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by p.hodgeson

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Is all this outsourcing of bank callcenters to india affecting I.T careers? Surely when the systems in place stop working as they where designed they techies to fix them, but in India! I see this as a real problem. 2 major banks near me have recently outsourced and I see this as an oppurtunity gone for good!
What do you think......

8 replies

by ebgasper

I agree that a lot of companies like your banks are outsourcing their customer support service oversees because the service is cheaper. Until the government set some taxes or fees on these companies they will not have any incentive to return this work back to the US. I am hoping that the government will impose some level of taxes or fees that will make this option not as appealing to these companies.

by oldefar

Perhaps this is something the workforce can resolve. The issue is cost, and the off-shore competition is providing a lower cost. Rather than just letting the jobs go, the workers being terminated should fight for a chance to counter bid that offer.

The local workers do not have to beat the price, just beat the price for value. What they have to offer is knowledge specific to the company, location that allows direct interaction with the company versus phone/email or high travel costs. Add to that a decrease in their labor cost and if they are within 10 to 20 percent of the offshore competition they should be able to win the bid.

Now this means setting up their own company, probably a reduction in benefits and certainly a reduction in wages, but there is opportunity as well. As their own company, they can internally link profits to workers in a fairer approach. They can probably negotiate a cheap lease on their otherwise empty work space from the company. They are free to market their expertise to other firms as well to increase profits.

As for counting on taxes or tariffs, it is a poor approach that rarely does more than provide short term relief. This is a global economy now, and we have to play by global rules.

On the side, consider investing as a group in the stock of companies offshoring. Build a big enough voting block and throw the greedy bastards out on their rears!

by john_wills

Not only do tariffs provide no great relief, they destroy the whole economy. After the Wall Street Crash there was for some years a cycle of tariffs leading to more tariffs and to the Great Depression.

by john_wills

The opportunity to make a living by making bras is log gone in the U.S. Dito a lot of textile work. But we still consume bras (well, I don't personally, being a male and not being obese) and textiles in the U.S. It is more important that we be able to consume goods and services than that we produce them. To pay for them we must produce other goods and services. We have to become other kinds of IT worker, other kinds of knowledge worker.

by ed woychowsky

My question is who will be responsible if they?re hacked and sensitive customer information is compromised. Can the banks be held responsible for any loses, when the information was lost by an outsourcer in a foreign country? Or, will the account holders be left holding the bag? Either way the customers will be victims of identity theft. Whose laws would apply?

by john_wills

The present answer is a lawsuit in one of the countries concerned followed by a lawsuit before a bench of the International Court of Arbitration. This is rather messy, although the ICA has done a lot of work. We need to refine the UN court system. Yes, Dubya, that does include ratifying the ICC treaty.

by dc_guy

What we're seeing in IT and support jobs is the same phenomenon that has already happened in manufacturing: a mature industry sending its jobs off to other countries that can do them just as well and more cheaply. The USA spends a huge chunk of its GDP giving its children an excellent education. (Yeah, not as good as it used to be but still pretty good, especially since so many of them go on to college.) We can't afford to have those children grow up and do jobs that don't require that education, it doesn't make economic sense. We have to let these job sectors go to countries that are building up their own economies and concentrate on creating new jobs in the area that has always been our specialty: innovation. Nanotech, bioengineering, etc. Sure, there are plenty of IT applications, but we should stick to the leading edge stuff. We've been building MIS software for fifty years: it's a completely mature industry and time to go offshore. This is not such a small planet. If the standard of living in countries like India, Mexico, and Malaysia improves, it will benefit all of us. So don't worry about the jobs we lose. Worry about the jobs that our short-sighted industry executives and government officials are not helping us create. We could start by rebuilding our educational system to what it once was. Today's university graduates have less education and fewer skills than high school graduates had forty years ago.

by olprof67

The jobs offered as replacements to the displaced employees are likely to be a much poorer fit behaviorally/psychologically.

A couple of years ago, a major supermarket chain ran a series of adds showing middle-aged "rookies" displaying eagerness for job most of us wouldn't cross the street to spit on. (Of course, all were both white and male).

Confronted with both a distasteful job and a show of authority, lower-level employees respond with minimalism; individually, with unionism at the entreprenurial level, and with a shift to the left at the political level.

The industrialized portions of the Old World have responded to this pressure partially by the use of imported labor - "gastarbeiten".

The pure libertarian in this writer recognizes that any attempts to derail maket forces are doomed in the long run. But the realities of my daily life compell me to think and plan no further than the intermediate term.

And if enough people start thinking this way, the political consequences could be a lot more serious than what has happpened within the educational system.

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