HP ponders opening technical support call center in Africa (guess India is getting too expensive)

[Statistical]

Neglecting India and other popular call center destinations, HP has chosen the region of Northern Africa. Tech giant Hewlett-Packard has expressed interest in creating tech support centers in Africa, though which countries it wants to help develop still aren't disclosed.

"We see Africa as a potential base for providing all sort of services and technical support for customers outside of Africa," said Rainer Koch, HP Managing Director, in a statement to Reuters. "We plan to invest more in the future on the continent on that perspective."

At a time when the U.S. unemployment is at record levels, the company may suffer from some public criticism -- especially from consumers who do not enjoy dealing with tech support that is obviously in foreign countries. Popular foreign nations for call centers are often times located in India, Singapore, the Philippines, and Mexico, with these nations chosen for several selected reasons.

...

Unlike these other nations, Northern Africa doesn't have these advantages, which HP will have to slowly develop over time. The company plans to hire at least 1,000 employees by the end of 2010 for its first call center -- HP officials didn't disclose how many facilities they plan to develop.

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http://www.dailytech.com/HP+Ponders+Opening+Tech+Support+Call+Centers+in+Africa/article17180.htm

Sorry Indian IT workers you may be able to do the job (badly) at 1/3 the wages of an American but it looks like someone in Africa will do it for half your price.

[MineralMan]

1. And now that I have helped you solve your technical problem,

may I ask for your help? I am the grandson of a former Treasury Secretary of Nigeria and I face a difficult dilemma, regarding the sum of US$17,378,132 which is being held in escrow for his heirs....

[Richardo]

2. hahahahaha!

:thumbsup:

[MindPilot]

3. LOL!!

That one was good for some coffee out the nose! :rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::toast:

[Tailormyst]

4. Hahahahahahahaha

Now that was funny !

[MineralMan]

9. My pleasure. It was a no-brainer, though...

[madrchsod]

5. ghana would be a country that would fit HP plans

stable government,multi language country,excellent education system,and government funded healthcare.

[Uben]

6. Maybe they should try Detroit....

...lots of folks there out of work.

[Richardo]

7. This has been my prediction for some time.

Just as the outsourced labor markets begin to reap the 'benefits' of working for the large corporations, wages will rise and they will price themselves out of work (see: 1960s Japan, 1990s Mexico, Korea, Taiwan, and soon to be China, India and Bangladesh).

The search for cheap labor will migrate westward to the most underdeveloped countries in SW Asia, Africa, then perhaps back to our own hemisphere to Haiti and Guatemala. What happens then? Another round of competitive wage-cutting starting in Mexico again I'll bet.

[SoCalDem]

8. Yep, those "uppity" Indians have started to think they need to be middle class

& have cars & nice tvs & maybe even a place of their own.. How dare they aspire to live like the people they talk to on the phone all the time.. They are forced to call themselves names like "Mindy & Scott & Jack & Larry & Sue" and now they have decided they want to BE Mindy & Scott & Jack & Sue...or at least try to live the Indian version of them..

but somewhere in the world, there is always someone poorer who will work for even less...and so it goes..

[HopeHoops]

10. HP is one of the VERY FEW techcompanies that trains off-shore reps extremely well.

This is NOT a gripe about foreigners and involves to prejudice against them. It is the fault of the companies that think they are saving money by outsourcing, in particular the ones who go through third-party companies to handle their outsourcing. Yes, you can usually tell by accent or language patterns when you are dealing with someone in another country, but the most obvious sign is the use of a decision tree - "Is the computer plugged in?" I've lost countless hours going through the questions in the tree that they are REQUIRED to ask when I already know the source of the problem and simply want the solution. Most of the reps know nothing about the product. All they are doing is walking through a script. If you make it to the end and it hasn't solved the problem, THEN you have a chance of getting through to someone with at least SOME knowledge of the product.

HP is much different. Even when it is obvious that someone is off-shore, they know the product and are very good about escalating to the next tier when the issue is beyond their personal level of experience. That kind of training is expensive regardless of where the jobs are located. While I would definitely be happier if they were to locate the new call center in the US, it is interesting that they are working to improve the infrastructure in a new location. If ONLY someone would do that here in the US.

Dilbert has been pointing out the stupidity of most outsourcing for years with the mud-covered land of Elbonia. Usually it just involves worse-that-worthless service from the outsourcing, but one particular strip comes to mind - probably from ten years ago. Dilbert is explaining to the pointy-haired boss how they outsourced support to Elbonia who outsourced it to Indonesia who outsourced it to...(other countries)... and they outsourced it back to us. That wasn't as common then, but it certainly is now. The outsourcing-management companies pretty much go with what THEY can get for the lowest price to maximize the profit on what they are charging the customer.

[hayu_lol]

11. I am just waiting until...

the CEOs jobs of fortune 500 companies are offshored for pennies on the dollar. Boards of Directors don't always take care of themselves.

Jeez, if offshoring leaves India...think of all the good buys on repossessed TATAs.

[Statistical]

12. Most boards consists of other CEO, former CEO, and people who want to be CEO.

It is kinda like you and your buddies deciding who gets the job and how much you will get paid (using other peoples money).

The idea that the board has any autonomy is nice but in reality is corrupted beyond belief. Everyone on the board is either a CEO, was a CEO, or hopes to be a CEO and they aren't going to do anything to hurt anyone "in the club".

[HopeHoops]

14. Believe it or not, India isn't that great a place for new off-shore installations.

My dad's former company (he left about 3 years ago) ran into that problem. They were late on the off-shore movement and mostly did it for technical writing jobs. When Microsoft, IBM, Dell, AOL, and the other early players moved into India, there was an abundant supply of highly educated people willing to work for shit. Two things happened. First, the supply in areas with sufficient infrastructure began to dry up and secondly, these are intelligent people who quickly figured out that they were worth more and began to demand more money and benefits.

By the time my dad's former company got involved, they were poking around in areas with a far less educated population to get the lowest prices. On top of that, the workers just didn't seem to care. For example, they would send two documents to be "merged" at the end of the day. Overnight, the workers in India would "merge" them by doing a copy/paste of every other paragraph. They didn't even bother to consider the context. It ended up costing more in the long run because the US workers had to either discard or correct the crap they got back. Management was of course completely befuddled by the problem.

[dugaresa]

13. I predicted this years ago

I told everyone I knew in IT, that once the Indians and Chinese get too expensive they will start exploiting Africa and if they could get penguins to work they would be in Antartica next.

[WeDidIt]

15. So did I

Friedman was wrong, but he's getting closer to right every day.

The world is not flat, but when Africa starts exporting those tech support jobs to the US, it will be.