Impact Sourcing in Latin America

 

I. ABOUT ARBUSTA

We aim at empowering women and youth in underprivileged communities by providing real working opportunities: flexible, within their own neighbourhoods, and with added value that enhances self-esteem and future opportunities. It does so by providing Business Process Outsourcing services to the corporate world. Arbusta is the first Impact Sourcing Company in Southern America.

II. PROBLEM & MARKET OPPORTUNITY There are 31 million youth in Latin America who neither work nor study; of these, 67% are women. Despite the effort of hundreds of organizations determined to break this through coaching, training, articulation for them to access to a decent job, this solution simply does not scale. One of the main causes of this is the strong prejudice surrounding their underprivileged background -easily associated with lack of skills and criminal attitude-. Global market for BPO (Business Process Outsourcing) is USD 574 billion and will grow up to a 5.1% annually in 2015. “Impact” outsourcing will have 11% of it. LatAm is one of the three major provider regions. Together with parts of Africa and SouthEast Asia, South America is touting the BPO potential of job creation as a tactic for poverty alleviation. In Argentina, specifically, the industry is emerging, and the demand for BPO is growing every year. Argentina adds a higher level of competition to the market because of its low operating costs, cheap assets, and developed infrastructure for the BPO sector. From a policy perspective, both national and provincial governments are beginning to promote the BPO sector through subsidies and partnerships. South America as a whole is poised to be a top-3 contributor to the Impact Sourcing sector given its proximity to the United States, similar time zone and cultural affinity with US, modern telecommunication infrastructure, tax incentives, Spanish language and English as a second language.

III. OUR SERVICES 1. Software Testing ● Functional Web Testing

Integration with enterprise application development, Monthly service functional testing multi-environment, Definition of test cases, Browsers to test incident management, Registration platform Bug Tracker, Integration of scrums with the client team

● Usability Testing: Tailor-made Projects, Defining test cases and tools, Functional Testing Service (touch screening system), Diagnostic Usability and Accessibility (holistic tests), Incident management and registration, Protocol definition user experience, Laboratory tests with real users

2. Data & Content Management Data entry, forms, surveys; Data enrichment or cleansing (online and photos); BD classification; database creation and organization; Data Mining; Data processing Content quality review (Moderation); Image editing, tread watermarks; Data mining, extraction Image and Video Tagging: Content rating; analysis of community-posted images: quality, message, approach, lighting; copyright and originality image verification; under marketing campaign Podcast and audio transcriptions, Video subtitling Social Media: Contact center and customer service; Social media monitoring and clipping; Strategie of social networks and digital channels; online community management; Digital event coverage; real-time event monitoring; Management and maintenance of online community

3. Taylor-Made Projects

Upon clients specific demand and needs

 

IV. ARBUSTA´S IMPACT SOURCING MODEL

Arbusta´s processes focuses in 4 stages:

(1) Stimulates demand of digital services in the corporate world and publics offers (2) Transforms the client`s projects/services in micro tasks (3) Identifies and trains women and youth in digital skills (4) Provides the service

Arbusta´s model has two key essentials to both guarantee impact and service quality 1. Digital Community Centers We co-launch, with grass roots organizations, Digital Community Centers which enable

- Accurate infrastructure and equipment for youth and women to be trained and work in adequate conditions

- Real access to work opportunities: flexible hours, within-the-neighborhood work venue, center lead by a grass root organization who has already generated trust bonds and leadership within a particular community

- Income generation for grass root organizations

2. Cell-Like Work Organization Each project or service is split in microtasks and performed by a group of different workers supervised by a professional project manager. This both promotes the peer-to-peer learning and responsibility sharing, and guarantees the service quality.

V. ARBUSTA AND INNOVATION ARBUSTA is innovating in several dimensions:

● Pioneering not only the Impact Sourcing model, but also expanding the BPO market in Argentina. Arbusta provides a vertically-integrated service to its clients by identifying, training, hiring and assessing its workers.

● Effectively solving the dilemma of providing real working opportunities for underprivileged women and youth by adapting the system into their actual possibilities (flexible hours –particularly valued by young mothers who need to look after their kids-, small tasks, within their neighbourhood work venue, and with a strong digital added value).

● Providing added value work and career oportunities in the digital services industry to women and youth in sectors which are traditionally more used to earn their living by local production (textile, bakery, others).

● Implementing the Digital Community Centers in partnership with grassroot organizations, does not only increase individual´s income, but also maximizes social impact, spur local economy and the income of grassroot organizations.

 ● Gaining valuable, sophisticated knowledge in how to actually bring people who have not completed

highschool, have not worked before, and have not witnessed their parents work, into gaining a working attitude, routine and joy.

● Influencing in public policies: Arbusta´s approach has been spotted by the public sector in Argentina and Colombia, thus we have become service providers and are influencing in the public sector

● Contributing to a cultural shift in the corporate world by lowering prejudice against the capacity of people in impoverished settings to produce high quality work.

VI. OUR ACHIEVEMENTS IN ONE YEAR AND HALF OF OPERATIONS

A. Arbusta´s impact

Our Impact so far (jan2015)

# workers* 36 # dependants** 119 # lives transformed 155 # income 326.700 # hours worked 8.355 # Digital Community Centers 5 # Clients 19 # people trained in digital skills 80

* Arbusta workers are women and youth in underprivileged situations ** In Argentina, low income households have an average of 4,3 members (source: IDESA)

Growth Indicators                

    2013   2014  2015  (jan)      

# workers* 11   30   23   36

# hours worked 1500   5900   955   8.355

# Digital Community Centers 1   3   5   5

# Clients 11   21   21   19

# people trained in digital skills 30   50       80

● Arbusta provides a first work opportunity. Beyond the increase of their income (which impacts directly in their households income, in the familiy dynamics –especially for women-, in health and habitat improvement), we have found evidence that working in Arbusta is (a) an incentive to catch up with their formal education, (b) a facilitator to achieve a profesional career in the digital industry, within Arbusta clients which in some cases decide to employ them directly.

● On a personal level, Arbusta workers find themselves more sociable, eager to work in teams, thrilled to find a new calling, less shy, and willing to interact.

B. Key Milestones ● Proof of concept demonstrated and succeeded by Dec 2014 ● Thorough team and process adjustements and refinement to meet goals ● A network of 21 clients in expansion in Argentina and Colombia, from within the corporate world, public

offices and civil society organizations. Among others, Mercado Libre, Globant, IAE Business School, Educar,

 Buenos Aires City Government, Santa Fe Government, Randstad work solutions, Graion, Taringa, Dotspin, La Usina, Aapresid, CentralPos, Ideas Nutricionales, OhEstudio, Human Camp.

● Clients contracting for monthly services are growing in relation to clients contracting one-time services ● Launched 3 Digital Community Centers and in preparation to launch 2 more in 2015 1Q ● Built Training Partnerships and Implementation Partnerships with key players such as Globant, Buenos Aires

City Government, Santa Fe Government, Fundación Oscar Alvarado, MercadoLibre, among others ● Preparing to Scale Operations in Medellín, Colombia, in 2015

VII. CURRENT CLIENTS

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

VIII. OUR MAJOR CHALLENGES IN 2015/17 ● Provide work opportunities for 700+ underprivileged women and youth ● Launch a digital platform / tool to scale the micro tasks distribution and service provision to and from diverse

geographic locations. This will highly contribute to make our delivery processes more efficient, and to reach out to men and women in different locations

● Refine and industrialize our processes ● Strengthen our support to empower women and youth working in Arbusta by providing them access to new

opportunities (counselling, new trainings, and others) ● Operate through 15 Digital Community Centers ● Launch a working capital fund, which will allow us to cover the financial gap between workers payments and

clients 60-days delayed payments. ● Based on our current KPIs, design and implement an accurate Impact Measurement System ● Scale operations in Medellín, Colombia ● Strengthen the management team (currently covered by Njambre) ● Build a regional Latin America community of women and youth who are being empowered through digital work,

who can be role models to others ● Refine a model that can be adopted by others to create new “Arbustas”

 

 

   

 

  IX. OUR OPPORTUNITY ● Argentina adds a higher level of competition to the market because of its cheap assets and developed

infrastructure for the BPO sector. From a policy perspective, both national and provincial governments are beginning to promote the BPO sector through subsidies and partnerships. South America as a whole is poised to be a top-3 contributor to the Impact Sourcing sector given its proximity to the United States, similar time zone, cultural affinity with US, modern telecommunication infrastructure, tax incentives, Spanish language and English as a second language.

● South America's economic challenges illuminate an opportunity to make a deep impact on the poor populations in the region. With 31 million people either unemployed or out of school, and a youth unemployment rate of 18.7%, Impact Sourcing is a sustainable method of job creation and poverty reduction.

● ARBUSTA has a unique opportunity by having being born in Njambre´s hand. Beyond a strong strategic network and an initial 12,000 usd seed capital, Njambre is providing shared services and a significant part of ARBUSTA team.

X. ARBUSTA, THROUGH THE LENS OF THEIR PROTAGONISTS

ARBUSTA influences women’s lives in several ways: Some examples are: ● They feel good working in ARBUSTA and increase their self-esteem and social skills.

In words of BoP workers: ● “I´m more sociable” ● “I see work from a different perspective. I like it and I miss it if I don't do it” ● “I love team work” ● “I feel very motivated” ● Vanessa, a girl who has not finished high school, shy, with challenges to speak, who never believed she

could use the computer as a working tool, now goes to high profile events to cover them through social media

● They are motivated to continue their high school studies and in some cases they go for a degree title. ● They leave ARBUSTA for a job opportunity at a multinational company. Some Testimonies (in Spanish): ● Vanesa https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNh-vJJWDV0&feature=youtu.be ● Matías https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RYoOo4siQtM ● Fernando https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YbTfM5Cuz8&feature=youtu.be

XI. ARBUSTA IN THE MEDIA (Spanish) La Nación Newspaper Nov 2014

ttp://www.lanacion.com.ar/1740238-empresas-de-bien-publico

Lanata Sin Filtro Radio Program Sept 2014

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8PevzLXBcf8#t=44

Ojo de Prensa Sept 2014

http://ojodeprensa.com.ar/arbusta-unir-el-mundo-empresarial-con-comunidades-postergadas

La Capital Newspaper Aug 2014

http://www.lacapital.com.ar/informacion-gral/Arbusta-una-empresa-social-que-da-trabajo-a-los-postergados-en-Santa-Fe-20140806-0007.html

Buenos Aires Digital Aug 2014

http://digital.buenosaires.gob.ar/arbusta/

Globant June 2014

http://csr.globant.com/csr/qualified-volunteers-dane-project-and-arbusta/

Info341.com Feb 2014:

http://info341.com.ar/?noticia=arbusta-primera-empresa-social-de-impact-outsourcing-de-sudamerica

Nextbillion Feb 2014

http://nextbillion.net/blogpost.aspx?blogid=3721

Argentina para Armar TV Show Sept 2013

http://tn.com.ar/programas/argentina-para-armar/pensar-en-el-otro-ideas-y-herramientas-que-cambian-vidas-15092013_411393

Crónica Z Aug 2013

http://cronicaz.com.ar/?p=7035

 

XII. ARBUSTA & NJAMBRE Njambre is a Company Builder which creates impact innovation companies www.njambre.org. Njambre created Arbusta designing the business model, inviting entrepreneurs to co found the company, and providing the initial seed capital. During the first year and a half of Arbusta, Njambre has been deeply involved in Arbusta´s operations, and provides shared services (finantial, accountant, legal and impact measurement).

+info: www.arbusta.org hola@arbusta.org @arbustaiT