ABSTRACT
In the last decade increasing amounts of work are being sent offshore to developing countries, such as India, the Philippines, Costa Rica and Vietnam. It is estimated that by
2020, the market for this Business Processing Outsourcing (BPO) industry will triple in size from USD 500 billion to USD 1.5-1.6 trillion (NASSCOM, 2009). A well-known English speaking multinational company reported in 2013 that 45% of its international employees are now scattered around Asia, and a large-scale study across global multinational companies recently reported that 80% of its respondents were part of teams with members based in different locations (RW CultureWizard, 2010). This has resulted in fundamental shifts in the way people work globally and has meant rapid organizational change. In 2010, a multinational financial company called MetroFin, a pseudonym for the purposes of this study, initiated a call for a one-day ‘Communicating in Virtual Teams’ training course provider. The course would address the communication needs of on-and offshore frontline managers of virtual teams. The aim of the training needs analysis (TNA) was to understand how managers and teams communicate and work in virtual teams, both on-and offshore, and identify key gaps and difficulties to be addressed by a well-targeted training course. The company that won this training project was a BPO communications consultancy group which I founded when I lived and worked in Manila 10 years ago. As a full-time academic now, I was permitted by the company and the client to shadow and participate in the TNA, and use the data for research and publication purposes. The identity of the company would obviously need to remain confidential.
