December 2007
Malta emerges as new European nearshore contact center outsourcing destination
Peter Ryan, senior analyst with Contact Centre Outsourcing at Datamonitor comments
The emergence of new outsourcing markets continues within Europe’s nearshore, and Malta is positioning itself as a location that is able to provide multilingual services across verticals. This is a according to Peter Ryan, Senior Analyst of Contact Center Outsourcing Research with independent market analyst Datamonitor (DTM.L). Ryan recently had the opportunity to visit the location and examine its contact center sector. In his view, Malta’s established contact center sector, language capabilities - capacity to provide multilingual services over the long term and its open business environment and incentives, bode well. Ryan’s observation and comment follows below.
Malta’s already solid-base of operating contact centers bodes well for its burgeoning business process outsourcing (BPO) sector. In addition to in-house deployments such as HSBC, there are a number of independent outsourcers already doing offshore work for a number of different industry verticals, including travel & tourism, telcos and financial services.
The fact that English is an official language, coupled with near universal fluency in Italian bodes well for offshore / nearshore contact center service provision in Malta. Not only is Malta a location of choice for UK tourists, which can boost comfort and familiarity for this location as a place to do business, but the lack of Italian offshore options is also an advantage. Many Italian firms are looking for offshore locations in which to house some of their contact center operations, and Malta’s proximity and language skills could play into that strategy.
Malta’s inclusion in the European Union and steps to liberalize its economy are also selling points for potential outsourcing clients. In addition, its program of targeted incentives could prove attractive to companies requiring assistance in establishing operations in Malta.
s has been the case with many other countries looking to establish BPO sectors, Malta is limited by a small population and limited real estate. Thus, in order to maintain what appears to be significant progress over the past few years in developing the contact center industry, there must be efforts to attract the right projects to the island. Whilst Malta will not be able to compete on scale, it has the potential to add value in terms of higher end customer care and sophisticated service.
News item from www.callcentrehelper.com
September 2007
Availacall.co.uk a leading Malta based BPO Contact Centre service provider, has recently won a major contract to provide call centre services on behalf of Hutchinson 3G, the UK's leading mobile media company providing communications, entertainment and information services provider to over 3.5 million UK users.
Keith O’Brien – Chief Operating Officer of availacall.co.uk said:
"We are pleased to announce this new deal between ourselves and Hutchinson 3G and this agreement both strengthens and confirms the quality of our BPO services we provide to our respective clients.
For more information about call centre services from availacall.co.uk visit their website at www.availacall.co.uk.
September 2006
A government’s exclusive agency, Malta Enterprise which focuses on attracting investment and supporting enterprise in Malta, has visited our call center on various occasions with potential clients from Italy & France.
July 2006
Judy Smyth – CCA’s Director of Global Quality & Standards visited our call centre in Malta after the Call Centre Awareness Seminar held at Malta Enterprise.
July 2006
Availacall wins contract approved by MFSA.
Availacall set out to provide a full range of teleservicing activities for business by utilising the best available technology in the best possible location. Directors benefited from both extensive experience and substantial research, and took some bold decisions. Consequently, Availacall is now among only 8% of UK-owned centres that exclusively use Internet Protocol telephony (Silicon.com, 2005); and they have the only commercial contact centre located in Malta.
As a result, our clients benefit from a brand-new contact centre that’s near to the UK in space and time, which is staffed by fluent English-speakers; and is based on powerful, flexible and expandable technology.
May 2006
Availacall invests £750,000 in new Amcat diallers
Availacall has recently installed Amcat automatic predictive dialers in their Malta branch. The £750,000 investment promises to increase outbound capabilities and to handle the larger workload with unrivalled efficiency.
April 2006
Call handling of inbound calls reaches its milestone for its first year of operation as figure now reaches over one million calls, just six months after launch.
February, 2006
Availacall becomes a corporate member of CCA - Customer Contact Association.
January 2006
Availacall now reaches 55 seats with new client acquisitions and increase of call handling for existing clients.
New partnership with sister company exceed KPI’s and see’s agents in Malta earning more commission than basics. Over 2500 upgrades carried out in December 06.
November 2005
VPN live monitoring hailed as a great success after trial launch with client.
CEO and co-founder Keith O'Brien states “Using the latest technology available today can bring you closer to a client." Our aim is to become a real business partner for all our clients.
August 2005
Availacall signs deal with major UK telecommunications provider BT worth over a £1million.
The technology which will allow integration of three sites with multi point resiliency and IP VOIP/SIP services, is said to be a milestone in contact centres becoming global. BT and Mitel sign m major agreement at BT business offices in Birmingham.
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