Networks

Collaboration and partnership fuels expansion

The contact centre industry in Wales benefits from two employer fora - the Welsh Contact Centre Forum and West Wales Association of Communication Centres which actively encourage company collaboration and networking.

In addition the Welsh Contact Centre Forum provides advice on training and recruitment, benchmarking and undertakes research in relation to key business issues affecting the industry in Wales. For more information about the Welsh Contact Centre Forum please click below.

http://www.welshcontactcentreforum.co.uk/

“I think sharing ideas and learning is vital to ensure that our contact centre becomes best in class. We can impart our expertise to other companies, but equally we can learn from the experiences and knowledge of others in the industry. It is very much a positive initiative in my view,” Audrey V Martin, team manager, BT Wholesale Broadband services.

Increasing academic collaboration is also yielding positive results for shared services. Unilever, for example, has developed a mutually beneficial relationship with the local higher education institution, the North East Wales Institute of Higher Education (NEWI). The organizations have collaborated to develop IT Course syllabuses which are aligned to the industry’s future skills requirements.

Access to skills

With access to 12 higher education institutions and a student population of over 100,000 Wales has access to a large graduate base. Local employers work closely with these institutions, the WDA and other public sector bodies to ensure that the graduates’ skills meet the need of the industries.

“I am continually impressed with the calibre of staff available in South Wales. We’ve recruited a number of graduates who’ve progressed to management level since joining the business,” Lionel Phillips, managing director, dial.

Wales has over 16,000 foreign national residents and over 1,300 graduates in modern languages from Welsh Universities. (Source: HESA 2000) Unilever, Atradius and Liberata are among the shared service and contact centres in Wales tapping into this valuable resource.

Wales-based contact centres also benefit from the availability of six state-of-the-art contact centre training suites which are based around the Wales. One of these is Cygnus Online.

“Since our involvement with Cygnus Online we have been able to ‘tap into’ a source of potential contact centre applicants who come ready trained within the environment of customer on-line contact. This has been a boon for us,” Ann Phillips, BT.

Broadband: connecting Wales to the global network

To be at the forefront in the global market place, companies need access to a telecoms infrastructure that can easily handle the demands of these industries. Wales offers the opportunity to contact and shared service operations to connect to one of the most advanced telecoms infrastructures in Europe.

Broadband Wales - a programme to create a Wales-wide broadband infrastructure - is equiping strategic business parks with high speed broadband connections. It is enabling companies in these industries to compete globally, yet still take advantage of the benefits of a Welsh location.