Impact of covid-19 pandemic
The Czech business services centres were able to react to the COVID-19 pandemic with a quick transition to remote work. 93% of the centres report positive or no overall impact of the pandemic on their operation. Furthermore, the surveyed centres showed only a marginal concern about the COVID-19 impact on their delivery operations.
Centres‘ concern about impact of COVID-19 on delivery operations
In majority of the assessed factors the COVID-19 outbreak had positive or no impact on the business services centres in the Czech Republic.
The smooth transition of the business services centres in the Czech Republic from the office setting to remote work enabled not only service continuity but also brought new business opportunities for 37% of the Czech centres. 19% of the surveyed centres report additional accounts or workload now serviced from the Czech Republic.
37%
of centres report positive impact of COVID-19 on new business opportunities
26%
of centres report positive impact of COVID-19 on the attractiveness of the Czech Republic as a centre location
87%
of centres report positive or no impact of COVID-19 on their cost of operations
99%
of centres report positive or no impact of COVID-19 on their service delivery
Examples of new business opportunities reported by business services centres
1. Accelerating digital transformation
- Digitalization and RPA
- New transitions
- Cloud solution implementation
- Consolidation of master data for Europe
2. Supporting new processes
- Additional process support to organization units in new areas
- More front-line work from on-shore locations
- Increasing volume of IT support of homeworking employees
- Future focus on cost savings
3. Gaining higher volumes
- Filling in missing capacity in local teams
- Supporting APAC vendors, transfer of APAC accounts
Source: ABSL Survey: Current Impact of Quarantine and Lockdown Measures due to COVID-19 (Published April 2020)
“The sector did not have to reduce its activities in any way, like most other areas of the economy, and on the contrary, it recruited new people. The security and stability of customer service then attracted a growing number of applicants and significantly reduced the turnover of existing employees. The fact that some call centres, such as Comdata, offered help to government emergency lines 1212 and 112, which began to collapse very quickly under the onslaught of inquiries, also contributed to this. It is this preparedness to help in the crisis that has increased public awareness of call centre activities and, with it, interest in vacancies.”
ABSL Czech Republic
Comdata received a special award for fighting with COVID-19. The company responded immediately and flexibly to the government’s call and supported the emergency lines 112 and 1212, which collapsed under the volume of inquiries. 60 operators helped to the line 112. Trainings for them were organized twice a day, because working on this line is extremely demanding, both in terms of the speed of the necessary solution as well as due to the mental stress the operations have to cope with. The waiting time of any call must not exceed 4 s. Another 50 operators from Comdata supported the national line 1212, which was established on March 15, 2020 to provide information about COVID-19. Operators from Comdata and the Czech-Moravian Guarantee and Development Bank, which processed government support programs for companies and entrepreneurs, helped in parallel.
53%
of centres report faster implementation of digitalization
COVID-19 significantly accelerated the implementation and the development of new technologies within the surveyed centres.
