India

[mobo]

Here http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/3255606.stm
My brother works there and i doubt that he'll lose his job, but what is Great Brition comming to when for the sake of a bit more profit we are off loading all our staff to india.

Makes me sick.


PS
India will soon be the telephone exchange of the planet, and all companies will have there help line in india because they will be better telephone lines the uk's and we all will be talking to them 24/7 so sort out some crap so it will in the end become the queens english, thats a bit ironic ha ha ha

[DaBeeeenster]

What's it got to do with "Great Britain"?

It's called the free market. Get used to it. This will be happening more and more.

Kind of ironic how the Indians wouldn't be able to take our jobs if we hadn't gone over there, butchered them into submission during the height of the empire and forced them to speak english. What goes around comes around I guess.

Britain sold out to business a couple of decades ago mate.

[TiG]

Its just like if i could write an artificial intelligence IVR service that sounded human, and charged less than the call centres in India i'd get the business from them and put them out of a job too and I don't pay any humans and just keep the money for myself.

Plus the move to call centres in India isn't being that successful a fair amount of companies who have tried it have had to revert their decision.

Plus i'd argue that working in a call centre is a soul destroying job, i know i did NTL credit control for 6 months before i got a job with my Uni degree.

Anyway, you can't move McDonalds to India, don't worry there is always a job serving fries with that

TiG

[ACiD303]

My brother works there and i doubt that he'll lose his job, but what is Great Brition comming to when for the sake of a bit more profit we are off loading all our staff to india.

Makes me sick.

It made me sick as well - even though I have no affiliation or know anyone that works there.

In part though, its for when I saw "Roger & me" by Michael Moore that made me realise what a bull businesses can be to their own staff. GM motors cut over 30,000 jobs in the state Michigan (to move their business to Mexico where the labour was so much cheaper) and the local aftermath was devastating.

Its not on the same scale, but it's the same thing. Call centre workers here get about £12,500 p.a and the same job in India would probably get about a 10th of that. If you're going to move to another country, pay them either the same or get lost.

Its more to do with the fact that more Britons will lose their jobs. Ive been in call centre work too - yes it is soul destroying - but it is a job. Some people cant get anything else (says the unemployed hobo who refuses to work at a call centre now) and the loss of 1,000's of jobs to relocate to pay someone pennies for the same thing, for me, is unacceptable.

It's called the free market. Get used to it. This will be happening more and more.

Unfortunately, thats all I can agree on in that post. It is still unethical, but it will go on.

[DaBeeeenster]

I really cant understand what all the fuss is about.

A business has one objective and only one. That objective is to make as much money as it possibly can.

Now, if you want to debate whether this is a good or bad thing, then let's debate it, but there's absolutely no point arguing about this news story in my opinion.

Aviva have a LEGAL OBLIGATION TO THEIR SHAREHOLDERS. Businesses are NOT about providing jobs and support for their employees. They are there to make money. If that means treating your employees well, so be it. If it means treating your employess badly, so be it. Thats the free market system we have in place.

Like it or lump it!

[ACiD303]

Like it or lump it!

It's not a question of liking it or lumping it - I wouldve left this country years ago if it was.

I acknowledge everything in your post is, as I have said, unfortunately true. Corporates are out to make money (shareholders, or not) and making the biggest profit margin possible - at anyone's expense.

Are you saying you support the child labour some companies employ just so they make ridiculous amount of profit as that kid goes home with pennies barely enough to survive on? Wouldnt that be more acceptable? I mean, they're just kids, what are they going to do with the money?

Prime case of Capitalism at its worst and making poor people poorer and the rich, richer.

Thats my opinion on it.

[DaBeeeenster]

Actually I am pretty much the opposite from what you have inferred.

I believe in the power of the free market, but I think that companies should be valued based not only on their profits but on a number of criterion, environmental and employment policy being the two major areas that are utterly lacking in modern business.

Read "Captive State" by George Monbiot and "The Silent Takeover" by Noreena Hertz (who is utterly fit ). It's a bad situation.

This sort of news is merely a symptom of the problem. The cause of the problem is rooted far, far deeper than we know I believe.

[telfer12000]

Not an easy subject.

This issue is a natural product of Globalisation and is an extension of the same phenomena which created many of our greatest cities during the Industrial Revolution.

Agree with DaBeenster about the need to read Noreena Hertz and BTW the following link http://www.lse.ac.uk/collections/glo...isation/hertz/ will take you to an on-line video lecture entitled Companies on the front line which takes 45 minutes but is highly recommended in relation to this thread subject matter.

[spazman]

Fair play to india is all i can say, they have realley reformed their economic structure over the past 10 years or so, and its starting to take hold. The amount of external investment in india is amazing.

[Chasser]

Originally posted by spazman
Fair play to india is all i can say, they have realley reformed their economic structure over the past 10 years or so, and its starting to take hold. The amount of external investment in india is amazing.

I agree there. One of the reasons that India is popular for outsourcing is because of the high percentage of English speakers. Not a bad endorsement for a so called 'Third World Country' that the bulk of school leavers are proficient in a second language.

[FunkyT]

On paper they can speak English but in practice it's damn hard to understand them!

[Zak33]

Originally posted by FunkyT
On paper they can speak English but in practice it's damn hard to understand them!

Regional accents are the biggest situation for both sides to deal with.

Get a Geordie from deepest Tyneside to ring Directory Enquiries in India to getthe number for a taxi company. It would be almost comical.

The operator in India would be expecting someone with the accent of the Queens Butler, and would get high quality Georgie toon ...and its even worse the other way around, with an Indian speaking with a regional accent but with traditional English trained accent "twangs" in it....

horrible thought....but the way of the market place.

Now as to ACiD303's comment Quote "Call centre workers here get about £12,500 p.a and the same job in India would probably get about a 10th of that. If you're going to move to another country, pay them either the same or get lost."

that makes litle or no sense sorry dude....but its not how it works.

You pay the money RELEVANT TO THE FINACIAL STATUS of the country and region....or else you would have

a: Directory Enquirey worked in India making more that heads of commerce
b: no point moving the place in the first place and therefore leaving the country to be a Third World state again.

Nearer to home....a Solicitor in Central London gets vastly more money that equivalent in , say, Milton Keynes. Why? Cost of living.

Same thing in India

[Enverex]

I have to agree in that I am against it. Firstly, half the time you cannot understand what they are saying (First had this problem when ringing 3DFX and talking to a guy named "Muhammed"). I have never EVER spoken to anyone in the UK in a call centre that I could not understand, yet 90% of the time when I get put through to some remote country, I can't understand a word they say.

Not to mention none of them ever seem to have the slightest idea what they are talking about, which really doesn't help the situation.

NS

[ACiD303]

that makes litle or no sense sorry dude....but its not how it works.

You pay the money RELEVANT TO THE FINACIAL STATUS of the country and region....or else you would have

a: Directory Enquirey worked in India making more that heads of commerce
b: no point moving the place in the first place and therefore leaving the country to be a Third World state again.

Nearer to home....a Solicitor in Central London gets vastly more money that equivalent in , say, Milton Keynes. Why? Cost of living.

Same thing in India

OK, Im not that uneducated. I know it doesnt make sense - it's a more extreme view. The reason for moving these jobs to India would be in-effect, downsizing and taking advantage of (much) cheaper labour elsewhere - even if the news didnt say this, its kinda obvious.

Since I dont agree with the entire move , I said pay the Indian workers should be paid the same wage as the UK workers - therefore making it NO POINT. i.e. don't bother doing it.

[homerhassall]

Originally posted by NightShade737
I have to agree in that I am against it. Firstly, half the time you cannot understand what they are saying (First had this problem when ringing 3DFX and talking to a guy named "Muhammed"). I have never EVER spoken to anyone in the UK in a call centre that I could not understand, yet 90% of the time when I get put through to some remote country, I can't understand a word they say.

Not to mention none of them ever seem to have the slightest idea what they are talking about, which really doesn't help the situation.

NS

This also mirrors my experience.
Call centres generally do not lend themselves to good customer service. Most operators want to pass the buck at the earliest oportunity and 'ownership' of a customers problems is just a joke. Top this with my experience with someone who has a very poor grasp of the queens English and it's enough to have you pulling your hair out.

[DaBeeeenster]

Originally posted by NightShade737
I have to agree in that I am against it. Firstly, half the time you cannot understand what they are saying (First had this problem when ringing 3DFX and talking to a guy named "Muhammed"). I have never EVER spoken to anyone in the UK in a call centre that I could not understand, yet 90% of the time when I get put through to some remote country, I can't understand a word they say.

Not to mention none of them ever seem to have the slightest idea what they are talking about, which really doesn't help the situation.

NS

I'm not quite sure what the person's name has to do with it? You could just as easily be put through to a call center in the UK and end up speaking to someone called Muhammed, couldn't you?

These moves by UK companies are clearly being made to reduce the costs of the products and services that the companies provide, rather than increasing the quality. I dont think there can be much argument there. The call centers in question are clearly going to suffer from a dip in service when people are getting up to speed and learning the ropes. I think the important question is whether they will, after a year or two, be able to seriously compete with the quality of service that is provided in the UK. Maybe they will, maybe they wont.

I think the accent issue is a serious one. Personally I have no problem talking to people with strong foreign accents, I actually quite like it, but my dad has an extremely strong german accent so maybe that's why. I'm not sure that the majority of people feel the same way. Maybe it's just a matter of getting used to it. I mean, you come to expect it when you order a chicken dupiaza, dont you?