India has
been caught off-guard by a call centre skills crisis that threatens
its status as a haven of low cost, high quality
outsourcing.
Gartner has warned
that the number of trained and qualified Indian call centre workers
will fall 260,000 short of the one million needed to run the
industry by 2009. High demand for offshore business process
outsourcing was fuelling this rapid growth, the report
suggested.
Concerns over
cost, security and service quality are already prompting companies
to look for alternative offshore destinations. Gartner predicted
that experienced staff would be at a premium, which would raise
staff attrition rates and up salaries, damaging India’s reputation
for low labour costs. Companies will also be forced to expand their
talent pool, recruiting staff with lesser English-speaking
skills.
Companies thinking
of outsourcing their call centres to India must ask prospective
suppliers about staff turnover rates and security measures. They
should also be extra vigilant about service level agreements,
playing closer attention to call monitoring and customer
satisfaction surveys.
Organisations that
already outsource to India should check carefully for signs of
improvement or deterioration in service over the next few
years.
A second report,
from the Office of National Statistics, further challenges
preconceptions about offshore outsourcing.
ONS figures show
that the growth in call centre jobs in the UK is three times
greater than overall employment growth, quashing the myth that we
are losing jobs to overseas outsourcers. Rather than offshoring
eroding UK jobs, redundancy levels have fallen in the industry
since 2001.
Only last week,
Indian IT company HCL announced it was setting up call centres in
Northern Ireland, creating 600 jobs.