Exporting America or Importing Profits?

Every morning, I start my day with a hot cup of tea and watching Soledad O'Brien and Bill Hemmer on CNN's American Morning. I have been doing it religiously for the past few months. Today's show was disappointing. Minding your Business, a part of "American Morning", is anchored by Andy Serwer. Andy spoke of an "Importing America" case today. Obviously it drew everyone's attention as much as "Exporting America" is getting. He cited a case where an Indian company was looking at the American market for hiring American call center consultants. As I was composing this post, I found the transcript of this morning's show on the CNN site. Neat. I was mistaken to have thought that the disparaging remarks blurted out by Jack Cafferty (of the Cafferty File fame) and Soledad were impromptu. I should have known better that such things are tactfully delivered by the news channels. Read the entire transcript here that sparked my anger..what were they thinking ? My comments in blue..

ANDY SERWER, "FORTUNE": Insourcing. I don't know if this is man bites dog, role reversal. I think it's actually the exception that proves the rule.

This is interesting stuff here. Story in "The Wall Street Journal" about a company in India, call center. This is called V- Customer, they do all these big call centers. You call up, try to get information, it's in India.

Well guess what? Here's the company, V-Customer, they've got six call centers, they handle all those millions of calls. Three thousand employees, looking to double almost by later this year. They are looking to buy a company in the United States, of course, to expand their operations. Helping out with the call centers. And isn't that ironic.

Is it so difficult to digest the fact that a Indian company can hire Americans? I don't understand what's ironic. Business works both ways.

CAFFERTY: Maybe they could hire people in this country to speak English a little better than those folks over there do. I mean you get on the line with some of those folks in India, and you can spend the rest of your life there. They don't understand you, you don't understand them, it's takes forever.

I bet it does! I have seen both sides now. The AOL call center mentioned by Jack is indeed in Bangalore. I have seen them being coached for American English for 2 months. I will agree that I considered it funny when they would rut away the airport codes and the slang used by Americans, this was a part of their curriculum gearing them up for their jobs. It is a fact that one cannot 'remotely' learn a country's usage of language without actually interacting. And I definitely would give the benefit of doubt here.

HEMMER: Kind of like New York City.

SERWER: Listen, I was talking to someone from AOL at a call center in India and I was having a tough time, getting frustrated and I just said it's not her fault.

I can imagine the abuse this poor woman in India gets, day after day. She spoke English well, understood what she was doing. But you could see how frustrated customers with that job thing are giving her a hard time, right?

CAFFERTY: Well yes. I mean you pick up a phone to call AOL, it's an American company. The least you can expect to talk to someone who understands the language.

The best things in life come at a price. Be ready to pay $10 for a call and you will have an American chirping away with you.
(CROSSTALK)

SERWER: Colin Powell was there this week trying to jawbone the Indians to lift trade restrictions to make the job situation better there. He is there.

Why are some Indian cities such as Bangalore, Delhi thrown into bad limelight now and are getting attention more than what is due? Check the picture in this article titled Questioning free trade Mathematics. It is a picture of a company in New Delhi, not is Jakarta or Beijing or Mexico City. So many jobs get exported to these cities too. Then why target only one?

Reason : Presidential elections. The democrats are advocating the cause for loss of jobs. Outsourcing is definitely not new to this country. Outsourcing in the manufacturing segment started way back in the 1980's. But hue and cry of this magnitude was not raised then, why? Then why is export of technological jobs getting more attention. Because the percentage of job losses due to this is more than that could have been in any sector. Software is not a industry by itself - its repercussions on other industries is known to everyone.

-- to be continued...

Here are some good reads..

http://www.ftponline.com/weblogger/forum.aspx?ID=1&DATE=03/16/2004
http://www.infoworld.com/article/04/03/05/10OPconnection_1.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/18/business/18scene.html?pagewanted=2
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/17/international/asia/17POWE.html?th