Jobs Going Off-Shore to India - here's the scoop

[LUVNLIFE]

Originally posted by JetBoatRich
My wifes company just opened a call center out there
A Countrywide call center in India. They don't have loans for mud and straw huts do they? Or are the calls being routed there from other countries?

[flat broke]

Dell has U.S. and Indian Support. Just last week, soon to be Mrs Flatbroke's dad was on the phone with someone in India who was unable to rectify his problem. I think the reason he got the call sent to India was because of the hour he called. It was something like 7pm PST and I think India is like 13.5 hours ahead of us, which would have made it 8:30am in India.
While I see the point that the article posted by MMD, I don't agree with the trade off. The Indian's would still buy coke water, compaq computers, and lucent phones for their own business, so why send jobs over there. Setting up call centers over there is one of the purest forms of labor export I can think of. We are replacing a labor/service job in the states with labor in India. These are the types of jobs perfectly suited to college students and recent college grads. A perfect stepping stone on the path to a technology based career. Now our students and recent grads won't have the option to compete for those jobs.
I have called Dell for support for my laptop in the past (couple months ago) and received a tech in the U.S. He was curteous, helpfull and went above and beyond what he was supposed to do, to help me do something out of the ordinary with my machine. Based on my soon to be father in law's experiences with the India call center, I doubt I would have had the same good fortune. Especially (and this will be a stereotype based comment, but I have a good background with Indian tech types so stfu with any racist banter) since dealing with Indian tech types usually leads to a 5 hr debate over the recommended course of action, and the assumption that they are correct and you are wrong regardless of how much more schooling or practical experience you have in the particular field.
The bottom line, yeah I guess sending the jobs overseas wasn't a total loss (remember we sold more water, phones and PCs), but don't let that argument obscure the fact that american job opportunities were lost in the process and one more college or tech school grad will have to look that much harder for entry level work in a market where extremely overqualified individuals are comming back down the career ladder just to stay employed.
Chris

[flat broke]

Originally posted by LUVNLIFE
A Countrywide call center in India. They don't have loans for mud and straw huts do they? Or are the calls being routed there from other countries?
Oh this is nice... put sensitive personal and financial information in front of some foreign national in a country with questionable international policy views. I can see it now, one of those credit card commercials where its the voice of the identiy theft perpetraitor is overlaid over the victim and they are going on and on about how much C4 and minimally depleted uranium they bought to give to their radical religous sect terroist friends to wage a holy war no the infidels of the west.
Sorry folks, but I won't be sending anymore fallout to countrywide. Crap, if I had a loan with Countrywide, I'd refi the damn thing just to pull the $$ from them, even at the cost of new fees rolled into my loan.
Chris

[welk2party]

The real issue here is why these jobs are being moved out of the country. In the call center arena, Indian companies have employees that are college educated for the most part and take these jobs as careers. They are offered retirement plans and other benefits. They are paid what would be near the poverty level in America, but the wage for them provides a fair to good income. These jobs in America are considered low level and usually have high employee turnover. Our service level expectations are so high, which is not a bad thing, that providing the service has become too expensive. We buy goods for the lowest price and demand lower prices still. There is a line of diminshing returns somewhere in there. How do you offer a top quality product with the service to back it up and compete in a highly competitive price war. This is a difficult balancing act. Lean to far in any one direction and you can change your whole business model overnight.
Sorry for the random thoughts, but I was just coming off the top of my head.

[gnarley]

I had a tech support call that I had to make to Network Associates last week and the call went to India. The quality of the call sucked! The support was OK but it ain't like talkin to someone in the states and if I can I will demand to talk to a US tech in the future!