Christie Chuakay is the Senior Account Manager at B Wyze Solutions.  She enjoys working closely with managers and directors in IT that need help in defining training strategies for their staff.

In my role at B Wyze, I talk to customers everyday about their ITSM strategy, training, and support initiatives. For the past year, I’ve seen organizations throw out everything and the kitchen sink in order to cut costs and save money in response to the economic crisis.

What Gets Left Behind – Security & Disaster Recovery Planning (DRP) Initiatives

There are 2 main things that nobody wants to pay attention to unless they absolutely there’s a crisis: security and DRP programs. These are viewed as purely cost-related, burdensome programs that organizations have to do so that the auditor doesn’t get upset at them.

The Crisis – H1N1 and DRP Strategy

So here we have the catalyst for attention – the H1N1 virus. I’ve met with a few customers of the past 2 weeks in the health care and banking sectors across North America that have been in panic mode. They’re in and out of strategy meetings trying to figure out what they are going to if H1N1 becomes a Pandemic, i.e.:

· Where will my people work?

· How will they coordinate their efforts?

· How will I reach them?

But those are the questions. What are the answers that I got?

· I don’t know where my people will work. If the building is off limits, they won’t be able to access their PC’s and so no matter what offsite location we have, we’re still going to be in trouble.

· They won’t be able to coordinate their efforts.

· I will be able to reach them by phone, but only to tell periodically them that I’m working on figuring out the above 2 issues.

Haven’t we Learned Anything from the SARS outbreak!?

One customer, exasperated, said, “We faced the same dilemma during the SARS outbreak and here we are 7 years later. We still don’t have a solution. We still don’t know where to start. It’s time we implement a work from home model so that our IT Support Services remains operational even in the face of an H1N1 pandemic.”

That’s what we’ve been trying to tell people…

For the past 3 years we’ve been partnering with Rogers Communications, the nation’s largest telecommunications provider, delivering successful results from a work at home solution for their internal IT Support department. The Service Desk Director was able to show that his virtual support nodes located across North America served as a DRP initiative that would promote the viability of the Helpdesk even in the face of an H1N1 pandemic.

To date, while we’ve talked to a number of clients across North America about the topic of virtual support that think it’s cool, many they have not been ready to explore the idea beyond an initial meeting.

That all changed last month. And it only took a potential pandemic. But perhaps that’s how all fundamental change is started…by a problem, a threat, and risk so fierce that only a new model will meet the challenge.

Christie Chuakay engages with IT leaders globally by organizing events where they can share their challenges, solutions, and best practices through interactive roundtables, management forums, webinars, and conferences.

(Editor/Contributor) Michael Jagdeo (SCM, ITIL v2/v3) has an extensive background as a Recruitment Consultant and ITSM/ITIL enthusiast. He has worked on placements in Singapore, Dubai, London, and across North America. As Director of Recruitment Services at B Wyze Solutions, he manages relationships with clients like Johnson & Johnson, Toyota, Maple Leaf Foods, and the Government of Ontario.

Companies considering off-shoring increasingly face a backlash from their customers.  The “keep jobs at home” movement has never had more consumer and political leverage — and the momentum is growing.  This is evidenced by organized groups such as a “USAJobs” petition and “Keep Jobs in Canada.” These are well-organized movements that gaining steam in many domestic economies.

Outsourcing non-core competencies (help desk, telemarketing, or software development), is still a very wise business strategy, but the delta in off-shore labor rates combined with the growing depth of educated workers in developing nations has made it difficult for companies to compete if their labor strategy involves domestic employees.

Companies today are looking for creative domestic labor strategies.  In particular, companies in the United States, Canada and in many other developed nations are combining government incentives and other creative strategies to keep jobs onshore with competitive local labor rates.

For instance, some companies are opening up offices, such as customer service or help desk centers, in areas of the United States and Canada with higher unemployment rates, to capitalize on the lower labor rates in those areas. Others are turning to colleges, which can provide inexpensive information technology help for businesses - the jobs stay in the country, and the students get real-world experience.

So, how do you get creative in keeping jobs onshore while competing at offshore labor rates? Some places to look:

• Virtual employees – often people will work from home for less.   Work/life balance has tremendous appeal
• Marginalized workers - underutilized subsets of the domestic workforce, such as students enrolled in vocational or cooperative programs, stay-at-home mothers returning to the workplace, and people on public assistance
• Small towns – find those regions where the cost of living is significantly lower than the rest of the country (remote regions)
• Areas of High Unemployment
• Government subsidies for payroll and skills development - local government agencies often offer incentives such as tax credits, education dollars or payroll subsidies to the companies in exchange for bringing jobs to the area.

Now, if we were to combine all of those options above into a virtual worker, living in a small town hardest hit with unemployment challenges, who is a marginalized person (stay-at-home Mom, Person with Disabilities) and factoring in government incentives, it is easy to make the case for a competitive labor rate.

Additionally, a creative domestic labor solution helps companies avoid dealing with the major time zone differences as well as communication problems due to cultural and language barriers that come with outsourcing functions to a foreign country.  More people working brings a more robust economy.

Think outside the box and keep jobs onshore – no matter where you live. Companies should be careful not to sign binding outsourcing agreements that commit them to off-shore resources for the next 3-5 years.  They may find that the cost of the consumer backlash may far outweigh any perceive cost savings.  But more importantly, they may be missing an opportunity to achieve the same cost savings without running the risk of consumer anger.

I don’t see this issue going away any time soon.   The “world is flat,” as they say. Just as social responsibility is good for business, so to will be your labor strategy going forward.

Toronto, ON and Atlanta, GA - B Wyze Holdings Inc., today announced the acquisition of a majority position in Virtual Support Options, LLC , a provider of virtual workforce management solutions for the service and support industry.  The newly acquired company will now operate under the brand B Virtual Inc (www.bvirtualinc.com ).   B Wyze Holdings Inc. will now add B Virtual Inc. to its existing portfolio of companies which includes B Wyze Solutions (www.bwyze.com) and MindMuze (www.mindmuze.com ).

Prior to the acquisition, B Wyze Solutions (a wholly-owned subsidiary of B Wyze Holdings Inc.) was the exclusive partner for Virtual Support Options in Canada, selling and delivering the innovative products and solutions of Virtual Support Options for the support industry’s remote workforce.

“The Strategic alignment of our organizations and desire to further expand the delivery of remote workforce solutions to our customers and partners in Canada demonstrate our commitment to the support industry,” says John Towsley, Co- CEO of B Wyze Holdings Inc. 

“B Virtual will focus on assuming a leadership role in keeping IT Service Support jobs onshore and providing thought leadership to the IT Support community,” adds Rick Beaudry, Co-CEO of B Wyze Holdings Inc.   “Tim Dewey has a track record of operational excellence and thought leadership in Global IT Support Services”.

Tim Dewey, the founder and CEO of Virtual Support Options will remain the CEO of the newly acquired company.  Mr. Dewey states, “B Virtual Inc. services offers tremendous opportunities to improve efficiency, reduce costs, and boost service levels for companies. Virtual Support Teams service customers at a cost that’s competitive with offshore outsourcing rates but at higher service levels; Innovative training techniques developed by MindMuze now offer our customers cost-effective training of remote resources, without disruption to the business. The ability to combine the the holdings of B Wyze Holdings with B Virtual will transform how the service and support industry perform.” 

About B Virtual (formerly Virtual Support Options)

B Virtual provides Virtual Workforce Management solutions for the service and support industry. Exclusively focused on best practices for the Virtual workforce, B Virtual offers customers Education & Training, consulting, and sourcing services specifically designed for the Remote workforce.   B Virtual’s CEO, Tim Dewey, has an impressive track record of operating IT Service Support teams to a highly recognized industry standard. 

The Virtual Support Manager 2-day course is designed to train IT leaders and Managers on effective management of a remote service and support workforce. This innovative course material includes best practice terminology for the Virtual Support Team, process requirements for remote workforces, as well as Human Resources’ role in the Virtual Support Center. Course participants should expect to learn essential management concepts for developing and deploying a successful Virtual Support Center. For more details, or to register, please contact us at info@bvirtualinc.com.

Class Dates:  July 17th & 24th

August 14th & 21st

Class Time: 9:00 am - 3:00 pm

Whether we want to admit it or not the support industry might be the most schizophrenic industry on the planet today! It seems one minute we are in the back office providing support behind the scenes to end users and customers. The next minute we are moved to the front of the organization and considered “strategic”. Today it is “strategically outsourced and off-shored”.

So what’s it going to be? Back office, front office, strategic, outsourced, or off-shored?The answer lies in the ability of Support leaders to find support models offering what their company’s want; an innovative, cost effective, and scalable support model that consistently provides world class support. The VIRTUAL Support Center accomplishes these objectives and more.

To see how VIRTUAL Support can be a strategic advantage to your organization click here to view a white paper created by Tim Dewey, President of VIRTUAL Support Options and business partner of B Wyze Solutions.