I am an American and I live in France. I used to build call centers and I have had some very interesting experiences in the process.

When I began the place to put a call center for European language support was Ireland. The country gave great tax benefits and the people were highly educated and more than willing to work. Then their economy got better.

We started building in India and had a bottomless pit to pull people from, the people were highly educated and more than willing to work. Then the country had too many call centers and our turnover was too high because we underpaid. Any raise was reason to leave the job, and their economy got better.

We started looking in the Low Cost Labor Markets, North Africa for French speakers, Eastern Europe for German… but before their economy got better we started to look at Europe again. The solution we found (that those magical “studies” show) to be most cost effective was to build French call centers in France, German in Germany, Italian in Italy – with a condition. We only put call centers in location that have universities and high unemployment. Want a local government to love you, go build a 300-job call center in a city with 20% unemployment. We find the same, or similar, tax advantages are possible as Ireland gave a generation ago. Most European countries will find a way to have you not pay social charges and parts of taxes, give low/no interest loans to build or rebuild a site and pretty much anything else you can think up. Only condition, look for a city with an unemployment problem and at least 2 universities within 30 kilometers.

www.richardmclaughlin.biz

India's Call Centers Face Talent Shortage
I think this is true for all the countries. Look at the Silicon Valley. It was booming, Now all the corporation for the sake of keeping the income coming and cut the labor coast have shifted the branches to Bangalore, India, that was as small village now a city lacking the infrastructures and this is what the Indians face every where in India. The infrastructures cannot cope with the population boom and the thoughts of the, “This is the century of the youths of 26 to 30". This is scary as I witness the children are ignoring their parents. This was not in India. The West has with the IT has change India into booming economy but the price is that India fares very low I giving back to the population in Toto.

Firozali A.Mulla MBA PhD
P.O.Box 6044
Dar-Es-Salaam
Tanzania
East Africa

Stephanie Overby's article and Richard McLaughlin's account make interesting reading. Offshoring call center function is at best a two-edged sword - costs vs business efficiency. For businesses that rely on customer calls to generate revenue or where such volume calls are part of the revenue generation mechanism, obviously offshoring will get them more calls per dollar.

I was in India last year and spoke to someone whose job it was to find workers for call centers. Here are the observations he shared:

* they can't get workers for gas stations anymore because they prefer call center work! Now this may surprise many but you have to remember that until very recently gas stations were used only by the elite and not surprisingly the employees there had to have a certain amount of 'sophistication' brought on by some education. Given India's multi-tiered engineering, other professional and arts colleges, these jobs are a natural fit for the the tier-3 graduate (though it may shock us in America that a college grad would work in a gas station or a call center for that matter)

* the call center work according to him is nothing less than obnoxious. It seems a large number of "westerners" call and abuse the workers for next to nothing. Some of the stories are heart breaking. The call center work is a meal ticket for a vast majority of the people working there. The bar scene and other such 'luxuries' are only for a small proportion. (I think it would be disservice if this minority is generalized for the entire call center community)

An underlying unsaid theme of any communication seems to be that the Indian worker (or the Irish before them or the Mexican perhaps in future) take away jobs from America. Is this really true? We have to remember a few things here:
a. It is the American companies that profit from offshoring; the Indian (or Irish or Mexican) worker is just making a lower middle-class living out of it
b. If capital can move across shores to where it is most efficient, if a 'manufacturer' in Ohio can mine raw materials in Africa, ship it using a Panaman tanker, 'manufacture' the parts in China, assemble / Package in Mexico, what exactly is the peculiarity of support services such as call center being offshore? Let us also not forget that in almost all such cases, the 'Ohio' products are the shipped back to several dozen countries where the customers are. Yes people are different from other factors of production, but for countries that were forcibly excluded from industrial revolution, what choices do they have?
c. And it is true that we Americans are picky about jobs. Which is why several millions of transient workers are needed to pick strawberries even while the unemployment claims are significant.

I want to leave extending Richard's thoughts here a bit - yes, we'll have to soon build Chinese call centers for Chinese customers in China and Indian call centers for Indian customers in India. So that the 'manufacturer' in Ohio will have a market to sell to.