CallingtheCape Highlights Newsletter - June 2006

Dear Stakeholders,

There are only 23 working days left till the deadline for entries to the CallingtheCape Awards. This month we update you on the Awards, our next Leadership Development Workshop, an exciting programme of site visits, and news of an addition to our team.

If you have any suggestions or views that you would like to share please forward them to rhomeez@callingthecape.org.za

(i) CLOSING DATE FOR ENTRIES TO CALLINGTHECAPE AWARDS IS 30TH JUNE 2006!!!

THERE ARE ONLY 23 WORKING DAYS LEFT till the deadline for entries to the CallingtheCape Awards - Friday 30th June. So far we've received a number of entries for both the Industry and People Awards categories. All the awards entry criteria and information are available at www.callingthecape.org.za/awards. Please contact us if you need any assistance with entering.

(ii) CallingtheCape 2006 Annual Awards ("Winter Wonderland")
5th August 2006, 6:30pm
Grand West Casino, Cape Town

Join us to celebrate the success of the Western Cape's BPO industry at a "Winter Wonderland" banquet on 5th August 2006 at the Market Hall, Grand West. We will once again be honouring the industry's most outstanding companies and individuals. All the regional winners will automatically be entered for the national SACCCOM awards.

RSVP: Nicky Floris at nicky@callingthecape.org.za 
Cost: R550 per guest or R5,500 for a table of ten.

(iii) Why Cape Town? Investor Workshop & Lunch
21st June 2006, 9:45am - 1:00pm
South African High Commission, Trafalgar Square, London, England

CallingtheCape is hosting a workshop and lunch in London on 21st June 2006 for international companies looking to offshore to Cape Town. We look forward to welcoming Steve Rescorla, Customer Services Director of Carphone Warehouse's Talk Talk, who will be giving an in-depth presentation on why they chose Cape Town for their captive centre.

If you will be in the UK on that date and would like to attend, RSVP Nicky Floris at nicky@callingthecape.org.za

(iv) Site Visits (New!!)

CallingtheCape will be hosting a series of high profile site visits to leading contact centre and BPO facilities in Cape Town. The purpose of the visits are to give the industry access to leading companies and in so-doing to spread best practice standards.

There's been much interest in these site visits and we can only accommodate members of CallingtheCape. Fifteen delegates will be given the opportunity on a first-come-first-serve basis. We will make every effort to accommodate BEE/SME companies.

It will start off with a one hour tour of the facility focusing on:

  • Agent Retention
  • Team Leader Development
  • QA
  • Operations
  • Technology
  • Disaster Recovery

There will be a fifteen minute Q&A session at th end of the tour. We plan to have three site visits for the remainder of 2006.

The dates are as follows:

  • Fusion Outsourcing (Budget Insurance UK) - 11th July 2006 at 11h00am
  • Old Mutual - 19th September 2006 at 11h00am

We'll provide you with more details of the third site visit in the next newsletter. All information regarding site visits will be given to delegates closer to the time.

RSVP to Rhomeez@callingthecape.org.za by no later than 15th June for the Fusion Outsourcing visit and no later than 25th August for the Old Mutual visit. We need to be informed of cancellations at least two days before the event.

(v)CallingtheCape Leadership Development Programme
26th July 2006
Old Mutual Business School, Pinelands, Cape Town

The next workshop in our popular CallingtheCape Leadership Development series will be taking place on 26th July 2006 and will focus on the management of employee relationships and will deal specifically with performance management within the context of South African labour legislation. The content is aimed at team leaders and aspiring team leaders and delegates will gain a solid practical grasp of performance management and labour law, reinforced by industrial theatre, presentations by industry thought leaders, and a half day workshop.

Confirmed speakers include Margie Middleton, Stephen Beukes, and Pure Basic Industrial Theatre. Seats are limited to forty.

Cost: R2,000 for non-members and R1,800 for CallingtheCape members.

For more info contact Nicky Floris at nicky@callingthecape.org.za

(vi) Customer Management South Africa 2006
1st - 2nd August 2006
Arabella Sheraton Hotel, Cape Town

Customer Management South Africa returns for 2006, with a mix of local and international speakers, a forum for sharing best practice, and networking for the contact centre industry role players.

For more information please contact Christina Wood at +44(0) 1483 755647 or christina@ictcomms.com

(vii) Is your call centre part of the game?

Every organisation strives to maximize and improve the cost-effectiveness of every form of contact with the customer, regardless of the method chosen by "the customer" to communicate with "the company". The PRESENCE Technology product suite provides comprehensive control over the communication channels using powerful routing systems and post-analysis of each individual channel.

Join us in Cape Town at the launch of Presence CRM Optimiser and learn how the winning teams benefit from this technology.

Registration closes on Friday 2nd June 2006.

Date: 19th June 2006, 12:30pm
Lagoon Beach Hotel, Milnerton
Please contact Claudia Liebenberg to register for this free seminar on +27 21 888 2117 or +27 83 609 8282
mailto:cliebenberg@za.spescom.com


mydesktop - IT, Wireless & Visual Solutions

Specialists in the Supply, Sourcing, Installation & Support of Call Centre (BPO) related IT Hardware & Head sets.

JUNE SPECIALS:
HEADSET (trialled and tested) - Genius HS04A @ R 79 xVAT
Refurb Compaq Deskpro ENS, PIII,128RAM PC's @ R 999 xVAT
Panasonic PLASMA's (new version 8 with wall bracket) from R11 900 xVAT

Tel: (021) 919 5128
Fax: (021) 919 4297
Email: sales@mydesktop.co.za
Web: www.mydesktop.co.za

To advertise contact Rhomeez Hendricks.

This month's new members are:

If you are interested in becoming a member of CallingtheCape please contact Rhomeez Hendricks.

(i) Huge Interest in CallingtheCape Awards

Our inaugural awards in 2005 attracted around 150 entries of consistently high quality and the awards banquet was one of the highlights of the year. With just over a month to go to get your submissions for this years' annual awards please make sure you download the applications from the website and submit to us before the end of June. All the rules, application forms and submission criteria are available at www.callingthecape.org.za/awards.

Prizes this year include 2 return airplane tickets to Europe courtesy of GlobalTeleSales, R10,000 vouchers from Woolworths, a double night stay at the luxurious Arabella Sheraton, cash prizes, and Winelands Spa treatments. We do need your support in providing additional prizes for the winners including a prize for "The best dressed" at this year's banquet. Email Judith@duomarketing.co.za  should you want to sponsor prizes.

The 2006 awards will be announced at a "Winter Wonderland" banquet on August 5th at The Market hall, Grand West where CallingtheCape will honour the industry's most outstanding companies and individuals. This event is sponsored by DataPro, Spescom and The Dialogue Group and promises to be a night to remember with ice bars, snowmen, cocktails, ice sculptures, fairy lights and funky DJ's all conducted by Master of Ceremonies, Az Abrahams from Heart 104.9 FM.

We want to see more agents at the banquet this year, so we have some special offers for companies who invite their agents:

  • Book one table and get a second, agents-only table for R4,000.
  • Book two tables and get three extra agents-only tables at R4,000 each.
  • Book three tables and get five extra agents-only tables at R4,000 each.

Already we have OVER 350 GUESTS CONFIRMED ATTENDING this event - so don't delay, book before it's too late.

(ii) Still a few sponsorship packages available

The CallingtheCape Awards sponsorship packages are currently for sale.

The following companies are this year's Gold Sponsors:

  • Datapro
  • The Dialogue Group
  • Spescom

Silver Sponsors:

  • Lufthansa Globaltelesales
  • Woolworths
  • Old Mutual

There are 8 silver sponsorship packages left at R12 000 for members and R17 000 for non members. It includes a table for 10, a year's free membership to CtC, recognition in remaining newsletters prior to the awards, branding at the event including two banners and inclusion in media announcements.
We take this opportunity to congratulate and thank all our Sponsors for their ongoing support. Please contact Nicky Floris for more details.

(iii) Heart 104.9 Radio campaign

CallingtheCape has embarked on an 8 week radio campaign (June and July) in partnership with Heart 104.9 to create awareness about the Western Cape call centre industry, the career opportunities it offers, and the CallingtheCape Awards and CADET scheme.

During the month of July, Heart 104.9 DJ, Az Abrahams will spend 1 hour at 4 different contact centres. At each centre he will interview agents, mangers and supervisors about their careers, companies, growth opportunities, etc which will be discussed the following Sunday on air, during the "Az You Are" weekend.

Tune in to Az You Are on Heart FM 104.9 every Sunday in June and July from 9:00am until 10:00am.

(iv) Training scheme helps Cape call centres maintain their lead

A training and learnership scheme implemented by Calling the Cape is helping the local industry to maintain its global position by ensuring a supply of suitable skills well into the future.

Working closely with local industry members, recruitment agencies and training organisations, CallingtheCape has designed a four-stage programme aimed at the long-term unemployed and those who have been retrenched from other sectors such as the clothing and textile industry.

"We identified the specific skills that people were lacking for success in the job market and designed the programme to impart those skills," says programme manager Sonja Lawson. "It's aimed at people who are not going to find jobs on their own, despite the fact that many of them show superb learning abilities in our testing".

The Career Assessment Development Education & Training (CADET) programme is now in its second year, with 90% of the current crop of 100 learners expected to find full-time work.

The first two stages of the programme include a rigorous skills assessment, career guidance and job profiling, followed by four weeks of basic workplace orientation and training in life skills, IT skills, typing and communication. The third phase is a seven-week accredited training programme at NQF2 level, followed finally by a six-month learnership during which candidates get on-the-job experience at host companies.

Some of the learners from the first programme are now top performers at the contact centres where they work, says Lawson. And some of the learners in the second group are already working on international programmes, which is amazing progress.

The total cost of the programme is R16,500 per learner and CallingtheCape welcomes partnerships with industry role players to assist us in creating jobs for unemployed people in Cape Town - please contact Luke Mills if you would like to get involved in this programme.

(v) New team member at CallingtheCape

We would like to take this oportunity to welcome Nomakhaya Mngqibisa to the CallingtheCape team, our new SME Development Manager who'll be starting on 1st June 2006. Nomakhaya, congratulations on your new appointment and welcome aboard.

(vi) Mindpearl Flies Solo
Cape Town, South Africa 15th May 2006

The management team of Mindpearl AG and Swiss International Air Lines have agreed to a Management Buy Out whereby the management team have bought all shares in Mindpearl from SWISS. Mindpearl is a global contact centre company which employs over 400 agents across 4 locations (Cape Town, New York, Brisbane and Barcelona). See www.mindpearl.com for more information.

(vii) Effect of UK TUPE Changes Exaggerated

Below is an interesting angle on the TUPE 2006 Regulations. If you are interested in finding out more information on the subject, please contact Daniel Ellis of Baker & McKenzie in London at +44 20 7919 1498 or daniel.ellis@bakernet.com

Daniel writes:

"We believe that many of the reports which suggest that the new TUPE 2006 Regulations significantly increase the risk of TUPE applying to offshoring arrangements from the UK are significantly exaggerated.

There has always been some risk that TUPE applies to offshoring situations (although TUPE may be less likely to apply to an offshoring to countries outside the EU). However, so far as we are aware, no employees (or their trade unions) have tried to bring a claim to an Employment Tribunal in the UK claiming that it does. That is a significant point given how strongly some of the trade unions have fought against offshoring of jobs.

We believe that one of the reasons for that is that if TUPE were to apply, the main practical impact for employees would simply be that any redundancies which need to be made would need to be made by the supplier, rather than the client. In practice, employees would prefer to be made redundant by their existing employer.

That said, it is fair to say that the new TUPE Regulations do technically increase the risk of TUPE applying to offshorings to a small degree.

However, we do not think that was a reason behind the changes, but is an indirect result of them. Also, we do not believe that the changes will significantly change the current approach in practice.

The key thing for offshore-service providers is to ensure that their commercial agreements give them adequate indemnity protection against such claims (and that has always been the case).

Until clients start refusing to provide those indemnities, we do not think there will be any change in commercial practice. That is not likely to come unless and until there is a Court decision which says that TUPE applies. Even at that stage, there are other business models which suppliers will be able to adopt which will not significantly increase the overall cost of providing the services. However, for the time being, we think it will be business as usual."

Have a great month.

Rhomeez Hendricks
Communications Officer
Telephone No: +27(0) 21 487 8655 : Switchboard No: +27(0) 21 487 8600
Fax No: +27(0) 21 422 3744 : Mobile No: +27(0) 82 927 8021
Email address: rhomeez@callingthecape.org.za  Website: www.callingthecape.org.za


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