Everyone these days is going gaga for going green, so do the BPO industry. BPOs going green doesn’t seem relevant but industry has its own way to save the environment. Green initiatives in the contact center space are growing at a rapid pace, not only for the cost effectiveness or benefits it offers to the environment, but also for allowing home agents to become an integral part of the contact center industry. How concerned are businesses today with their environmental footprint / carbon footprint? Why has this awareness grown so much? People are starting to realize that a carbon footprint is costly to maintain.

In the language of a C-level executive, there is 'return on investment', and I think that all the things Al Gore is doing, and all the awareness building around green, has really helped. Also, the success of hybrid technology from Toyota and their dominance in that supply chain has opened up a lot of C-level executives to what is the value of reducing their carbon footprint. I also think there is a new breed of CEOs out there who are very concerned with the environment, and who want to lead a legacy of making a real strong statement about their commitment to the environment.

Plus, its just good business to have your employees at home and not burning fuel and using electricity. It keeps the bills down inside, and allows you to also be good to the environment. What are some of the specific benefits businesses can realize when minimizing waste and reducing their carbon footprints? Improved customer service and the fact that we live in a 24 / 7 world, where business never stops, is important. Also, if you look at it from the stand point of allowing employees to work from home, allowing them to really design their job within the parameters of the goal your trying to accomplish, it becomes possible to have a call center based in Boston handling calls in Australia and delivering exceptional performance, even above what can be accomplished in just Australia, for example.

The great thing about the green approach is it has really forced common sense to the forefront of how business decisions are made because no longer is it "Oh, we're provincial, we can only have our experts in Salt Lake City," for example. Instead now it's about allowing the expert to connect with the customer and serve the customer beyond their expectations. I think that's what's really exciting about green, because it's going to revolutionize customer relationships. ::::::How important a focus has green technology become in the contact center space? :::::: I think green has given those champions of the contact center more fuel—and the right kind of fuel—to go forward and make their case for hosted contact centers and dropping the costs of running a company, while also increasing service levels. This is achieved by being able to get to the right person, at the right time, to accomplish the right results for the customer. ::::::Can you briefly describe some of the differences between a traditional contact center and a green contact center? :::::: In the green contact center, you have the ability to reach experts wherever they are in the world, and you don’t have to be shackled by provincialism.

While the traditional contact center is more regimental and controlled. Environments are scripted and people have less of an opportunity to own their jobs With green contact centers, people are able to partner with the company and their employees. There is also a level of control and trust, and people are motivated by the ability to define their own metrics. A lot of satisfaction comes out of "moving the needle" against one's own objectives and how they measure themselves. It does take a unique person to work in a remote green contact center, but if you get the right person, there is no limit to what can be accomplished. Overall it's a lot better than the hierarchical, structured environment in traditional contact centers. ::::::How are work-at-home agents beneficial to businesses and the environment?:::::: Study after study of telecommuting shows that people who have a high-level of self discipline or who really feel accountable for their work, actually work longer and harder than people in an office, mainly because there are no artificial constraints around what they can achieve. While some companies may look at it as they're being taken advantage of, home-based agents have the ability to excel at their own speed and typically, when people measure themselves against themselves, they work a lot harder, than if they are measured by a manger and pushed by them. Also, there are huge benefits to the environment. There's less of a carbon footprint, people are not only saving the costs of gas, but they're also saving the oil burn and overall pollution that’s in the air. Home-based agents are also beneficial to businesses because again, I think if you get the right type of person, and they drill into your products and internalize what their goals are, at the end of the intersection of what they're passionate about, and what they're working at, it’s a win for them and a win for the business. During the roundtable discussion at Green Technology World, what were some of the key issues and points and what areas seemed to generate the most interest among participants? The area around what technologies are fueling green adoption was an important topic of focus. There was a great question that came out of the audience during that panel addressing how to push through the hype and see what technologies are really being influenced by green. And the key take-away there was Internet security, performance and reliability.

I think that when you look at The Green Technology World aspect of it and what technologies are actually coming out of the market to meet the need called "green," you have to point to entirely new business models based on the use of information to better serve people. Also, another aspect of the roundtable was, how to separate green hype from green reality, and it again goes back to the recognition that a lot of companies embrace it for the cost benefits, but you have to really look at it in terms of the reduction of carbon emissions. Mainly, defining standards around how to use resources and set incentives to help reduce emissions and pollution.