5 Business Issues You Can Resolve with a Virtual Assistant

As new challenges emerge, you as a business owner will have to secure your bottom line and sustain your business momentum. After all, you don’t have direct control over the business issues that are affecting your performance and profitability. You can, however, get virtual assistant services to help you address these issues properly.

Let’s look at the five critical problems a professional virtual assistant can resolve:

 

Time is a precious resource in the world of business. Each hour you spend should produce the best results to your bottom line. However, overseeing multiple tasks can get tedious. You will have to defer routine activities in favor of the more important ones.  

With a virtual assistant, you can give equal priority to all your crucial tasks. This allows you to maximize the time you have in running your business and maintain your productivity.

 

You can never separate new technology from your business. As the tools and software continue to evolve, adaptation is necessary to protect your bottom line.

Sure enough, virtual assistants are well-equipped to understand and use new tools to enhance your business’ efficiency. As a result, they can help your brand stay abreast of recent trends and adapt to them.

 

Lead generation forms an essential part of your customer acquisition campaign. If you want to grow your client base and generate more revenue, you will need to find potential leads wherever they are. Other than that, you should also find time to nurture your leads and prep them for a possible sales appointment.

Outsourcing your lead generation efforts to a capable service provider can help you streamline this essential aspect of your business. You can get an offshore assistant to handle tasks such as prospecting, lead nurturing, and lead management. The payoff from this would include better quality leads and high-value sales closes.

 

No business is perfect, but you’ll have to agree that a bad review can put your brand on dire straits. You will have to tread lightly when it comes to handling complaints from clients. In other words, you will have to be careful not to escalate the situation.

Having someone to handle your client relationship management will definitely have a big impact on your clients’ impression of your business. A virtual assistant who’s trained to handle negative publicity can essentially keep your reputation intact.

 

You can’t have a successful business without running an effective marketing campaign. It involves more than just letting people know you’re offering valuable products and services. Marketing, when done right, can help you enhance your reputation and nurture a loyal audience for your brand.

You will have to focus more on creating messages that are as attractive as they are informative. From infographics to videos, there are plenty of creative mediums you can use to deliver your message to the right prospects.    

 

It takes skill and experience to create the materials you need to influence potential clients. On that note, hiring a virtual assistant that specializes in core creative tasks such as graphic design and video production can help generate more clients and build your brand’s presence.

Are you struggling with these business issues? Hire a VA today and see how you can scale your business regardless of the challenges you are facing.

5 Signs Your Cleaning Company Needs to Outsource Digital Marketing

As a cleaning company, you make it your mission to revitalize homes and workplaces. To act on this mission, you need to attract the right people who can reach out to your client base.

Digital marketing is essential to customer acquisition, so it shouldn’t be treated as an afterthought in your line of business. However, as marketing technologies become increasingly complex, you will have to decide on getting a virtual assistant to market your cleaning services online.

How do you know for sure that it’s the right time to outsource digital marketing? Let’s look at a few key signs.

 

If your cleaning company is unable to close any sales, then it could be that your website is suffering from a low visitor count. There are several reasons for this. Your website may require a better design and improved functionality. Another reason is that it’s not fully optimized for search engines, resulting in poor online visibility.

In such cases, you can hire virtual assistants that are skilled in web design, web development, and search engine optimization. Through expert help on these tasks, you can give your cleaning company enough exposure to entice the right clients.

 

Running a cleaning company is no easy feat. Marketing your brand is not the only thing you have in mind. You also need to acquire new equipment, screen new members of your cleaning crew, and explore potential growth areas.

Outsourcing can help you lighten the load. With your digital campaign in the hands of a dedicated virtual assistant, you can focus more time on growing your business and other core activities.

 

Businesses would think that the success of a digital marketing campaign will depend on the resources that are available at present. In fact, some will even believe that a larger marketing budget can provide better results. However, it’s still possible to generate potential clients without going beyond your spending threshold. You just need the right people to handle your marketing tasks.

Outsourcing saves you a ton of money since you won’t be training your digital marketing team and purchasing new tools and software for your campaign. In fact, a virtual assistant already has the skills and equipment needed to drive your marketing goals.

 

Content drives engagement, and if your social media campaign is not getting any notice, then there’s something wrong with the creative aspect of your marketing efforts. One thing’s for sure, digital marketing is not just about posting content. A great deal of it involves creating content that’s relevant and valuable to your target audience.

Creativity is essential in marketing, so you will need resourceful and innovative bloggers, video producers, and graphic artists to create appealing online content.

 

Approaches in digital marketing change all the time. What’s currently trending today will eventually die down tomorrow. It’s this fast-paced technological evolution that makes it so difficult for cleaning companies to adapt.

By outsourcing digital marketing to a virtual assistant, you can have access to teams that are able to stay abreast of new online trends. This will make your cleaning company maintain a compelling online presence.

 

Looking to outsource digital marketing? OneVirtual Solutions provides tech-savvy virtual assistants who can help you position your cleaning company front and center. Book an appointment today so you can begin growing your business.

5 Ways to Establishing Trust With Your Real Estate Virtual Assistant

A real estate virtual assistant can be a valuable asset to your real estate business. Whether it involves managing your listings or helping you conduct due diligence, a dedicated VA can reduce your workload so you can focus more on scaling up.

In the course of these tasks, a VA may require access to critical information about your business. You may feel apprehensive with this, but who wouldn’t?

Trust is one thing you should always take into account when you’re dealing with real estate virtual assistants. With these tips, you can develop a healthy relationship with an outsourcing provider.

 

As the business owner, you will need to ensure that you get the best possible benefits with the resources and manpower you have.

To ensure that the tasks are in line with your business’ objectives, you need to set your expectations for the VAs you are hiring. Before you start your project or campaign, you will need to get your VAs up to speed on the things you want to accomplish. This enables your VAs to get a better understanding of your needs and address them accordingly.

 

Positive reviews can help you vouch for an outsourcing provider’s capacity for quality work.

Reputation is everything in business. To get the best possible results, you will need to build relationships with outsourcers that already have a strong and satisfied client base. Third-party reviews can help you along these lines since they provide you with a more objective basis to choose virtual assistants real estate companies are looking for.

 

Exchanging information such as MLS logins, names of past clients, and contact details can be highly risky but also essential to the work of your VAs. They may require access to such information in order to handle your online accounts directly, publish or share content, and contact people on your behalf.

However, it’s important to keep your business’ privacy in mind. So, make sure you give only the information your VAs need. If your VAs require access to specific platforms, they will need to do so with proper authorization. As data privacy and security issues continue to haunt the internet, you will need to control the types of information your VAs can or cannot acquire.

 

Before onboarding a virtual assistant, you will have to review the service contract first and see if there are any issues that you may want to clarify. It can get tedious, but reading the fine print on the contract can help you avoid technical problems that will cost you a  lot of money in the long run.

It pays to be extra-circumspect. So, take your time to review the salient points of the contract. Are there any extra charges you were not briefed about? What happens if you want to discontinue the service? Is there a dispute resolution mechanism in place?

 

Transparency forms the foundation of any business relationship. You should be able to see the progress of your efforts and give feedback on how your VAs can increase their productivity. Accurate and detailed reporting is second to none, so it’s important for your VAs to submit a Start of Day report and an End of Day report.

A Start of Day report provides an outline of the work to be done for the day. On the other hand, an End of Day report should include the tasks that your VAs have accomplished. With these reports, you can remain on top of everything throughout your relationship with your real estate virtual assistants.

 

In general, hiring a real estate virtual assistant shouldn’t intimidate you. You only have to find an outsourcing provider that does its part in maintaining a relationship based on trust.

We’re here to help your real estate business grow. Set an appointment today to get quality services you can trust.

The Philippines as a New Destination for Creative Process Outsourcing

For a while now, businesses have been outsourcing essential processes to the Philippines. With the emergence of the creative process outsourcing industry, the country is being exposed to new service areas.

According to the Oxford Business Group (OBG), the right conditions are already in place for this new industry to grow in the country. Local policy-makers will, therefore, need to leverage existing strengths in digital marketing and other creative areas. For OBG Asia Regional Editor Patrick Cooke, several factors will play a crucial role in this:

According to the Philippine Statistics Authority, at least 62% of the population belong to the over 18 age bracket. This also happens to be the largest age group in the country.

Furthermore, the Philippines currently has one of the lowest median ages in Asia at 24.3 years old. For Cooke, this young population is highly capable of understanding and handling new technologies.

Young entrepreneurs are running many business startups in the country that offer creative and virtual assistant services for various industries. It only goes to show that age does matter in a business landscape that’s increasingly digitally-driven.

 

Despite challenges in the global market, the Philippines’ consumer culture remains upbeat.

Indeed, the high prices of goods did little to dilute spending. In fact, the Consumer Expectation Survey for Q4 shows increased consumer confidence. This has indicated the presence of a workforce that has ready access to new technology and that doesn’t lag behind in terms of tech adoption.

 

Heavily influenced by new media, young adults dominate the local outsourcing industry. From real estate virtual assistants to creative associates, they form a great source of digitally-savvy skills for businesses to utilize.

“This creates a fertile ground for a vibrant youth culture to flourish, sustained on a diet of music, film, fashion, arts and online content,” Cooke says in a report by the Philippine News Agency. “The innate Filipino creativity and all-pervasive musicality (are) impossible for first-time visitors to the country to ignore…”

Cooke adds that this environment will produce individuals that are skilled in handling “high-value activities like graphic design, online marketing, and web development…”

 

The business process outsourcing industry and foreign remittances have buoyed the Philippine economy for such a long time.

However, we are seeing an easement of these economic drivers as remittances have dropped considerably during the first quarter of this year. The BPO industry, meanwhile, has projected slower growth up until the year 2022 as AI remains a critical threat.

Policymakers should, therefore, seek new areas for maintaining a sustainable local market. This would involve searching for “new growth engines” in the creative industry.

Therefore, a clear framework is important for developing the local creative industry and nurture an ideal business ecosystem where it is allowed to grow.

 

Creative process outsourcing will definitely provide new opportunities for the Philippines. The country has always been a top destination for hiring offshore call center workers and virtual assistants. We can only expect it to prosper as it branches out across different creative fields.

One thing’s for sure, several companies are already at the forefront of this sector. You can count OneVirtual Solutions among them. With our top-of-the-line facilities and a highly dynamic workforce of virtual assistants and creatives, we are an essential partner for your business’ growth. Contact us today to get started.

Influence and Impact: The Role of Video Marketing in Real Estate

The use of visuals in marketing has indeed come a long way. From traditional television commercials in the 1960s to today’s YouTube, Snapchat, Vimeo, and even Facebook Live, there’s no doubt that video has had a considerable impact on the way businesses reach out to their customers.

While convenient consumers, video marketing provides businesses a way to get closer to their target audiences. Real estate businesses will have to use videos in order to support their promotional activities.

 

In fact, Diode Digital recently found out that online video is 600% more effective than print. Aside from this, there are other significant reasons why businesses rely on video in communicating their messages.

  • 75 Million people in the U.S. watch online videos every day.
  • Merely mentioning the word ‘video’ in an email subject line can increase click-through rates by 13%.
  • Nearly 50% of all video is watched on a mobile device.
  • By 2019, internet video traffic will account for 80% of all consumer Internet traffic.
  • Videos up to 2 minutes long get the most engagement.
  • 82% of users watch video content on Twitter.
  • More than 500 million hours of videos are watched on YouTube each day.
  • YouTube has over a billion users, almost one-third of total internet users.

 

For sure, video marketing can definitely provide a wide range of benefits to real estate businesses, such as:

First off, utilizing video in content marketing can help increase your online visibility. In fact, according to Comscore, adding a video to your website can help you land a higher rank in the Google search results.

 

Video is proven to capture the attention of potential clients more effectively than any other medium, making it a powerful tool for strengthening your brand’s influence.

 

It’s no secret that video enables you to widen your reach and engage as many potential clients as your budget allows. This comes with the fact that people are able to share and react to videos in whatever way they see fit.

 

When you use video in emails, you are bound to generate more clicks. This is because people want something different when they’re opening email messages. While your email’s verbiage provides the “meat,” an embedded video pours the “sauce” that’s irresistible to potential clients.

 

Videos are also great for bringing out the emotional power of your messaging. People respond positively to videos that are valuable to them and offer solutions to issues that currently matter. In this sense, a well-produced video can win over the sentiments of any real estate seller or buyer.

 

Finally, videos are not only great for attracting the right people to your service, but they are also crucial in transforming leads into customers. Again, videos that outline benefits and appeal to your clients are likely to produce higher conversion rates.

Creating an effective video marketing campaign is just an appointment away. With a virtual assistant that specializes in digital marketing, you can significantly improve your marketing efforts and produce highly engaging material for your videos.

Why Consider Creative Process Outsourcing For Your Business

Nowadays, businesses will have to rely on creative process outsourcing to get ahead. First of all, though, what is creative process outsourcing and why should businesses use it?

Here’s what you need to know about this fast-growing industry:

It doesn’t require a genius to say that digital marketing has taken over the world of business, urging companies to make a choice. It’s either they continue using traditional marketing approaches or adopt new ones. The answer is fairly obvious.

As technology continues evolving, businesses will have to make changes. This would explain the massive investments in adopting new tools and tactics. In fact, data from Statista forecasts digital marketing expenditures in the United States to grow to $45 billion by 2019.

Even so, businesses will still need to hurdle several challenges such as the lack of expertise, resources, and manpower are the most compelling. In this case, creative process outsourcing is essential in resolving these issues.

 

Through creative process outsourcing, you can waste no time putting together everything you need for your campaign across three core areas.

 

Content creation and search engine optimization (SEO)

In terms of creating highly visible and relevant content, you can’t have one without the other. Content, no matter how well-written, is ineffective if it isn’t optimized for search engines. Likewise, your SEO efforts won’t make an impact on your brand if visitors leave your website due to poor-quality content.

A creative process outsourcing team will make sure you have the best of both worlds. Using a variety of tactics, it will create content that’s compelling enough to attract new clients and visible enough to improve your searchability.

 

Web development and web design

Your website is an essential part of your sales funnel. It’s where you generate and turn leads into potential sales opportunities. However, improving these outcomes requires effective web development and web design. Sure enough, these elements are within the scope of creative process outsourcing.

A responsive and intuitive website is important to your bottom line. In fact, according to Tyton Media, at least 94 percent of consumers reject a brand that has poor web design. Apart from this, search engines also penalize websites that take too long to load or have a messy interface.

When it comes to websites, user experience is anything but negligible. Through creative process outsourcing, you can get the skills you need to create a highly effective website for your business.

 

Social media marketing

What’s a business nowadays when it doesn’t engage through social media? There’s no denying that social media has become so prevalent as to convince companies to set up their presence across all platforms.

At least 50 million businesses have their own pages on Facebook. But to be able to open up new opportunities, these businesses will need to drop everything they already know about social media.

Social media marketing has changed considerably with the introduction of features such as Facebook and Instagram Live, chatbots, and geo-targeting. Indeed, social media marketing has gone beyond just writing wall posts. The dynamics have changed as new tactics such as video marketing emerge.

A creative process outsourcing company can help deal with the complexities of your social media campaign. This allows you to focus more on your core business activities without holding back on your digital marketing efforts.

 

When done right, creative process outsourcing enables you to seek better opportunities.

It shouldn’t take you forever to find the right creatives to handle your branding and audience engagement efforts. It’s only a matter of finding a company that has everything you need to run a successful digital marketing campaign.

With top-of-the-line facilities, a well-adapted workforce, and a focus on quality service, OneVirtual Solutions is definitely your partner for success. Contact us today and get started.

Use These 3 Social Listening Strategies in Your Digital Marketing Campaign

Businesses can never ignore the importance of research to the bottom line. To stay competitive, they will need strategies that use data for making the best possible business decisions. In the context of digital marketing, social listening is one such research activity that enables you to improve your social messaging based on observable audience interactions and behaviors.

To begin with, social listening is crucial in that it fills you in on the specific preferences of each segment of your audience. Evidently, it enables you to optimize your digital marketing campaign to resonate better with these segments. As a result, you will be able to craft precise messaging for your campaign.

That said, social listening that’s properly executed can help you fine-tune your messaging and discover insights that are valuable to improving your conversions and growing your business.

 

Let’s take a look at the social listening strategies you should be using to drive your digital marketing campaign.

 

The business landscape is in a state of flux. New players in your market are strengthening competition. As if that’s not enough, audience preferences are also constantly changing as disruptive innovations emerge.

To stay relevant and visible within a highly volatile business landscape, it’s important to look for trends you can base your message on.

For this, you can simply follow influencers across all social media platforms and monitor their posts. What are they currently talking about? Is it the same topic all throughout? If yes, then you will need to study the topic more closely and see how you can align it with your digital marketing strategy.

Influencers can tell you a lot about the important conversations of the day. However, they don’t exactly tell you how these conversations are affecting your audience. You will have to go in-depth for that.

If your goal in social listening is to relate your product or service to potential customers, you will need to use content curation and social listening tools like the following:

  • Buzzsumo
  • Sprout Social
  • EpicBeat
  • Social Animal
  • Scoop.It

These tools will help you find articles and blog posts that get a lot of engagements. You will be able to generate ideas for new content based on what’s popular or trending.

You can search for relevant and specific keywords about your business. For this, use specific phrases and find content pieces that get a lot of shares, likes, comments, and retweets. After listing down possible ideas, you can sit down with your digital marketing team and brainstorm for a content strategy based on the results of your social listening efforts.

For example, if you are running a law firm, the keyword “California attorney” is too broad. You should be able to include the type of services your law practice offers. If you specialized in personal injury cases, you can search for content using the phrase “California personal injury lawyer.” As a result, you get a good list of possible content that’s specific to this niche.

Your audience is more or less vocal about the products or services they buy. Apparently, the one good thing about social media is that it gives a platform for praise or criticism.

These reactions may come in the form of a review or a Facebook comment. At any rate, your digital marketing team should look at every interaction as an opportunity to refine your campaign.

More than just marketing your product, these types of engagements are also a form of business intelligence. One thing’s for sure, they can help you improve your product or service and uncover potential areas of expansion.

 

Want to learn more about crucial tricks and treats to raise the efficiency of your digital marketing campaign?

 

Contact us today and see how we can help you make the most out of your brand’s social media presence.

Social Media Management: Outsourcing vs. In-House Team?

You can’t have a successful digital marketing campaign without social media. Still, you can’t get the right results without effective social media management. If anything, there’s actually more to it than just sharing content or posting photos.

Your business might need a good boost in your social media presence. For that, you will have to choose between an in-house team and an outsourcing team for your social media management.

 

On that note, let’s look at the pros and cons of both to see which is more preferable for your business’ needs.

Pros and Cons: In-House Team

Pros

 

Having an in-house social media team allows for greater flexibility and control. You can actually perform certain tasks hands-on so you will be able to accomplish your goals in your own way. Moreover, this allows for better oversight and accountability. You can easily trace a problem in your social media campaign and have your team fix it right away.

 

You can modify your homegrown team to fit your business’ needs. Since you’re in direct control of your campaign, you basically call the shots with regards to content creation and distribution.

 

Cons

 

Building a social media management team from the ground up is expensive, to say the least. In fact, a social media marketing manager can earn up to $75,000 annually and this doesn’t include benefits and incentives.

 

An in-house team isn’t only expensive. It will also take you a long time before you get to have a fully-functioning social media arm that has all the relevant skills you need to drive success. Sure enough, you will have to invest a great deal of your time in recruiting and training the people you will need for your campaign.

 

Considering social media’s complexity and continuous evolution, it’s not going to be easy for your team to adapt. Especially when you’re handling an inexperienced social media team, you will eventually end up spending more than they should in order to keep up with the latest trends.

 

Pros and Cons: Outsourcing  Team

 

Pros

 

One obvious advantage of outsourcing is that it enables you to tap into the skills you need for your campaign. Running your social accounts should come with such core areas as graphic design and market research. Finding the right people with these proficiencies can help you make the most out of your online campaign.

 

Unlike an in-house team, outsourcing avoids added costs in training. Moreover, outsourced services are usually paid by the hour under a postpaid or a prepaid setup, granting you with greater flexibility in managing your budget.

You will need the right tools in order to run a successful social media campaign. By with outsourcing, you can gain access to pre-existing software and facilities that figure at the package price. In other words, you don’t have to pay extra just to set up the platforms you need.

 

Cons

 

When you’re delegating your social media tasks to a third-party service provider, you will eventually hand over crucial company information such as your social media logins. This could only spell risk to you and to your business if you’re not careful when choosing the right outsourcing company.

Coordination is a challenge. When you’re managing an offshore team, it’s difficult to oversee its performance, resulting in slow turnaround times and less than stellar results. Transparency has always been an issue, but you can successfully get around common challenges by finding a trustworthy outsourcing partner, especially along the lines of virtual assistant services.

 

The differences in language and social conventions can create a rift between your outsourcing team and your audience. For instance, if you hire a Philippine virtual assistant to handle your digital marketing, it’s possible that your messages may not resonate with your American niche. The safest way is to find an outsourcing partner that’s already experienced in handling digital marketing campaigns.

 

Social media management doesn’t have to be complex. You only need to find a service provider that fits your business marketing needs.

Contact us today and see how our virtual assistant services can give your social media management a good boost.

World Statistics Day 2018: The Digital Marketing Arena in Numbers

Can we imagine a world with no statistics? Obviously not. Everything from building planes to running a real estate brokerage is based on numbers.

As the world becomes increasingly data-driven, businesses will have to come up with digital marketing strategies that are anchored on real-world data.

 

For this year’s World Statistics Day, we have gathered the best numbers that should help you build a digital marketing campaign for your business’ growth.

 

    

 

55% of very small businesses intend to create a website within the next two years (GoDaddy Global Small Business Report)

83% of small business owners who already own a website feel they have a competitive advantage over those without (GoDaddy Global Small Business Report)

78% of those planning a website think it will expand their customer base, either locally, nationally, or internationally (GoDaddy Global Small Business Report)

77% of businesses say poor user experience is a weakness (Society of Digital Agencies)

56% of small businesses say their website has a responsive design (Society of Digital Agencies)

99% of Millennial homebuyers visit websites to search for homes (National Association of Realtors)

The most common feature on real estate firms’ websites were property listings at 95% (National Association of Realtors)

48% of all firms cited “keeping up with technology” as one of the biggest challenges facing their firm in the next two years (National Association of Realtors)

39% of users will stop engaging if a website takes too long to load (Forbes)

On real estate websites, the “About Us” page is the 3rd most-viewed page (OneCarrot.com)

 

 

80% of small businesses do not invest in content marketing and experts warn that they are missing a key marketing opportunity (Clutch.co)

Most small businesses (47%) spend less than $10,000 on digital marketing, indicating that they have small or nonexistent budgets. (Clutch.co)

96% of B2B buyers want content with more input from industry thought leaders (DemandGenReport.com)

Customer testimonials have the highest effectiveness rating for content marketing at 89% (Socialfresh)

90% of organizations market with content (DemandMetric)

On average, marketers spend 25% of their budget on content marketing (DemandMetric)

Content creation is ranked as the single most effective SEO technique by 53% of businesses. (Marketing Sherpa)

80% of people appreciate learning about a company through custom content (DemandMetric)

 

 

Using video on landing pages can increase conversion by 80% (Eye View Digital)

64% of consumers make a purchase after viewing a branded social video (Forbes)

By 2019, global consumer Internet video traffic will account for 80% of all consumer Internet traffic. (Small Biz Trends)

90% of users say that product videos are helpful in the decision process (HubSpot)

Top three most effective types of video content: Customer testimonials (51%); Tutorial videos (50%); Demonstration videos (49%) (Curata)

Over half (51%) of home shoppers claim that YouTube is their favorite video research platform (Bold Content Video)

 

 

80% of B2B leads come from LinkedIn (LinkedIn)

Facebook provides the highest social value for B2C (96%) whereas LinkedIn provides the highest social value for B2B (93%) (Smart Insights)

The overwhelming majority use Facebook ads (87%), followed by Google ads (39%) and Twitter ads (18%) (Social Media Examiner)

Tweets with images receive 18% more clicks than tweets without images (Wordstream)

 

 

B2B companies that publish 11 blogs per month had almost 3 times more traffic than those blogging 0-1 times per month (HubSpot)

74% of realtors do not have a blog (National Association of Realtors)

After 21-54 blogs, businesses see a traffic increase to their blogs by up to 30% (Traffic Generation Cafe)

 

 

Search is the B2B buyer’s #1 resource for research; 90% of B2B researchers who are online use search specifically to research business purchases. (ThinkWithGoogle.com)

91% of people trust what they see and read on search engines (Pew Research Center)

Search is the top traffic driver to content-oriented websites, producing on average nearly four times the traffic of social media (41% from search, 11% from social) (TopRank)

 

 

62% of companies outsource their content marketing (DemandMetric)

78% of businesses all over the world feel positive about their relationship with their outsourcing company (Customer Think)

Over 70% of all companies with a working website currently outsource their website maintenance and SEO services to developers, coders, engineers, and digital marketing teams. (Small Biz Daily)

 

Are you ready to enter the digital marketing arena? Aside from stats, you also need a great outsourcing partner to support your audience-building efforts.

Contact OneVirtual Solutions today and see how we can use our digital skills to support your business’ goals.

TSGI 2018: Iloilo City Outsourcing Sector Gets Global Nod

The Tholons Services Globalization Index (TSGI) 2018, which recognizes globally competitive outsourcing destinations, has included Iloilo City in the Philippines among this year’s 100 Super Cities that foster digital innovation and transformation.

The city, located about 290 miles south of the capital Manila, secured no. 92 in the TSGI, an improvement from last year when it was excluded from the list. It’s re-entry this year came in the midst of an aggressive push for further innovation in the local business process outsourcing sector, which currently employs some 20,000 workers.

No doubt, this recognition is opening up new opportunities for the local BPO sector which is receiving a spillover of investments from Manila. The release of the 2018 TSGI comes as an added benefit to homegrown and foreign-owned service providers in Iloilo City. This provides the city with an added boost to its position as a growing hub for outsourced services.

 

As a global strategic consulting firm, Tholons has been working with multinational companies in identifying countries and cities that are well-adapted to an ever-changing digital landscape. The TSGI provides insights on how digital transformations shape the outsourcing sector and informs companies of potential services markets along the lines of AI, virtual reality, and blockchain technology.

To a certain degree, Tholons engages countries and cities in improving competitiveness and digital adoption. This year, the city of Bangalore in India has retained its No. 1 position in the TSGI while Manila follows at No. 2. Nonetheless, the Philippines finds itself at the top tier of services destinations that underscore the local BPO’s potential to deliver on demands for quality skills and technical competencies.  

As businesses realize the importance of innovation to sustainability and growth, they will need to find markets where the right conditions are set. Understandably, Iloilo City has hit the right indicators to be able to secure a Super City status.

 

To determine the relevance of a city or country as growing markets, Tholons conducts surveys and gathers qualitative and quantitative data to map out the widespread adoption of new technology and assess the adaptability of the local business ecosystem. The TSGI scores each location based on the following metrics:

  • Talent Skills and Quality
  • Business Catalyst
  • Cost
  • Infrastructure
  • Risk and Quality of Life
  • Digital and Innovations

Iloilo City received an overall score of 3.57 out of 10. Moreover, it is able to receive the highest score in terms of “Cost” at 1.36, narrowly beating Manila which has a score of 1.35 on the scale. It also scored well in “Digital and Innovations” due to its high digital penetration rate as well as the number of active business startups.

No doubt, these were the results of efforts towards making the city more business-friendly and investing in core infrastructure that supports the adoption of new trends.

 

Iloilo City’s inclusion in this year’s TSGI 100 Super Cities was met with excitement by the local business community. However, more has to be done for the local BPO sector to improve its position in the global outsourcing market. Fortunately, the city is on the right track and with business startups leading the charge, we will be seeing homegrown entrepreneurs appeal to a much larger global audience across industries like legal services, healthcare, financial services, and real estate.

One thing’s for sure, the current business climate will continue to support the BPO industry, especially virtual assistant service providers like OneVirtual Solutions.

Create better opportunities for your business without having to spend too much time and resources. Look for an Iloilo City-based company that knows what disruption is all about.

 

Contact us today and see what we can do to impact your bottom line.