Threat of Call Center jobs moving to India: An issue unnecessarily overrated
.
The big hue and cry by people abroad over the multinationals moving their
Call Center services to
India is absolutely not needed. A study by the London based research firm put aside all such fears when it predicted that only a paltry 5% of the 4.78 million
call center jobs worldwide will be located
Offshore.
The fear has been instilled in Europe and US after a number of big firms started relocating their
Call Center Services to countries like
India and other low-wage markets. Firms like Dell, ebookers etc have already moved their
Call Center Services to
India, on the account of saving on the operating costs, and supposedly more firms are in the fray.
But the new study shows the
Call Center Services market in a totally different light. According to Datamonitor, 241,100 agent positions will be located
offshore in 2007. That number represents 5 percent of the total global
Call Center market, which will have grown to 4.78 million agent positions by 2007.
However, it’s not just
India, which is looking to gobble up the full
Call Center Services market pie. There are other contenders too, who have an equally good chance of becoming the preferred
Call Center Services provider. There is Mexico, South Africa, and Malaysia, which, are becoming among the leading
Call Center Services locations. They will in fact eat up the share of the Indian and Philippines market, whose share of the
offshore market will drop to 64% in 2007 compared to being 70% in 2002.
This shift in trend is due to the fact that firms are witnessing an excessive demand for non-English languages and is the global
Outsourcing portfolio by opening
Call Center Services in different locations. It expected that Mexico will experience massive growth in the number of
Call Center agent positions serving
offshore markets, primarily the US. The report also noted that firms are seeing increasing demand for non-English-language services and are balancing their global
outsourcing portfolio with
Call Centers in different geographical locations.