国际商务管理留学生作业：跨国公司在印度组建客户服务呼叫中心利弊分析
08-04, 2014
从1990年开始,许多大型国际公司建立客户服务呼叫中心来满足日益增长的客户咨询的需求。多年来,新业务的出现将代表一个重要的新趋势。大量英国大型企业将在印度建立客户服务呼叫中心。这主要是因为在印度服务业的成本相对较低。英国公司更倾向于把呼叫中心外包到印度，另外一个重要的因素是因为保证质量的前提下印度组建客服中心更加的廉价。印度市场的工资成本低,印度呼叫中心的位置在任何天气都可以做的像在英国一样优秀,而它的成本只有不到50%，在印度,有很多的客服中心，因为他们的低成本高质量的呼叫中心外包服务。此外,由于支持呼叫中心的灵活性,使其成为最重要的方法之一。例如,呼叫中心将成立于印度的任何地方,这里拥有廉价的土地和丰富的劳动力如印度(理查森,r . j . n .马歇尔。1999)。例如,英国电信公司和许多其他的英国公司的客户服务呼叫中心位于印度南部城市班加罗尔。随便走进一个呼叫中心,可以看到成百上千的年轻男女正忙着接听电话,尽管这在英国是一个简单低收入的工作,但是在印度,这是一个很热门的工作，主要工作人员是毕业的大学生。运营商的工资与全国平均水平相比高出很多。
Introduction
From the 1990s, many large international companies to set up customer service call centers to meet growing customer advisory needs. Over the years, the emergence of new business to move overseas represents a major new trend. The amount of large UK companies put customer service call centers in India. This is mainly because the cost of the service industry in India is relatively low. UK companies like make call centers outsourcing to India is another important factor, because to make the call affordable customer support service centers in India, the premise of guaranteeing quality. With the Indian market, low wage costs, the Indian call centers in a position in any weather day based on a high-quality call center outsourcing services in the United Kingdom can be done, if you will be prompted these reasons to implement the cost of less than 50% more global call center outsourcing company in India because they get in a cost-effective price to high-quality call center outsourcing services. In addition, addition, due to the flexibility of the off shoring call centres, they become one of the most important methods for the companies. For instance, the call centres could be established in anywhere, which has the cheap land and plentiful workforces such as India (Richardson, R. and J. N. Marshall. 1999).For instance, British Telecom and many other great British company's customer service call centers are located in the southern Indian city of Bangalore. Casually walked into a call center, can see hundreds of young men and women are busy answering Tel., Although this work in the UK is a simple and low-income work, but in India, it is such a hot job, operators who can apply must be university graduates. The operators’ salaries vis-a-vis the national average is extremely high. For example, the operators’ wages are twice what the local teachers' salaries and are almost as professional doctors ( Zhenhong Cheng, CCTV, 2005 ). As a result, there are a number of human resources issues focus on the off shoring call centres. the off shoring call centres could be defined as potential advantages for the company because the flexibility characteristic of them. However, the off shoring call centres also could bring a number of problems for both home and host countries. In this article, it will analyse the human resources issues in off shoring call centres, such as workforce and job opportunities, employee's turnover. In addition, the benefits and disadvantages to off shoring call centres for UK and India are the mainly parts of this article. And the derivative problems also are mentioned in this article, such as the economic and social problem.#p#分页标题#e#
UK
Benefits
Indian government supported off shoring industry, as a result , it contributed to the development of the industry. Call center operators have a very liberal policy environment. For example, in the off shoring business it can enjoy the 10-year tax free and enjoy tax breaks on imported software and hardware treatment; to rely on IT-enabled services industry exports, eliminating the income tax and customs duties. (She.Jang.Shen,2010).
Workforce
The workforce is one of the most important elements to measure the average salary per employee. In UK, due to the lack of labour, the salary for the employee is high. However, compare with the lack of workforce in UK, India had large population and workforce, and the salary of workforce is also lower than UK. As the world's two most populous countries which are rich in human resources, compared to China, at one time India was a British colony, English has a unique advantage. In India, there was the language of the Constitution recognizes 23 species, so the English is almost equal to Mandarin in China. More substantially, it cannot be assumed that several years’ educations in the English language necessarily equip Indian call centre agents with the ability to interact with English-speaking customers to standards deemed acceptable by Indian call centres and their UK clients. At the end of 2008, the Indian outsourcing industry provides 700,000 jobs related to sales amounted to 7 billion pounds, close to 1% of GDP in India. Because the development of outsourcing business, every year, 2.1 million graduates, 0.3 million postgraduates and 60000 MBAs pass out of India’s non-engineering colleges. There should not occur actually a shortage of the talent phenomenon, outsourcing industry, wages so keeping the momentum of 10-15% annually. McKinsey analysis reveals the skilled manpower in IT by 2008 will increase by up to 6% which will take the figure to more than five million people. Furthermore, for organizations thinking of establishing HR BPO operations in India there is a ready flow of informed professionals in the core knowledge area of personnel management and learning and development thanks to the training provide by the Indian Society for Training and Development and the Indian National Institute of Personnel Management. People Management as a professional career has come of age in India ( I. Hunter, 2006). For this reason, the benefit for the companies to operate off shoring call centres in India presented opportunities for companies to achieve considerable cost saving, and profit generation. Given this background, board of directors decisions to be located in India that be treated as an extension of the means by which profit maximization and cost minimum are realized through a relocation restructuring plan. For instance, due to the low level of salary expense, some UK companies establish their call centres in India. According to Tony Hallett (2003) report, they actually the salary for India call centres agents is ₤18,000 per annum, but in the UK, the salary is ₤27,000 per annum It is clear that, there is ₤9,000 per annum salary difference between UK and India. In addition, the UK call centres agents work slower than the India call centres, nearly fewer six hours per week, which means the India employees are more efficient than the UK call centres' employee (Tony Hallett 2003).#p#分页标题#e#
According to Sarah Browns(2008) claims that whether the on shoring or off shoring call centers, the success of a business mainly relies on the corporate effort of a group of employees. Given a successful experience of early offshore to India (American Express, General Electric and British Airways) from the mid-1990s proved influential. Tightening labour markets in the US in the 1990s also led to GE opening their first Indian voice operation, which served as a model for the burgeoning ‘third party’ call centre sector. Through the survey, the main reason for call center's migration that affect the overall cost savings about 40%-60% ( Nasscom 2002a: 12), Compared to other developing countries, India's absolute advantage is the low labour costs of its English-speaking graduate workforce, estimated ‘at 70-80% for offshore processes’(Nassom, 2003: 65). Manifestly, government policy is another powerful force driving the off shoring of American Express, General Electric and British Airways call centre services to India. Immigration has also been contributed by government policy to insuring logistics and equipment which as an important part to attract GE direct investment. Therefore, central and local government policies, such as telecom deregulation, tax exemption and financial incentives, and the generally acceptable standard of infrastructure and facilities, have influenced company decisions to be offshore. For this reason, the plentiful labour which means the more chances for employee's selection. The companies can choose the appropriate people to become their employees, such as the person has high education, and person has working experience
Disadvantages
However, for about ten years, India has been seeking to off shoring call center operations, and full use of national resources, large and cheap labor of the Western’s preferred destination. However, with Indian's salary, is expected to grow 13% this year(Awal, 2011). As Nigel Eastwood, New Call’s chief executive, told the Daily mail:“Salaries in India aren’t that cheap any more. Add to that the costs of us flying out there, hotels and software, and the costs are at an absolute parity.”
Loss of work opportunities
As Evalueserve report India's National Association of Software and Service Companies NASSCOM estimates that 275 000, British jobs would be as a result of the offshore business lost in 2010 to go, of which 219.000 are information and communication technology and call center work(A .v .Zoest, 2004).
According to Richardon and Belt (1999) claim that the establish of the off shoring call centre, which is the major element to the loss of work opportunities in the home country. In recent years, due to a large number of jobs sent to India, the rate of unemployment in UK has a distinct increase. According to The CWU research (2004) showed that, there are 20,000 works opportunities were sent to India from UK, and a lot of call centres' employees are dismissed by the companies. Moreover, the loss of these work opportunities also provoked a reducing of the state economy. For instance, these unemployment populations do not have the fixed income, so they cannot improve the social consumption level. And the government must provide lots of unemployment compensations to assist these people until they find new jobs. Furthermore, the large-scale unemployment would lead to reduce of the tax. According to India's "Deccan Herald" on August 19 reported: British National Bureau of Statistics has released the latest data shows that in the past two months, the British employers to hire new employees in India continue to increase, while the British employed the number of employees continued to decline. Bureau of Statistics pointed out that this phenomenon occurs because the British people more than the lack of specific practical skills, unable to meet the needs of employers. Although not optimistic, but the British Government officials said that the country has continued to create jobs for the majority of people do their utmost to help the British out of the financial crisis. In addition, loss of work opportunities would lead to the low of job morale for the employees. According to Kinnie (1999) states that, a large number of employees feel panic when they know their colleagues' loss jobs, because they do not know whether the next unemployed person is oneself. As the result, the employees have no mood to work, and also lead to the low level of work efficiency#p#分页标题#e#
According to Daily Mail(2005), the case of RAC, The RAC has the latest British company, said the relocation of jobs abroad to go after the 200 call center jobs to India. The move by Norwich Union operates, its parent company Aviva call centers in the Indian subcontinent after purchase RAC. All works are from the RAC Rescue Centre in Bristol, are employed 975 employees, including 420 call center employees. Call center employees will receive about 1.2pounds compared to between 5 pounds here for 8 hours. RAC said that India's call center will handle administrative matters and gives stranded motorists not collapse. It will deal with emergency situations, the Stray Avon Dvorak Sol near the center staff in Manchester and Glasgow. Norwich Union in December 2003, the transfer to India lost 2300 jobs to the subcontinent by only 50,000 in the past two years, the United Kingdom.
The company claims the move of jobs would reduce by 30% to 40% cost in London, Norwich, Perth, York, Sheffield, Worthing and Eastleigh move cut its main center in Bangalore, Pune and Delhi for work(Eddie Keating, 2008). As unemployment increases, the UK economy will also be impact, because people will not go unemployed additional spending.
Training and employee skill
Training has been occurred an important part in the off shoring call centres, because the training could make the employee to understand their works, and improve the outstanding achievement. According to Buchanan and Koch-Schulte (2000) claim that training should include customer service skill, product knowledge, communication skill and sale skill. And all of the employees must undergo training and understand these skills. However, according to Belt (1999), thirty percent employees undergo 2-4 weeks training, and one-third were provided more than four-week training, and the remainder, 30% express training was no more than one week, and most of the off shoring call center to be in this category. It is clear that, in the India, the lack of training of the employees who would lead to the lack of skill for the workers. According to Houlihan (2000) notes, the call centres work is the indeed skilled person. The employees could quickly complete the consumers entrusted and answer the consumer's questions, and also could deal with any kinds of conditions. However, the lack of the skill results in the employee contended with their works, and adversely affects the company performance. Furthermore, there is a same situation in the UK. Due to the decrease of the call centres jobs in UK, the professionals become less and less.
Nevertheless, Indian offshore call center industry is facing a skills crisis could undermine the quality of customer service, according to Gartner, a new report(A. McCue, 2005). Indian government estimates that the call center trained and qualified personnel is needed more than 260,000 in 2009 to reach is expected shortage of one million workers. And The company warned that this raises the cost, quality and safety aspects, forcing companies to assess alternative offshore outsourcing destination. Positioning error of the acquisition of large multinational companies had an infinite supply of skilled labor, under the call center and business process outsourcing (BPO) in India. The report said, "The supply of educated workers is not a problem, well-educated people, especially those with good English skills shortages, skill deficits, until this is resolved, the lack of a call center in India has increased service-industry effect(A. McCue, 2005)." This warning is also said in recent months by the Indian BPO industry in India and the Chief Executive Dan Sangde Vertex Offshore Conference in April in New Delhi said that only a small part of the two million English-born graduates of Indian universities are rotated each year it is good enough language skills, customer-facing operations. According to Andy, it is not only the English language skills needed. A recent report by Evalueserve company, said that India is faced with a large number of European language's skills shortages in the next five years you will see the need for as many as 12 million foreigners working in the rental industry(A. McCue, 2005). Gartner cautioned that India will weaken the competitive advantage of the high consumption forced the company to pay higher wages and benefits, and predict customer service will recruit employers suffer from the positions below the optimum level required to fill. The report also stressed that the duty of care errors, caused by the potential security risks, where the rapid increases in recruitment are not familiar with the possibility of employment, and that companies need to consider their decision and the lack of skilled labor risks also considering other locations such as Sri Lanka and the Philippines. The report said: "In the long run, the Indian government and the BPO industry is facing major challenges, technical resources, to ensure continuity of care (A. McCue, 2005)."#p#分页标题#e#
customer complaint
One of the disadvantages is that the UK companies will base on a third party, call centre in India, to take care of their customers. We could say that, employees at an offshore call center do not care of customer satisfaction as the company which they work for. Brand loyalty is built through marketing and product satisfaction, and ineffective customer service, whether offshore or in-house, can easily destroy that investment. And The customer complaint is one of the most important standards to measure the employee and company performance. In India, the communication barrier becomes the biggest problem from the customer complaint. UK customers are upset with accent and language barriers cited as the chief concerns, because companies off shoring call centres to India(S. Summer, 2011). For example, the Santander bank confirmed that, there are about 500 jobs created by bring the call centre work back from India. Based in the staff in UK cities of Glasgow, Leicester and Liverpool from this month. The additional staff would handle about 1.5m calls per month and will bring Santander’s UK call centre headcount to 2,500(Kavanagh, 2011). According to Josie Ensor (2011) report, the Santander UK receiving 165,000 customer complaint about it is services, which lead to it dropped to second place in the banking sector. In addition, one-third of the consumers present that there is a language barrier between the consumers and the off shoring call centres' employees (Batt.R, 1999). For instance, the English as the second language for the India employees, the pronunciation of English is not clear, so it usually has misunderstood or mistake between the consumers and off shoring call centres' employees(Botan. D, 2000).These customer grumble that they cannot understand what the call centres employees talk about, and also sometimes customers claim that they must explain two to three times to the employees for the same information. Moreover, due to the inadequate training for the off shoring call centres' employees, they cannot provide the good services to the consumers, and one-third of the consumers claim that they do not satisfy with the employees' services because the bad service attitude and the employees cannot solve their problems and questions ( Botan. D, 2000).
Some offshore call center providers point out that for this reason and others, the best countries for outsourcing are countries that are in cultural alignment with the company’s base country. According to recent research showing that to serve UK customers in seven offshore call centers have a protest last year from their business competitors. February 2004, there are about 1000 surveys of British adults found that 142 alternate suppliers, said because of their existing offshore call centers, and three quarters, they think that their supplier if they use more negative foreign agents(Andy McCue, 2004). Call Center Industry analysts contact report also found that customers in the telecommunications industry and the insurance industry, emigration and the Scottish people are most likely to switch suppliers up. Perceived unemployment such as India, where the consumer backlash of the offshore industry and dismissed the vocal minority politically motivated. However, the report noted that only a small percentage of switching, in protest against the offshore provider customers are no economic benefits of foreign trade balance in the first place. In a hypothetical case, the report to the calculations with 12 million customers and each customer of £225, annual income, a typical high street bank had the same number of replacement, and the 1000 Indian call-center employees in China will save £9, 26 meters (Andy McCue, 2004). And report claimed that only 0.343% percent of customers - more than 41,000 people - incorrect protest cancellation of these savings and 1.09% over the same period last year, the British bank customers by the customer service provider direct result of offshore outsourcing(Andy McCue, 2004). Steve Morrell, principal analyst at ContactBabel in the report, said: "When solving non-UK companies their customer orientation, customer churns will increase levels decrease their profits further. The sea is certainly a promising contact centers play a role in British customers, but they are a part of the puzzle, not the whole puzzle (Andy McCue, 2004). As the report from 1st December 2006 to 12th December 2006. Shows UK customers do not like UK companies off shoring their call centres to India (www.call-centre.co.uk, 2006) .#p#分页标题#e#
Different culture
The importance of cultural exposure or gap and fit with the customer base served cannot be underrated. According to Carmit, DiAndrea(2010), a customer called for asking about a problem in her dishwasher. The agents absorbed were unable to understand why this was such an emergency problem and could not be able to give her a good solution. When this condition was brought to the concern of the team of management, the agents were called in for a meeting. They supported their response by raising their hands and saying, “If the dishwasher is broken, why not use these? What is the problem?”(Carmit, DiAndrea, 2010). They just did not understand that. Therefore, the call centres in a different culture will reduce the quality of call centres’ service. Thus, the UK companies will lose customers, then they will close their Indian call centres and move back to UK, and Indian people will lose their jobs .
Employee turnover
A large number of call centers off shoring, British companies will increase their costs in training employees in India, and this way, the people of India will increase at the same time the British people are lost. Previous training good people will leave because of the off shoring call centres According to Altaf (2006) states that the high level of the employees' turnover rate would increase the costs. The companies must suffer the costs which they spent on the advertisements. And they also need to spend more money on training, which not only include the salary of the drillmaster, but also include the salary for the new employees. For instance, According to Andy McCue (2005), the off shoring call centres in India are undergoing the 40% of the employees' turnover rate because employees think the off shoring call centres works as dead-end jobs. Moreover, “nearly 50% of the call centres employees can not suffer the unsocial hours associated with servicing overseas" (Andy McCue, 2005). And the monotonous work is the other reason lead to the high level of employees' turnover rate. Hence, who to solve the employees turnover problem become a compulsory course to the managers. According to Altaf (2006), there are four methods to solve this problem. Firstly, the fun and comfortable work environment. The batter work environment would attract and retain the employees thereby the turnover rate would be reduced. In addition, the company could establish a benefit standard, such as paid annual vacation system and retirement plan. Moreover, the managers could give some power to the team members, which can lead to the members will be more interest in their work. And companies might be establish a fair and sensible competitive system, which can improve the team members' positivity.
To sum up, the benefit of establishing the off shoring call centres in India is plentiful workforces, because of the lower labour fees, the support of Indian government and the subsequent economic benefits such as cost savings. However, the companies cannot ignore the negative effects. For instance, the loss of work opportunities in UK will be leading high unemployment rate and a large number of customer complaints that because of the Indian accent, customers can not understand what are they saying, though English is their official language. And the off shoring of call centres cause the frequent of employees' turnover. And the services are not good in India, these off shoring call centres are going to lose a large number of customers All of these disadvantages cannot be avoided by any methods, and these problems also lead to a large-scale disaster. For example, the UK social economic would be reduced and the scare of the local employees. In general, the off shoring call centres are not good for the UK companies.#p#分页标题#e#
India
India is a populous country, in such a country, the employment pressure is very great. Due to foreign call centers offshore, can greatly ease the employment pressure in India. However, local companies in India, this may not be a good thing.
Benefits
Increasing of Job opportunities
For well over a decade, India has been the destination of choice for western companies looking forward to outsourcing their call centre operations and take advantage of the country’s vast and cheap labour pool. Due to the off shoring call centres are established in India. The additional job opportunities are sent from UK to India. As a result, the employment tension is eased, and it also promoted the economic development in India. According to the David and Stephen (2002), there are 2,000 jobs per annum were relocated from UK to India. Furthermore, in the last few years, nearly 200,000 call centres' jobs were relocated from UK to India ( CWU Research,2004 ). These large numbers of jobs assisted India to resolve the problem of employment. More and more unemployed people and graduates get job opportunities. Moreover, some type of employment is also brought, such as catering industry, express company, and other industries, which are related with call centres' jobs. Furthermore, these jobs drive the growing of the India economic ( Richardon and Belt, 1999 ). For example, the government could receive more taxes from the new employed people, and the unemployment compensation which is provided by government is also decrease. Such as, October 2004, Royal and sun Alliance planned that in 2006 they will outsource 1200 jobs to India. Last but not least, National Rail Enquiries, in November 2003, which currently has 1200 call centre staffs, and its will move 600 working positions to India. Nevertheless, in 2003, Lloyds TSB said that its call centre in Newcastle would be closed, which has 986 employees and moves the jobs to its new call centre in Hyderabad. Newcastle is one of the highest rates of unemployment in the UK, so Lloyds TSB said that recruit and retain staff in the city was very difficult. And 1500 staffs are planned to have in India at the end of 2004. Hallett said that only the Aviva, off shoring call centre to India, which is an insurance company take 2500 jobs to India until 2nd December 2003.
Increasing in economic
With the increase in employment probability, India's per-capita consumption level will increase. And finally, the Indian economy will increase. The Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in India increased about 7.7% in the first half year of 2011. Historically, from 2000 to 2011, the average quarterly GDP Growth was 7.45 percent reaching a historical peak of 11.80% at the end of 2003 and a record of 1.60 percent at the end of 2002 was the lowest point. Many kinds of Indian’s economy include traditional village farming, modern agriculture, handicrafts, a wide range of modern industries, and a multitude of services. Furthermore, services are the main source of the increasing in the economy, accounting for more than fifty percent output of Indian with less than thirty percent of its labor force. Since the year of 1997, there were about seven percent of average growth rate of Indian’s economy, reducing 10% points of poor people(BBC, 2011). BT as an important development in the Asia-Pacific region continued to strengthen the company's size, coverage and operational capacity to ensure continuous, seamless, high-performance networked IT services. According to BT introduced in the Asia Pacific market, its services available in the market of about $ 8 billion pounds, the annual growth rate of 6%. Strengthen BT's advanced professional services, industry and innovation in the field of the program resources are a key component; BT chief executive Ian Livingston said: "BT's Asia Pacific business has maintained strong growth in Asia Pacific is an important global growth engine. We have already provided the infrastructure and functionality to help the global expansion of multinational business in the Asia-Pacific region BT around the clock to establish a regional service center in Pune, India with a customer management center, but also in Gurgaon, India Global Operations Center and has 22 industrial and academic partners in India - British High Technology Center. The British telecommunications company not only solved India's labor-intensive industries, but also promoted the economic development. An increasing in India’s economy could lead a higher consumption then will cause the of demand, at last will increase the demand of labour force.#p#分页标题#e#
Increasing of the professionals
Nowadays, With the off shoring call centres are established. The relevant technology and professionals are also brought in India. The number of professionals represents the level of development of industry. In other words, the highly-developed industry also has a large number of professionals. According to Breathnach (2000), in the off shoring call centres, all the employees must accept martinet ism, and exercise all kinds of relevant skills. For instance, there are 2,000 call centres jobs were relocated to India per year, which means the plentiful professional are trained per year in India. And these numbers of professionals could assist India to improve the communication technology. Call centres are service for customs, so companies should have a better service to competition with others. For a company, a better service needs more professionals. For example, a company’s call centre with many professional customer service staffs, and a company’s call centre with staffs in training. Customers must prefer that company with professional staff in its call centre. And with a good call centre service could also bring more customers. Thus, a UK call centre decided to off shoring its call centre to India for a lower labour cost. That company must bring some professionals to India to training the staff in India. Therefore, that UK call centre could reduce its cost while keep the quality of service
Employees welfare
When off shoring call centres are not established in India, revenue: 2004 ~ 2005 Indian workers earn from 500 rupees to 8000 rupees per month salary. In terms of US dollar, the average capita income of India was $518. From 2003-2004 to 2007-2008, the national average annual income increased by 60 percent to 33,283 rupees (about $ 666). Benefits: India under the powerful trade unions out to protect the workers work eight-hours every day, higher minimum daily wage system, and a number of welfare provisions. So in developing countries, India is a high-wage country. Thus, foreign investors do not want to hesitate to enter India, so difficult to develop labor-intensive industries in India. For India, a serious labor surplus country, while filling manufacturing high welfare provisions cannot be developed. India is the unemployment rate is not high on the surface, because India is a religious country, nationals and just thinking, I believe that karma will not go to the registered unemployed, actively looking for work, coupled with the rich in India employs a large number of domestic servants, but also reduced the unemployment rate. After off shoring call centres are established in India would provide to best welfare to the India employees. According to Esping Anderson (1994), off shoring call centres provide a series of welfares to their employees, such as different types of allowances. In India, people, who work in off shoring call centres, not only own the basic employees' welfare, but also have some specific benefits. Firstly, due to the employees often suffer the unsocial hours associated with servicing overseas, the companies provide the high subsidy for the Night shifts. In addition, the high level of health insurance for their employees' health, and these employees also have long time paid vacation. For example, British Airways work together to develop the Asian employee benefits. Multinationals operating in Asia will benefit from the cooperation of both sides, to be the more diversified comprehensive employee benefits program. For much U.S. and European multinational companies, Asia is a high-growth market. British Airways Benefits Network and a leading insurance group in the Asia-Pacific region - cooperation so that we could provide the best service to meet the needs of multinational companies. British Airways employees work effectively to enhance network benefit customers in this particular market position. It in fifteen regions, through the development, marketing, and successfully provide employee benefit plans, group insurance for multinational cooperation solutions. Through this partnership, British Airways will further enhance its services to multinational companies in Asia Pacific quality and take full advantage of the superior British Airways employee benefit's network resources. Therefore, UK companies offshore their call centres in India could bring a better welfare to Indian’s employees than the local company.#p#分页标题#e#
Culture
Indian civilization is also very inclusive. Each time the invasion of foreign nations, gave the new element of Indian civilization. They blend with the local culture, so that updated and enriched. At the same time, foreign nations are all during history for the assimilation of the Indian. In addition, the Indian civilization a clear identity, although showing a remarkable diversity. This identity reflects the importance for the spiritual life, moreover reflected in the distinctive regional characteristics. Hindi is India's main language, but there are many other Indian languages, but English is actually quite common in India, the diversity of language, traditional culture, how to save and continue? According to Karan Singh: India has many languages, but this will not affect the traditional culture passed along. They very much respect cultural diversity, their inclusive culture for their own very proud. As their language, in fact, many Indian languages have retained their identity, and not because English disappears into, but since ancient times and in accordance with the characteristics of the language evolving trajectory. They can coexist. Of course, English and Hindi are India’s official language. They will not occur because of language and cultural phenomena such as blocking or disappear, and their own culture, there will continue to develop well. According to Karan Singh, Western culture to the world output, which an international phenomenon is. Western culture to the world all have a great impact, such as the commodity economy, fast moving consumer goods, etc., but this does not mean that corrosion will be the country's culture, national culture will probably have to absorb foreign culture, but have retained their identity. Therefore, if a UK call centre offshore to India, the Indian employees could keep their own culture while to understand UK’s culture. After they understand the culture of United Kingdom they will know how to provide better service to the customers in UK. That could also improve the quality of Indian employee.
Disadvantage
The Indian industry is currently represented in the labour market management problems, as a high-consumption, has been in the UK and so on in the foreground. Because of a high turnover and product stop in the expanding industry, the agent difficult to response requirements. In this sense, the offshore to India is not activated companies and their employees-intensive call processing to avoid impact. In fact, this because of the negative consequences of the extreme, the situation intensified in India standardized nature of the phone, switching from a long night of work and travel fatigue times, linguistic, cultural and emotional stress. The gap between apparently stimulated extraordinary work and practical reasons, call processing awakening a retreat, and exit (Mirchandani, 2004).
Employee turnover rate
Compared to local companies in India, UK call centres off shoring to India. The UK is much better for the welfare of employees, including wages and benefits. This British call off-shore to India is possible to attract more capable people to work for them. However, this way, Indian companies will be the loss of local employees. Nevertheless, if they wish to have the ability to retain these people, they have to give better wages and benefits. In this case, it will give local companies in India increased costs or loss of talent. According to Andy McCue, Indian offshore call center and BPO operations are facing from a high staff turnover, because many disaffected workers think it like a ‘dead end’ job. The study was conducted by risk management consultancy Hill and Associates, the current attrition rate of up to 40% of call centers in India. This was set in the past in a different time zone, and higher salaries to poach employees from one another to rivals is long with foreign clients with services related to unsocial hours. However, the survey found that BPO workers, so that the main reason cited for more than 50 percent of respondents, this is a dead-end job. Employees who will make the lack of exit opportunities for responsible growth do not meet the expectations, and dissatisfaction with company policies. Night works, monotonous works and provide better wages, other people on the ground only 39% percent of BPO workers' reason to study the question. More than a third said that the BPO industry is to work primarily as part of an international working environment, salary and lifestyle incentives. And Ashish Sonal, country of Hill and Associates, said the manager in India, offshore outsourcing industry needs from start to manage employee expectations, if it is to keep the current alarming rate. "Women have become more expensive because it's just not the training of staff, the service outsourcing industry, one of the biggest risks, but also with the effects of 'knowledge maturity' of the organization desired level, productivity and employees".#p#分页标题#e#
In conclusion, the off shoring call centre lead to some negative effects. Because of the competition of UK off shoring call centres and Indian local firms, UK call centres have significant advantages, will lead some Indian firms close down, Indian people lost their jobs. However, it also could provide more benefits to the India. Firstly, it proved a the high level of the welfare and increasing the job opportunities. Secondly, off shoring call centres from UK to India, brought many high technologies to and trained a large number of professionals whom could assist India to improve the communication technology. Finally, because of off shoring call centre brought lots job opportunities to India, Indian are getting rich, the consumption will increase. The GDP of Indian increased. Thus, as the India side, the off shoring call centres are necessary.
Conclusion
To sum up, as the changing global economy, not only small business, but also large business faced the increasing in expenditure of keep in - house resources often choose for off shoring in order to reduce the operational costs. Though some critics might contend that off shoring call centres could kill the local economy due to the massive reduction in inshore jobs, for becoming a successful business with more competition, companies need to balance the needs of their customer and growing market demand and still be able to have a profitable adventure. And with the growing number of companies offering competitive off shoring services, even some businesses have no choice but to consider their options in offshore outsourcing.
Moreover, most of the countries where the call center off shoring abounds to have fewer rules to meet, not to mention the lower costs of labor as compared to inshore workforce. However, with all the advantages of off shoring call centres to India, there are some major disadvantages. The disadvantages of UK companies off shoring call centres to India are among the reasons why offshore outsourcing is not a business model for all. For one thing, off shoring call centres is a significantly damage an economy and in the U.K. alone, several jobs are lost forever and there is an increasing number of skilled workers who need to learn new skills and obtain a new field specialization in order to qualify for the other types of jobs left intact by call center outsourcing.
And because of the introduction of affordable yet highly competitive overseas workers in the job market, wages significantly decreased so in essence, local workers need to compete on a global scale and so do other small businesses that rely on subcontracted jobs of other much bigger corporations.
For large corporations that rely on call center outsourcing services, they have to bear with decreased quality control and reduction in product development. When a company is into call center outsourcing, the business no longer has control in the quality of materials used on a particular product, as well as the quality of its workmanship. In the United Kingdom, this can increase the company's potential for various product-related lawsuits and liabilities, which can also potentially damage not only their names but their entire business structure as well.#p#分页标题#e#
The communication and culture gap between the country where the service is being offshore and the company that required the service can also negatively impact the business. This is considered as among the biggest disadvantages of off shoring call centres and while the growing innovation in technology significantly helps in reducing this drawback, still companies have to properly evaluate their needs for call center outsourcing and determine if they really need one or the local workforce can satisfy their company requirements. So, the off shoring call centres are not necessary for UK. Firstly, the benefit for off shoring British call centers to India is could reduce company’s labour cost because of the very low average labour wages. Secondly, English is the official language in India, so Indian staff could provide a better English speaking service than other non-English-speaking countries. Moreover, for India, the off shoring call centres from UK to India increase the employment rate of the Indians, because so many of the offshore outsourcing of call center, tens of thousands every year to provide job opportunities. And the British call center off shoring to India, they give employees good benefits. Employees will be good to work for them. Not only, that, for India, UK call center outsourcing in India can promote the country's economic growth. Trained in all aspects of the Indian people. However, with for the United Kingdom disadvantages are more than the benefits. Because of off shoring call centers at the time increasing the employment rate in India while reducing Britain's employment rate. Then the rate of staff turnover is increasing because the large number of call centers off shoring. British companies will increase their costs in training employees in India, and this way, the people of India will increase at the same time the British people are lost. Nevertheless, although English is the official language of India, but very heavy Indian accent, many English-speaking countries, people called in the past did not understand what they were saying. So a lot of customer complaints. Therefore, British companies would only call center then moved back to England.
Reference list
1. Andy McCue, 2004. UK customers defect over offshore call centres.
2. Andy McCue, 2005. Indian workers fed up of ‘dead end’ offshore call centre jobs.
3. Andy McCue, 2005. India facing offshore call-centre skills crisis.
4. Anna van Zoest, ippr, July 2004. Off shoring practices in the UK – Where are the Limits?
5. Carmit. DiAndrea, 2010. Hey CFO, where will you outsource to now?
6. Daily Mail 30 September 2005
7. Eddie Keating,2008. NWUA.#p#分页标题#e#
8. Michael Kavanagh,2011. Santander India call centre: back to UK.
9. Stuart. Summer, 2011. Offshore call centres risk driving customers away.
10. Tony. Hallett, 2003. Off shoring call centres to India risks UK customer backlash.
11. Xiaoyong. She, Ruilan. Jiang, Gang. Shen, 2010. The rise of Indian call center outsourcing industry
From the 1990s, many large international companies to set up customer service call centers to meet growing customer advisory needs. Over the years, the emergence of new business to move overseas represents a major new trend. The amount of large UK companies put customer service call centers in India. This is mainly because the cost of the service industry in India is relatively low. UK companies like make call centers outsourcing to India is another important factor, because to make the call affordable customer support service centers in India, the premise of guaranteeing quality. With the Indian market, low wage costs, the Indian call centers in a position in any weather day based on a high-quality call center outsourcing services in the United Kingdom can be done, if you will be prompted these reasons to implement the cost of less than 50% more global call center outsourcing company in India because they get in a cost-effective price to high-quality call center outsourcing services. In addition, addition, due to the flexibility of the off shoring call centres, they become one of the most important methods for the companies. For instance, the call centres could be established in anywhere, which has the cheap land and plentiful workforces such as India (Richardson, R. and J. N. Marshall. 1999).For instance, British Telecom and many other great British company's customer service call centers are located in the southern Indian city of Bangalore. Casually walked into a call center, can see hundreds of young men and women are busy answering Tel., Although this work in the UK is a simple and low-income work, but in India, it is such a hot job, operators who can apply must be university graduates. The operators’ salaries vis-a-vis the national average is extremely high. For example, the operators’ wages are twice what the local teachers' salaries and are almost as professional doctors ( Zhenhong Cheng, CCTV, 2005 ). As a result, there are a number of human resources issues focus on the off shoring call centres. the off shoring call centres could be defined as potential advantages for the company because the flexibility characteristic of them. However, the off shoring call centres also could bring a number of problems for both home and host countries. In this article, it will analyse the human resources issues in off shoring call centres, such as workforce and job opportunities, employee's turnover. In addition, the benefits and disadvantages to off shoring call centres for UK and India are the mainly parts of this article. And the derivative problems also are mentioned in this article, such as the economic and social problem.#p#分页标题#e#
UK
Benefits
Indian government supported off shoring industry, as a result , it contributed to the development of the industry. Call center operators have a very liberal policy environment. For example, in the off shoring business it can enjoy the 10-year tax free and enjoy tax breaks on imported software and hardware treatment; to rely on IT-enabled services industry exports, eliminating the income tax and customs duties. (She.Jang.Shen,2010).
Workforce
The workforce is one of the most important elements to measure the average salary per employee. In UK, due to the lack of labour, the salary for the employee is high. However, compare with the lack of workforce in UK, India had large population and workforce, and the salary of workforce is also lower than UK. As the world's two most populous countries which are rich in human resources, compared to China, at one time India was a British colony, English has a unique advantage. In India, there was the language of the Constitution recognizes 23 species, so the English is almost equal to Mandarin in China. More substantially, it cannot be assumed that several years’ educations in the English language necessarily equip Indian call centre agents with the ability to interact with English-speaking customers to standards deemed acceptable by Indian call centres and their UK clients. At the end of 2008, the Indian outsourcing industry provides 700,000 jobs related to sales amounted to 7 billion pounds, close to 1% of GDP in India. Because the development of outsourcing business, every year, 2.1 million graduates, 0.3 million postgraduates and 60000 MBAs pass out of India’s non-engineering colleges. There should not occur actually a shortage of the talent phenomenon, outsourcing industry, wages so keeping the momentum of 10-15% annually. McKinsey analysis reveals the skilled manpower in IT by 2008 will increase by up to 6% which will take the figure to more than five million people. Furthermore, for organizations thinking of establishing HR BPO operations in India there is a ready flow of informed professionals in the core knowledge area of personnel management and learning and development thanks to the training provide by the Indian Society for Training and Development and the Indian National Institute of Personnel Management. People Management as a professional career has come of age in India ( I. Hunter, 2006). For this reason, the benefit for the companies to operate off shoring call centres in India presented opportunities for companies to achieve considerable cost saving, and profit generation. Given this background, board of directors decisions to be located in India that be treated as an extension of the means by which profit maximization and cost minimum are realized through a relocation restructuring plan. For instance, due to the low level of salary expense, some UK companies establish their call centres in India. According to Tony Hallett (2003) report, they actually the salary for India call centres agents is ₤18,000 per annum, but in the UK, the salary is ₤27,000 per annum It is clear that, there is ₤9,000 per annum salary difference between UK and India. In addition, the UK call centres agents work slower than the India call centres, nearly fewer six hours per week, which means the India employees are more efficient than the UK call centres' employee (Tony Hallett 2003).#p#分页标题#e#
According to Sarah Browns(2008) claims that whether the on shoring or off shoring call centers, the success of a business mainly relies on the corporate effort of a group of employees. Given a successful experience of early offshore to India (American Express, General Electric and British Airways) from the mid-1990s proved influential. Tightening labour markets in the US in the 1990s also led to GE opening their first Indian voice operation, which served as a model for the burgeoning ‘third party’ call centre sector. Through the survey, the main reason for call center's migration that affect the overall cost savings about 40%-60% ( Nasscom 2002a: 12), Compared to other developing countries, India's absolute advantage is the low labour costs of its English-speaking graduate workforce, estimated ‘at 70-80% for offshore processes’(Nassom, 2003: 65). Manifestly, government policy is another powerful force driving the off shoring of American Express, General Electric and British Airways call centre services to India. Immigration has also been contributed by government policy to insuring logistics and equipment which as an important part to attract GE direct investment. Therefore, central and local government policies, such as telecom deregulation, tax exemption and financial incentives, and the generally acceptable standard of infrastructure and facilities, have influenced company decisions to be offshore. For this reason, the plentiful labour which means the more chances for employee's selection. The companies can choose the appropriate people to become their employees, such as the person has high education, and person has working experience
Disadvantages
However, for about ten years, India has been seeking to off shoring call center operations, and full use of national resources, large and cheap labor of the Western’s preferred destination. However, with Indian's salary, is expected to grow 13% this year(Awal, 2011). As Nigel Eastwood, New Call’s chief executive, told the Daily mail:“Salaries in India aren’t that cheap any more. Add to that the costs of us flying out there, hotels and software, and the costs are at an absolute parity.”
Loss of work opportunities
As Evalueserve report India's National Association of Software and Service Companies NASSCOM estimates that 275 000, British jobs would be as a result of the offshore business lost in 2010 to go, of which 219.000 are information and communication technology and call center work(A .v .Zoest, 2004).
According to Richardon and Belt (1999) claim that the establish of the off shoring call centre, which is the major element to the loss of work opportunities in the home country. In recent years, due to a large number of jobs sent to India, the rate of unemployment in UK has a distinct increase. According to The CWU research (2004) showed that, there are 20,000 works opportunities were sent to India from UK, and a lot of call centres' employees are dismissed by the companies. Moreover, the loss of these work opportunities also provoked a reducing of the state economy. For instance, these unemployment populations do not have the fixed income, so they cannot improve the social consumption level. And the government must provide lots of unemployment compensations to assist these people until they find new jobs. Furthermore, the large-scale unemployment would lead to reduce of the tax. According to India's "Deccan Herald" on August 19 reported: British National Bureau of Statistics has released the latest data shows that in the past two months, the British employers to hire new employees in India continue to increase, while the British employed the number of employees continued to decline. Bureau of Statistics pointed out that this phenomenon occurs because the British people more than the lack of specific practical skills, unable to meet the needs of employers. Although not optimistic, but the British Government officials said that the country has continued to create jobs for the majority of people do their utmost to help the British out of the financial crisis. In addition, loss of work opportunities would lead to the low of job morale for the employees. According to Kinnie (1999) states that, a large number of employees feel panic when they know their colleagues' loss jobs, because they do not know whether the next unemployed person is oneself. As the result, the employees have no mood to work, and also lead to the low level of work efficiency#p#分页标题#e#
According to Daily Mail(2005), the case of RAC, The RAC has the latest British company, said the relocation of jobs abroad to go after the 200 call center jobs to India. The move by Norwich Union operates, its parent company Aviva call centers in the Indian subcontinent after purchase RAC. All works are from the RAC Rescue Centre in Bristol, are employed 975 employees, including 420 call center employees. Call center employees will receive about 1.2pounds compared to between 5 pounds here for 8 hours. RAC said that India's call center will handle administrative matters and gives stranded motorists not collapse. It will deal with emergency situations, the Stray Avon Dvorak Sol near the center staff in Manchester and Glasgow. Norwich Union in December 2003, the transfer to India lost 2300 jobs to the subcontinent by only 50,000 in the past two years, the United Kingdom.
The company claims the move of jobs would reduce by 30% to 40% cost in London, Norwich, Perth, York, Sheffield, Worthing and Eastleigh move cut its main center in Bangalore, Pune and Delhi for work(Eddie Keating, 2008). As unemployment increases, the UK economy will also be impact, because people will not go unemployed additional spending.
Training and employee skill
Training has been occurred an important part in the off shoring call centres, because the training could make the employee to understand their works, and improve the outstanding achievement. According to Buchanan and Koch-Schulte (2000) claim that training should include customer service skill, product knowledge, communication skill and sale skill. And all of the employees must undergo training and understand these skills. However, according to Belt (1999), thirty percent employees undergo 2-4 weeks training, and one-third were provided more than four-week training, and the remainder, 30% express training was no more than one week, and most of the off shoring call center to be in this category. It is clear that, in the India, the lack of training of the employees who would lead to the lack of skill for the workers. According to Houlihan (2000) notes, the call centres work is the indeed skilled person. The employees could quickly complete the consumers entrusted and answer the consumer's questions, and also could deal with any kinds of conditions. However, the lack of the skill results in the employee contended with their works, and adversely affects the company performance. Furthermore, there is a same situation in the UK. Due to the decrease of the call centres jobs in UK, the professionals become less and less.
Nevertheless, Indian offshore call center industry is facing a skills crisis could undermine the quality of customer service, according to Gartner, a new report(A. McCue, 2005). Indian government estimates that the call center trained and qualified personnel is needed more than 260,000 in 2009 to reach is expected shortage of one million workers. And The company warned that this raises the cost, quality and safety aspects, forcing companies to assess alternative offshore outsourcing destination. Positioning error of the acquisition of large multinational companies had an infinite supply of skilled labor, under the call center and business process outsourcing (BPO) in India. The report said, "The supply of educated workers is not a problem, well-educated people, especially those with good English skills shortages, skill deficits, until this is resolved, the lack of a call center in India has increased service-industry effect(A. McCue, 2005)." This warning is also said in recent months by the Indian BPO industry in India and the Chief Executive Dan Sangde Vertex Offshore Conference in April in New Delhi said that only a small part of the two million English-born graduates of Indian universities are rotated each year it is good enough language skills, customer-facing operations. According to Andy, it is not only the English language skills needed. A recent report by Evalueserve company, said that India is faced with a large number of European language's skills shortages in the next five years you will see the need for as many as 12 million foreigners working in the rental industry(A. McCue, 2005). Gartner cautioned that India will weaken the competitive advantage of the high consumption forced the company to pay higher wages and benefits, and predict customer service will recruit employers suffer from the positions below the optimum level required to fill. The report also stressed that the duty of care errors, caused by the potential security risks, where the rapid increases in recruitment are not familiar with the possibility of employment, and that companies need to consider their decision and the lack of skilled labor risks also considering other locations such as Sri Lanka and the Philippines. The report said: "In the long run, the Indian government and the BPO industry is facing major challenges, technical resources, to ensure continuity of care (A. McCue, 2005)."#p#分页标题#e#
customer complaint
One of the disadvantages is that the UK companies will base on a third party, call centre in India, to take care of their customers. We could say that, employees at an offshore call center do not care of customer satisfaction as the company which they work for. Brand loyalty is built through marketing and product satisfaction, and ineffective customer service, whether offshore or in-house, can easily destroy that investment. And The customer complaint is one of the most important standards to measure the employee and company performance. In India, the communication barrier becomes the biggest problem from the customer complaint. UK customers are upset with accent and language barriers cited as the chief concerns, because companies off shoring call centres to India(S. Summer, 2011). For example, the Santander bank confirmed that, there are about 500 jobs created by bring the call centre work back from India. Based in the staff in UK cities of Glasgow, Leicester and Liverpool from this month. The additional staff would handle about 1.5m calls per month and will bring Santander’s UK call centre headcount to 2,500(Kavanagh, 2011). According to Josie Ensor (2011) report, the Santander UK receiving 165,000 customer complaint about it is services, which lead to it dropped to second place in the banking sector. In addition, one-third of the consumers present that there is a language barrier between the consumers and the off shoring call centres' employees (Batt.R, 1999). For instance, the English as the second language for the India employees, the pronunciation of English is not clear, so it usually has misunderstood or mistake between the consumers and off shoring call centres' employees(Botan. D, 2000).These customer grumble that they cannot understand what the call centres employees talk about, and also sometimes customers claim that they must explain two to three times to the employees for the same information. Moreover, due to the inadequate training for the off shoring call centres' employees, they cannot provide the good services to the consumers, and one-third of the consumers claim that they do not satisfy with the employees' services because the bad service attitude and the employees cannot solve their problems and questions ( Botan. D, 2000).
Some offshore call center providers point out that for this reason and others, the best countries for outsourcing are countries that are in cultural alignment with the company’s base country. According to recent research showing that to serve UK customers in seven offshore call centers have a protest last year from their business competitors. February 2004, there are about 1000 surveys of British adults found that 142 alternate suppliers, said because of their existing offshore call centers, and three quarters, they think that their supplier if they use more negative foreign agents(Andy McCue, 2004). Call Center Industry analysts contact report also found that customers in the telecommunications industry and the insurance industry, emigration and the Scottish people are most likely to switch suppliers up. Perceived unemployment such as India, where the consumer backlash of the offshore industry and dismissed the vocal minority politically motivated. However, the report noted that only a small percentage of switching, in protest against the offshore provider customers are no economic benefits of foreign trade balance in the first place. In a hypothetical case, the report to the calculations with 12 million customers and each customer of £225, annual income, a typical high street bank had the same number of replacement, and the 1000 Indian call-center employees in China will save £9, 26 meters (Andy McCue, 2004). And report claimed that only 0.343% percent of customers - more than 41,000 people - incorrect protest cancellation of these savings and 1.09% over the same period last year, the British bank customers by the customer service provider direct result of offshore outsourcing(Andy McCue, 2004). Steve Morrell, principal analyst at ContactBabel in the report, said: "When solving non-UK companies their customer orientation, customer churns will increase levels decrease their profits further. The sea is certainly a promising contact centers play a role in British customers, but they are a part of the puzzle, not the whole puzzle (Andy McCue, 2004). As the report from 1st December 2006 to 12th December 2006. Shows UK customers do not like UK companies off shoring their call centres to India (www.call-centre.co.uk, 2006) .#p#分页标题#e#
Different culture
The importance of cultural exposure or gap and fit with the customer base served cannot be underrated. According to Carmit, DiAndrea(2010), a customer called for asking about a problem in her dishwasher. The agents absorbed were unable to understand why this was such an emergency problem and could not be able to give her a good solution. When this condition was brought to the concern of the team of management, the agents were called in for a meeting. They supported their response by raising their hands and saying, “If the dishwasher is broken, why not use these? What is the problem?”(Carmit, DiAndrea, 2010). They just did not understand that. Therefore, the call centres in a different culture will reduce the quality of call centres’ service. Thus, the UK companies will lose customers, then they will close their Indian call centres and move back to UK, and Indian people will lose their jobs .
Employee turnover
A large number of call centers off shoring, British companies will increase their costs in training employees in India, and this way, the people of India will increase at the same time the British people are lost. Previous training good people will leave because of the off shoring call centres According to Altaf (2006) states that the high level of the employees' turnover rate would increase the costs. The companies must suffer the costs which they spent on the advertisements. And they also need to spend more money on training, which not only include the salary of the drillmaster, but also include the salary for the new employees. For instance, According to Andy McCue (2005), the off shoring call centres in India are undergoing the 40% of the employees' turnover rate because employees think the off shoring call centres works as dead-end jobs. Moreover, “nearly 50% of the call centres employees can not suffer the unsocial hours associated with servicing overseas" (Andy McCue, 2005). And the monotonous work is the other reason lead to the high level of employees' turnover rate. Hence, who to solve the employees turnover problem become a compulsory course to the managers. According to Altaf (2006), there are four methods to solve this problem. Firstly, the fun and comfortable work environment. The batter work environment would attract and retain the employees thereby the turnover rate would be reduced. In addition, the company could establish a benefit standard, such as paid annual vacation system and retirement plan. Moreover, the managers could give some power to the team members, which can lead to the members will be more interest in their work. And companies might be establish a fair and sensible competitive system, which can improve the team members' positivity.
To sum up, the benefit of establishing the off shoring call centres in India is plentiful workforces, because of the lower labour fees, the support of Indian government and the subsequent economic benefits such as cost savings. However, the companies cannot ignore the negative effects. For instance, the loss of work opportunities in UK will be leading high unemployment rate and a large number of customer complaints that because of the Indian accent, customers can not understand what are they saying, though English is their official language. And the off shoring of call centres cause the frequent of employees' turnover. And the services are not good in India, these off shoring call centres are going to lose a large number of customers All of these disadvantages cannot be avoided by any methods, and these problems also lead to a large-scale disaster. For example, the UK social economic would be reduced and the scare of the local employees. In general, the off shoring call centres are not good for the UK companies.#p#分页标题#e#
India
India is a populous country, in such a country, the employment pressure is very great. Due to foreign call centers offshore, can greatly ease the employment pressure in India. However, local companies in India, this may not be a good thing.
Benefits
Increasing of Job opportunities
For well over a decade, India has been the destination of choice for western companies looking forward to outsourcing their call centre operations and take advantage of the country’s vast and cheap labour pool. Due to the off shoring call centres are established in India. The additional job opportunities are sent from UK to India. As a result, the employment tension is eased, and it also promoted the economic development in India. According to the David and Stephen (2002), there are 2,000 jobs per annum were relocated from UK to India. Furthermore, in the last few years, nearly 200,000 call centres' jobs were relocated from UK to India ( CWU Research,2004 ). These large numbers of jobs assisted India to resolve the problem of employment. More and more unemployed people and graduates get job opportunities. Moreover, some type of employment is also brought, such as catering industry, express company, and other industries, which are related with call centres' jobs. Furthermore, these jobs drive the growing of the India economic ( Richardon and Belt, 1999 ). For example, the government could receive more taxes from the new employed people, and the unemployment compensation which is provided by government is also decrease. Such as, October 2004, Royal and sun Alliance planned that in 2006 they will outsource 1200 jobs to India. Last but not least, National Rail Enquiries, in November 2003, which currently has 1200 call centre staffs, and its will move 600 working positions to India. Nevertheless, in 2003, Lloyds TSB said that its call centre in Newcastle would be closed, which has 986 employees and moves the jobs to its new call centre in Hyderabad. Newcastle is one of the highest rates of unemployment in the UK, so Lloyds TSB said that recruit and retain staff in the city was very difficult. And 1500 staffs are planned to have in India at the end of 2004. Hallett said that only the Aviva, off shoring call centre to India, which is an insurance company take 2500 jobs to India until 2nd December 2003.
Increasing in economic
With the increase in employment probability, India's per-capita consumption level will increase. And finally, the Indian economy will increase. The Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in India increased about 7.7% in the first half year of 2011. Historically, from 2000 to 2011, the average quarterly GDP Growth was 7.45 percent reaching a historical peak of 11.80% at the end of 2003 and a record of 1.60 percent at the end of 2002 was the lowest point. Many kinds of Indian’s economy include traditional village farming, modern agriculture, handicrafts, a wide range of modern industries, and a multitude of services. Furthermore, services are the main source of the increasing in the economy, accounting for more than fifty percent output of Indian with less than thirty percent of its labor force. Since the year of 1997, there were about seven percent of average growth rate of Indian’s economy, reducing 10% points of poor people(BBC, 2011). BT as an important development in the Asia-Pacific region continued to strengthen the company's size, coverage and operational capacity to ensure continuous, seamless, high-performance networked IT services. According to BT introduced in the Asia Pacific market, its services available in the market of about $ 8 billion pounds, the annual growth rate of 6%. Strengthen BT's advanced professional services, industry and innovation in the field of the program resources are a key component; BT chief executive Ian Livingston said: "BT's Asia Pacific business has maintained strong growth in Asia Pacific is an important global growth engine. We have already provided the infrastructure and functionality to help the global expansion of multinational business in the Asia-Pacific region BT around the clock to establish a regional service center in Pune, India with a customer management center, but also in Gurgaon, India Global Operations Center and has 22 industrial and academic partners in India - British High Technology Center. The British telecommunications company not only solved India's labor-intensive industries, but also promoted the economic development. An increasing in India’s economy could lead a higher consumption then will cause the of demand, at last will increase the demand of labour force.#p#分页标题#e#
Increasing of the professionals
Nowadays, With the off shoring call centres are established. The relevant technology and professionals are also brought in India. The number of professionals represents the level of development of industry. In other words, the highly-developed industry also has a large number of professionals. According to Breathnach (2000), in the off shoring call centres, all the employees must accept martinet ism, and exercise all kinds of relevant skills. For instance, there are 2,000 call centres jobs were relocated to India per year, which means the plentiful professional are trained per year in India. And these numbers of professionals could assist India to improve the communication technology. Call centres are service for customs, so companies should have a better service to competition with others. For a company, a better service needs more professionals. For example, a company’s call centre with many professional customer service staffs, and a company’s call centre with staffs in training. Customers must prefer that company with professional staff in its call centre. And with a good call centre service could also bring more customers. Thus, a UK call centre decided to off shoring its call centre to India for a lower labour cost. That company must bring some professionals to India to training the staff in India. Therefore, that UK call centre could reduce its cost while keep the quality of service
Employees welfare
When off shoring call centres are not established in India, revenue: 2004 ~ 2005 Indian workers earn from 500 rupees to 8000 rupees per month salary. In terms of US dollar, the average capita income of India was $518. From 2003-2004 to 2007-2008, the national average annual income increased by 60 percent to 33,283 rupees (about $ 666). Benefits: India under the powerful trade unions out to protect the workers work eight-hours every day, higher minimum daily wage system, and a number of welfare provisions. So in developing countries, India is a high-wage country. Thus, foreign investors do not want to hesitate to enter India, so difficult to develop labor-intensive industries in India. For India, a serious labor surplus country, while filling manufacturing high welfare provisions cannot be developed. India is the unemployment rate is not high on the surface, because India is a religious country, nationals and just thinking, I believe that karma will not go to the registered unemployed, actively looking for work, coupled with the rich in India employs a large number of domestic servants, but also reduced the unemployment rate. After off shoring call centres are established in India would provide to best welfare to the India employees. According to Esping Anderson (1994), off shoring call centres provide a series of welfares to their employees, such as different types of allowances. In India, people, who work in off shoring call centres, not only own the basic employees' welfare, but also have some specific benefits. Firstly, due to the employees often suffer the unsocial hours associated with servicing overseas, the companies provide the high subsidy for the Night shifts. In addition, the high level of health insurance for their employees' health, and these employees also have long time paid vacation. For example, British Airways work together to develop the Asian employee benefits. Multinationals operating in Asia will benefit from the cooperation of both sides, to be the more diversified comprehensive employee benefits program. For much U.S. and European multinational companies, Asia is a high-growth market. British Airways Benefits Network and a leading insurance group in the Asia-Pacific region - cooperation so that we could provide the best service to meet the needs of multinational companies. British Airways employees work effectively to enhance network benefit customers in this particular market position. It in fifteen regions, through the development, marketing, and successfully provide employee benefit plans, group insurance for multinational cooperation solutions. Through this partnership, British Airways will further enhance its services to multinational companies in Asia Pacific quality and take full advantage of the superior British Airways employee benefit's network resources. Therefore, UK companies offshore their call centres in India could bring a better welfare to Indian’s employees than the local company.#p#分页标题#e#
Culture
Indian civilization is also very inclusive. Each time the invasion of foreign nations, gave the new element of Indian civilization. They blend with the local culture, so that updated and enriched. At the same time, foreign nations are all during history for the assimilation of the Indian. In addition, the Indian civilization a clear identity, although showing a remarkable diversity. This identity reflects the importance for the spiritual life, moreover reflected in the distinctive regional characteristics. Hindi is India's main language, but there are many other Indian languages, but English is actually quite common in India, the diversity of language, traditional culture, how to save and continue? According to Karan Singh: India has many languages, but this will not affect the traditional culture passed along. They very much respect cultural diversity, their inclusive culture for their own very proud. As their language, in fact, many Indian languages have retained their identity, and not because English disappears into, but since ancient times and in accordance with the characteristics of the language evolving trajectory. They can coexist. Of course, English and Hindi are India’s official language. They will not occur because of language and cultural phenomena such as blocking or disappear, and their own culture, there will continue to develop well. According to Karan Singh, Western culture to the world output, which an international phenomenon is. Western culture to the world all have a great impact, such as the commodity economy, fast moving consumer goods, etc., but this does not mean that corrosion will be the country's culture, national culture will probably have to absorb foreign culture, but have retained their identity. Therefore, if a UK call centre offshore to India, the Indian employees could keep their own culture while to understand UK’s culture. After they understand the culture of United Kingdom they will know how to provide better service to the customers in UK. That could also improve the quality of Indian employee.
Disadvantage
The Indian industry is currently represented in the labour market management problems, as a high-consumption, has been in the UK and so on in the foreground. Because of a high turnover and product stop in the expanding industry, the agent difficult to response requirements. In this sense, the offshore to India is not activated companies and their employees-intensive call processing to avoid impact. In fact, this because of the negative consequences of the extreme, the situation intensified in India standardized nature of the phone, switching from a long night of work and travel fatigue times, linguistic, cultural and emotional stress. The gap between apparently stimulated extraordinary work and practical reasons, call processing awakening a retreat, and exit (Mirchandani, 2004).
Employee turnover rate
Compared to local companies in India, UK call centres off shoring to India. The UK is much better for the welfare of employees, including wages and benefits. This British call off-shore to India is possible to attract more capable people to work for them. However, this way, Indian companies will be the loss of local employees. Nevertheless, if they wish to have the ability to retain these people, they have to give better wages and benefits. In this case, it will give local companies in India increased costs or loss of talent. According to Andy McCue, Indian offshore call center and BPO operations are facing from a high staff turnover, because many disaffected workers think it like a ‘dead end’ job. The study was conducted by risk management consultancy Hill and Associates, the current attrition rate of up to 40% of call centers in India. This was set in the past in a different time zone, and higher salaries to poach employees from one another to rivals is long with foreign clients with services related to unsocial hours. However, the survey found that BPO workers, so that the main reason cited for more than 50 percent of respondents, this is a dead-end job. Employees who will make the lack of exit opportunities for responsible growth do not meet the expectations, and dissatisfaction with company policies. Night works, monotonous works and provide better wages, other people on the ground only 39% percent of BPO workers' reason to study the question. More than a third said that the BPO industry is to work primarily as part of an international working environment, salary and lifestyle incentives. And Ashish Sonal, country of Hill and Associates, said the manager in India, offshore outsourcing industry needs from start to manage employee expectations, if it is to keep the current alarming rate. "Women have become more expensive because it's just not the training of staff, the service outsourcing industry, one of the biggest risks, but also with the effects of 'knowledge maturity' of the organization desired level, productivity and employees".#p#分页标题#e#
In conclusion, the off shoring call centre lead to some negative effects. Because of the competition of UK off shoring call centres and Indian local firms, UK call centres have significant advantages, will lead some Indian firms close down, Indian people lost their jobs. However, it also could provide more benefits to the India. Firstly, it proved a the high level of the welfare and increasing the job opportunities. Secondly, off shoring call centres from UK to India, brought many high technologies to and trained a large number of professionals whom could assist India to improve the communication technology. Finally, because of off shoring call centre brought lots job opportunities to India, Indian are getting rich, the consumption will increase. The GDP of Indian increased. Thus, as the India side, the off shoring call centres are necessary.
Conclusion
To sum up, as the changing global economy, not only small business, but also large business faced the increasing in expenditure of keep in - house resources often choose for off shoring in order to reduce the operational costs. Though some critics might contend that off shoring call centres could kill the local economy due to the massive reduction in inshore jobs, for becoming a successful business with more competition, companies need to balance the needs of their customer and growing market demand and still be able to have a profitable adventure. And with the growing number of companies offering competitive off shoring services, even some businesses have no choice but to consider their options in offshore outsourcing.
Moreover, most of the countries where the call center off shoring abounds to have fewer rules to meet, not to mention the lower costs of labor as compared to inshore workforce. However, with all the advantages of off shoring call centres to India, there are some major disadvantages. The disadvantages of UK companies off shoring call centres to India are among the reasons why offshore outsourcing is not a business model for all. For one thing, off shoring call centres is a significantly damage an economy and in the U.K. alone, several jobs are lost forever and there is an increasing number of skilled workers who need to learn new skills and obtain a new field specialization in order to qualify for the other types of jobs left intact by call center outsourcing.
And because of the introduction of affordable yet highly competitive overseas workers in the job market, wages significantly decreased so in essence, local workers need to compete on a global scale and so do other small businesses that rely on subcontracted jobs of other much bigger corporations.
For large corporations that rely on call center outsourcing services, they have to bear with decreased quality control and reduction in product development. When a company is into call center outsourcing, the business no longer has control in the quality of materials used on a particular product, as well as the quality of its workmanship. In the United Kingdom, this can increase the company's potential for various product-related lawsuits and liabilities, which can also potentially damage not only their names but their entire business structure as well.#p#分页标题#e#
The communication and culture gap between the country where the service is being offshore and the company that required the service can also negatively impact the business. This is considered as among the biggest disadvantages of off shoring call centres and while the growing innovation in technology significantly helps in reducing this drawback, still companies have to properly evaluate their needs for call center outsourcing and determine if they really need one or the local workforce can satisfy their company requirements. So, the off shoring call centres are not necessary for UK. Firstly, the benefit for off shoring British call centers to India is could reduce company’s labour cost because of the very low average labour wages. Secondly, English is the official language in India, so Indian staff could provide a better English speaking service than other non-English-speaking countries. Moreover, for India, the off shoring call centres from UK to India increase the employment rate of the Indians, because so many of the offshore outsourcing of call center, tens of thousands every year to provide job opportunities. And the British call center off shoring to India, they give employees good benefits. Employees will be good to work for them. Not only, that, for India, UK call center outsourcing in India can promote the country's economic growth. Trained in all aspects of the Indian people. However, with for the United Kingdom disadvantages are more than the benefits. Because of off shoring call centers at the time increasing the employment rate in India while reducing Britain's employment rate. Then the rate of staff turnover is increasing because the large number of call centers off shoring. British companies will increase their costs in training employees in India, and this way, the people of India will increase at the same time the British people are lost. Nevertheless, although English is the official language of India, but very heavy Indian accent, many English-speaking countries, people called in the past did not understand what they were saying. So a lot of customer complaints. Therefore, British companies would only call center then moved back to England.
Reference list
1. Andy McCue, 2004. UK customers defect over offshore call centres.
2. Andy McCue, 2005. Indian workers fed up of ‘dead end’ offshore call centre jobs.
3. Andy McCue, 2005. India facing offshore call-centre skills crisis.
4. Anna van Zoest, ippr, July 2004. Off shoring practices in the UK – Where are the Limits?
5. Carmit. DiAndrea, 2010. Hey CFO, where will you outsource to now?
6. Daily Mail 30 September 2005
7. Eddie Keating,2008. NWUA.#p#分页标题#e#
8. Michael Kavanagh,2011. Santander India call centre: back to UK.
9. Stuart. Summer, 2011. Offshore call centres risk driving customers away.
10. Tony. Hallett, 2003. Off shoring call centres to India risks UK customer backlash.
11. Xiaoyong. She, Ruilan. Jiang, Gang. Shen, 2010. The rise of Indian call center outsourcing industry
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