did a little research and she had posted to Twitter that her daughter was sick. When we met, I asked her if her daughter was feeling better

See more here:
7 Tips for Effective Networking

Don’t Try to Please Everybody For everything you do in business, there will be some people who like it and some people who don’t. You have to live with it; don’t try to please everybody. Consider the iPod for example. Some people complain that its digital camera doesn’t come with a flash or a powerful zoom. If Apple were to comply with every request they get, they would end up with a big, ugly product that nobody would like. Learn to say no to some people so you can better serve your real market.

Excerpt from:
10 Business Tips for Entrepreneurs

Wibiya This amazing toolbar allows people to follow you on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. It also allows your visitors to subscribe to your RSS feeds, share your contents, chat with other visitors, see who else is on your site and a lot more. The best part is that this toolbar can be installed in just two minutes on your site. I can’t recommend Wibiya enough. Soocial A great way to keep your contacts organized and always available online, no matter what computer you’re connecting from. Google Voice The new way of talking over the phone. Mail Chimp Looking for a free email marketing solution? This is it! UserVoice A great way to gather feedback from your customers and improve your products based on the feedback you get.

Follow this link:
10 Awesome Social Media Tools

Do you get depressed every time you see how few Twitter followers you have? Well, don’t! There are plenty of things you can do to grow your followers base. Before we get started, let’s make something clear: QUALITY matters more than QUANTITY. But, what if you could have a lot of qualified followers? Then you would have quality AND quantity! Ask Your Followers to Re-Tweet Your Tweets Teach your followers what re-tweeting is (basically, it’s the Twitter equivalent to email forwarding) and ask them to re-tweet your tweets so their followers can see them and follow you. Add Your Twitter Link to Your Site, Blog and Email Signature This is easy to do and will get you a lot of new followers. Use HashTags A HashTag is basically a keyword preceded by the pound sign. For example, people talking about Obama might include “#obama” in their tweets so other people talking about Obama can find them

See original here:
7 Ways to Get More Twitter Followers

Last week I got a call from a girl I’m helping start her own business. “I’m stuck”, she said; “I don’t know what to do next.” “OK, don’t freak out. We’ll work it out”, I said. I asked her to tell me what she was stuck with. She said that she needed vendors for her business but didn’t know how to go about it and she was losing it. “Calm down. You’re trying to accomplish a big task. Break it down into actionable steps”, I asked. She then listed these steps: Search the Yellow Pages for coffee mugs wholesalers.

Originally posted here:
Why You Need to Get Out of Your Comfort Zone Right NOW

About two months ago I went to visit my grandma. She asked me if I was still running “that Internet business that you have”. I laughed and I told her that I was still running my Internet marketing agency. For the first time ever she asked me what exactly we do and I explained to her that we help companies increase their sales using the Internet to promote their businesses. Grandma then said something that I’ll never forget: “I don’t understand why people buy online or hire companies they know over the Internet. How can you trust someone you don’t know?” I tried to explain that things have changed and that you could put some testimonials on your site so your prospects could see that you have several satisfied clients. A couple of hours later, when I went back home, I started thinking about what Grandma said

See the original post here:
NEWS: Old School Marketing Beats Social Media