Phil Kitchen is the Founder & Managing Director of Customer Contact Panel. He is based in Sheffield, UK.

He recently attended the Outsource 2 Jamaica conference in Montego Bay, Jamaica. Peter Ryan caught up with him to discuss what Jamaica is offering to potential clients in locations such as the UK - outside their more traditional US nearshore market.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/phil-kitchen-ccp/

https://customercontactpanel.com/

Phil's LinkedIn comments on Outsource2Jamaica 2025

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/phil-kitchen-ccp_outsource2jamaica-bpo-cx-activity-7318574026124058624-yQZd

Juan Caire is Co-Founder and CEO of Alliance BPO Services, based in Hermosillo, Sonora, Mexico.

Jim Farnsworth is the CEO and Founder of Octayne Ventures, based in Denver, Colorado.

Peter recently visited Hermosillo and talked to Juan and Jim about the potential for growth in the BPO industry and the importance of value over cost in outsourcing. The event in Hermosillo also emphasized the strategic partnerships Alliance BPO has formed globally to enhance service delivery.

An important part of the discussion was also focused on looking beyond the major BPO delivery cities and finding new talent and value in other locations.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/juancaire/

https://alliancebpo.net/#home

https://www.linkedin.com/in/jifarnsworth/

https://www.linkedin.com/company/octayne/

Chris Dumpleton is the Chief Sales Officer at Limitless Technology. He is based in London, UK.

Limtless is a GigCX platform that offers a connection to freelance customer service agents to brands - replacing the need for a more traditional customer service contact center as all the agents work from home, choosing their own hours and the brands they want to work for.

Chris describes it as "Uber for CX."

But how does the gig economy work in the CX environment and what are the challenges that clients with experience of the contact center face when they explore these ideas?

Mark Hillary called Chris to explore Gig CX and this episode is introduced by Mark and the founder of TrendzOwl, Stephen Loynd... Peter is not feeling well this week so thanks to Steve for stepping in and get well soon Peter!

https://www.linkedin.com/in/chris-dumpleton-54557214/

https://www.limitlesstech.com/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephenloynd/

https://trendzowl.com/

Dave Rumble is Director and Executive Chair of the Maistro Group. Maistro has long been a specialist in helping companies with RFPs and vendor selection. The Maistro platform helps companies to make better sourcing decisons adn their database has very prescise details on thousands of suppliers.

Maistro recently introduced the ability to have natural conversations with the database using generative AI, so B2B buyers can engage with the information in the database without needing to build complex queries.

Our conversation came about because Forrester Research recently noted that 9/10 B2B buyers are now asking Gen AI for advice and help when selecting a supplier. Mark Hillary wrote an article exploring this and it was noted in the comments that tools like Maistro offer an advantage over the more general publicly available information on suppliers...

Mark called Dave to explore how B2B buyers are changing and using AI to find CX suppliers.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-rumble-4a4a09b/

https://www.maistro.com/

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/original-human-created-content-more-essential-than-ever-hillary--1vi7f

Peter Ryan recently attended the CCW Berlin show in Germany. He talked to a lot of people at the show and recorded a conversation with a couple of the CCW stars for their views on BPO in 2025 and what to look out for based on the show in Berlin...

This episode featured Peter talking to:

Sherif Kamel

Poland GM @ Raya CX

---

Rachel Poku

Founder, CXHero

https://www.ccw.eu/en/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/peter-ryan-montreal/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/sherifmk/

https://rayacx.com/get-in-touch/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/rachelpoku/

https://cxhero.co/

Mark and Peter take a diversion from the usual CX discussion to talk about LinkedIn. Why is it filled with garbage today and what can be done about it? Is there a way back for Microsoft to restore the function of the business networking tool?

https://www.linkedin.com/in/markhillary/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/peter-ryan-montreal/

Last Saturday was International Women's Day 2025.

To mark the occasion, Peter Ryan reached out to three leading women working in CX in three different global locations. Listen to his discussion with them about the challenges and opportunities for women in CX in 2025...

----

Samar ElShafie - Egypt

Head of Commerical and Client Relations - Octopus Outsourcing

https://www.linkedin.com/in/samar-elshafie/

https://octopusoutsourcing.com/

Sabrina Labonte - Canada

Marketing Director, Laivly

https://www.linkedin.com/in/sabrinalabonte/

https://laivly.com/

Sophia Mohammed - UK

Client Parter, USMAART

https://www.linkedin.com/in/sophia-mohammed-3a1b851b6/

https://usmaart.com/

------

https://www.internationalwomensday.com/

https://medium.com/@markhillary/international-womens-day-and-the-challenge-to-dei-in-2025-262c4bd973a3

Sergei Levteev is the Chairman and CEO of IBA Group. He is based in Prague in Czechia.

IBA Group is a technology company with deep experience building and supporting IT infrastructure. They have managed cloud systems, AI, RPA, and are even supporting old mainframe tech.

Mark Hillary called Sergei to talk about the IT infrastructure supporting CX.

Sergei decided to respond to Mark using the ElevenLabs AI voice system - underlining some of the ideas around how AI can be used to create voice-based systems.

https://elevenlabs.io/

https://ibagroupit.com/