Stephane Morel – Outsourcing Content from France to the Philippines

Welcome to another episode of the Outsource Accelerator Podcast. This is episode number 57. Wow. And we are joined today by Stephane Morel. He is French, has been living in the Philippines for over nine years now and is the videographer and video editor of a French content website. What is interesting about this case study is that effectively the entire French company is built and run over here in the Philippines. And there’s not a lot of French-speaking labor in the Philippines so I find it doubly interesting. But this is a great case study in that a company has been over here for 10 or 15 years now and really taken outsourcing to its extreme and it is working really well. So, I’m sure you can learn a lot here from Stephane and if you want any show notes or to contact Stephane please go to outsourceaccelerator.com/57.

Derek: Okay, so today I’m joined by Stephane Morel. Hi, Stephane.

Stephane: Hi Derek

Derek: And Stephane is from France has been living in the Philippines a number of years now. And I find it really interesting his story. He is a videographer. Primarily he can introduce himself but basically working for a French company, content company and predominantly the majority of their content and the majority of their company is being built and run from the Philippines. So, it’s a really interesting case study. And just wanted to explore that a little bit more with you. Stefan, So hi and welcome. And would what you maybe just quickly introduce yourself and how you came to be at this French content.

Stephane: Okay so I’ve been here in the Philippines for nine years now. I moved to the Philippines because I got hired by this French company. I was living in France. And I got a call and they were looking for somebody to develop the video content for their website. So, I moved Okay I’m gonna come for a few months I’m going to try I’m going to see what was going on in the Philippines because I knew about Asia. I traveled a lot on Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Australia I mean. And I wanted to know about the Philippines I wanted to know the life experience, walking experience.

Derek: And this was how long ago? 10 years?

Stephane: Nine years ago.

Derek: Nine years.

Stephane: So yeah, my job was I had to develop all the video contents. By doing some video with Filipino actually. So, they got some nonprofessionals ones. I was the one trying to train them. Showing them a good way to do it.

Derek: And just for background, the company then is into the health and wellness.

Stephane: It’s a well-being website actually.

Derek: Okay. And it’s predominant completely focused on the French or French-speaking market.

Stephane: It’s all French content yeah.

Derek: And virtually all of the content is produced in the Philippines or managed by the production.

Stephane: Mostly 80, 90 percent. Everything is done here by writers, community managers. Video team like marketing. Everybody is here we just have one office in Paris managing the mixing medical part.

Derek: Because this is what I find interesting and this is what I am. I find the optimal kind of outsourcing is when initially people start by doing a bit of call center work or customer service but actually the true value comes when you flip the pyramid upside down and you’re running the entire company here with just minimal staff in your high-cost western world. And we start to see that more and more now. But as I say it is interesting that a French company is doing that when there’s no sort of an abundance of French-speaking here. And also, the guy has been doing over 10 years. I suppose.

Stephane: Even more than that. They were one of the first French guys starting a website like 15 years ago. It was like a famous big hit in France like they use to do that from the beginning but they started in Asia. So, then you were there.

Derek: Why. Why did they do that. Did they know about outsourcing? Were they early adopters?

Stephane: They knew, they came in Asia for training actually like a school training business school training. And then they fell in love in Asia and they saw the skills of the Filipino and the fact that they could communicate easily. But this was like 15 years ago so for them there was no way to go back to France to start a website. To develop a website, to hire a graphic designer you know in France like it was like. They knew it was a place to do it because they did it for a previous website did really work. So, they went Okay let’s do it again.

Derek: They must have been pretty cutting edge because outsourcing has really only been happening 20 years and a lot of that was sort of lower value call center stuff. But they were already doing kind of high-skilled, high-value content production for a website 15 years ago.

Stephane: Especially for development, they were already like.

Derek: And if you had to sort of stab in the dark you know what the savings on total production cost would be by running the whole shop here versus in France just a real you know like a guess.

Stephane: ­­­­If you would do it in France like. So much tax in France you know when you hire somebody you have to pay. It’s like double salary only for the government. So, it’s like it’s easy to compute. You save a lot of money. Time. I think in the Philippines. You can hire much more people than. It’s really expensive in France like all these skills graphic design, web development, video content manager even like it’s really like a. It costs a lot.

Derek: And how do you find the creatives in the Philippines. And that’s a bit of a loaded question because they aren’t if anything more known for a lot of the creative talent. So, do you find that there is a deep pool of skill here for that?

Stephane: Yeah. And I can design even in music, all kinds of. In movie, in art and ancient art. They really like, they surprised me. Many times, like nobody. Not so many people know about that. I feel like there are really great skills here.

Derek: And are you seeing more companies doing this then? As in sort of basing their entire production here.

Stephane: I know there is a lot, especially for web or web development. A lot, for the graphic art one more time. And for video not so much, I don’t think so. Sometimes they’re going to pay for a company in France who’s going to the video for them and they’re going to pay the price. They should know. It’s cheaper to do it here. Because even my company you know that. They used to send me like I’m going to France like two times, three times a year just for shooting. So, they just send you there for three, four, five-day shooting. I bring back all the contents with me in Manila and then I got like three months to edit the rest with my Filipino coworker. Even if he doesn’t speak French like we’ve been working together for 10 years. You can do everything as long as you tell him where to cut. After 1 years of doing all the effect and all the post-production. He’s doing the job perfectly like a French speaker. He just needs somebody to, well really, we are teammates, we know what to work together like hey, you do the job.

Derek: And then so creative talents there is an abundance.

I really enjoyed that podcast with Stephane. If you want to get in touch with Stephane or know more about this podcast go to the show notes at outsourceaccelerator.com/57. And if you want to get in touch with this ask us anything at all [email protected]