The Story of How Our Jobs Disappeared

I'd like to tell you about what's happening to approximately 140 people in Tucson and what has happened to another few hundred people who were formerly employed in the same industry. These people are employed by a company called Convergys. Some of them are just starting out in their career paths and some of them are in their 30s, 40s and 50s and have families. Their job skills consist of many things I can assure you, but what they are known for... is being some of the best Technical Support Professionals in the entire world. The Tucson call centers (there were 2 of them) that are run by Convergys were the sites of Microsoft and SBC support centers. The Microsoft project was first established by Microsoft themselves at the Rita Ranch Facility known as the University of Arizona Science and Technology Park. Around 5 years ago, the project was managed by Keane, Inc. and then was taken over by Convergys.

The techs that took calls here in Tucson answered the phone with: "Welcome to Microsoft Technical Support" and were the technical support industry veterans who rolled out an entire list of operating systems, applications and services for Microsoft. Tucson was the premiere tech support site in the country, and contributed heavily to the state-of-the-art knowledge and expertise that became the common denominator for assistance when all else failed. Many of the Tucson techs are Microsoft Content Authors, who wrote white papers and documented "solution objects" that became articles in the Microsoft Knowledge Base, an online self-help library of methods and techniques for troubleshooting and problem solving. They are known throughout the world of tech support as "The Brain Trust down in Tucson"...and thousands of Microsoft customers are familiar with the answer to "where are you?" being Tucson Arizona.

When those tech support jobs were sent to India, the solution to staying employed was to take a position with the SBC Internet Services project which was also run by Convergys in their Tucson West Side call center. Many of the people working in the SBC project were also trained and experienced as Microsoft Tech Support Professionals, but there were also people who hadn't worked for Microsoft, yet who were trained and knowledgeable and motivated enough to raise the standards and continue the legacy of "Best in the World" tech support here in Tucson. And SBC seemed very glad to have the help of these hard-working experts on tap. The story of what has happened and what is now transpiring is detailed and I won't go into it here, but the outsourcing situation is happening again and the public may not be aware of it.

Additionally, I'd like to present you (and anyone else who might be interested in listening to this story), with a couple of things to think about. The purpose of this message can be addressed by giving you some factoids and asking you some questions.

The fact is, people are losing their positions because these jobs are being taken out of the country and being given to people living in India, the Philipines, and elsewhere. There is no doubt that the economics of the situation tend to cause this but the numbers involved are astounding and there is more to this situation than we've been told. No laws are being broken, but American citizens are being forced out of 3-5 year careers after a similar trend happened in the manufacturing industries.

And the current scenario at Convergys is that anyone who wishes to stay employed must take a job, if available, at a lower rate of pay. So without a doubt there will more people than ever before standing in line for every job opportunity within the IT category, here in Tucson. And of course other parts of the country are JUST as hard hit with the obligatory "job replacements".

What I find ironic is that BPO firms in India are running out of employees. They are searching in every small town for more warm bodies to fill the seats at the call centers. The backlash is unbelievable. Both Microsoft and SBC customers are telling the Tucson techs that they abhor speaking to techs whose native language is not English. But in 1 more month they won't have a choice, because ALL of the best technical support professionals that ever wore a headset, will be working in some other job capacity.

The topic of offshore outsourcing is certainly well known, why is it not one of the top news items on a continuing basis? Probably because of the lack of information. I'm striving to change that.

Outsourcing - Pros and Cons

Part 1 - Against Offshore Outsourcing

The current trend amoung U.S. companies to ship IT jobs overseas hurts American workers. What is being touted as so-called savings incurred by outsourcers is simply not equal to the cost for U.S. based workers. Instead CIOs within the U.S. should be aware of and searching for financially sound alternatives to the practice of outsourcing. They certainly do exist.

The problems associated with offshore outsourcing are profound and complex, but the most obvious ones - like security issues, language barriers and time zone differences -- can only lead to the ultimate conclusion: Offshore outsourcing is not as practical or as profitable as it's represented to be by those who are proponents of the practice.

A closer look at the depth of the outsourcing problem is presented by the following details:

• Gartner Inc. predicts that 40% of companies with revenue of more than $100 million will be trying to use outsourcing by the end of 2004.
• Gartner also predicts that 1-in-20 IT jobs will be heading overseas by the end of 2004.
• Forrester Research Inc. has projections indicating that more than 3 million U.S. white-collar jobs will be lost due to offshore outsourcing in the next 10 years -- a half-million of those in IT.
• Foote Partners LLC finds that the overall premium bonus pay for certified IT workers fell over 4% in the first half of 2003 and about 6% over the entire year. They also found that a great deal of this money is being used to cover the costs associated with offshore outsourcing.

Many people claim that the current outsourcing trend can be attributed to a natural shift in the job market and should be expected in a capitalist society. Proponents say that the jobs lost by U.S. employees will eventually be recovered by natural market forces and improvements in the economy, which will result from the savings generated from outsourcing.

In the real world: Skilled American IT workers are being forced to switch careers and/or take lower paying jobs in their field.

Additionally, even if the outsourcing trend can be accurately described as a "natural market shift", there are no guarantees that these jobs and the previous wage rates will eventually be recovered. Historically, we didn't see much of that form of recovery taking hold after thousands of U.S. manufacturing jobs were sent overseas in the 70s and 80s. Back in that era, the loss of relatively high-paying, blue-collar jobs hurt that segment of the work force, and real wages for the bottom 25% of the work force were gone forever.

Those highly touted savings associated with outsourcing jobs to places like India and China really aren't as substantial as some would like us to believe. There are tremendous costs in the deployment and management of the infrastructure, and the learning curve for the technical training of overseas employees is showing itself to be problematic and longer lasting than expected.

All other things considered, offshore outsourcing also contributes directly and indirectly to serious problems related to the bottom line. Although there are a multitude of real problems, the ones that need to be prioritized are:

• IT security: How can we really assess the risks posed by offshore workers. Potentially there is no way to avoid the loss of intellectual property and business-process secrets.
  Specifically, China, with no laws to protect U.S. based business secrets and intellectual property, is already suspected of having a major industrial espionage program which siphons off the good stuff from U.S. technology.
• Business continuity: Many U.S. companies are looking to outsource their IT labor to Southeast Asia and the Middle East. How can daily operations be assured in these countries where an armed conflict could halt offshore operations.
• Customer backlash: Customers are already uncomfortable with the changes being made and seek reassurance that their data is safe, even though it is being maintained thousands of miles away in a nation that may be unstable at any time.

At this point, options and replacements for offshore outsourcing need to be looked at. Because choices are available where skilled American workers can be utilized, the companies interested in domestic outsourcing alternatives can find ways to realize financially sound business practices as well as keep U.S. workers employed. In the humble opinion of this author, the CIOs who examine these alternatives will find what they are looking for. And the Americans who have those jobs will remain the highest-quality workers and the most successful at generating profit for their employers...of any employees in the world.

Part 2 - For Offshore Outsourcing

Some Americans don't believe that offshore outsourcing is bad for this country. They seem to be convinced that we can be strengthened as a nation if we are forced to compete in the global economy. Although the statistics on offshore outsourcing are looking pretty grim for the U.S. worker, they feel the way they do because they are sitting at home watching the news on a Japanese-engineered television, wearing clothes that are made in Malaysia or Thailand. They are thinking that it's hypocritical to demand that computer hardware and software should only be made in the USA.

To these folks, offshore outsourcing looks like a smart business strategy. A way to get the job done for less money by:

• reducing and controlling company operating costs
• freeing up internal company resources for more important purposes
• improving the company focus and resultant productivity

They consider that what is even more important than the welfare of their employees...is making money. Lots of it. To them, companies who make lots of money are healthy companies. Healthy companies bring more money back into the economy, which strengthens the economy, which creates more jobs.

The second reason that some people feel that offshore outsourcing is good...is that it's not good for us to get too comfortable. If we get too comfortable, then we get too weak. And a weak culture can't compete with other people around the world.

They believe that, as a workforce and within our industrial interests, we'll grow and expand our skills and by doing so, avoid becoming stagnant. They want us to push our boundries and become more competitive. They want us to remember that when the automobile industry was being threatened by foreign manufacturers, U.S. automakers were forced to build better cars than ever before. Eventually, factories were reopened and jobs were created. America was once again a legitimate competitor in the auto industry.

Even though Americans are hurting in these tough economic times, the proponents of outsourcing think that U.S. businesses need to stay competive, and that outsourcing offshore will help to accomplish that. They feel that their fellow citizens should push harder, do better and create more.

If being an American means all of that, and if we truly have freedom in this country, we should be able to decide and then choose the right path. What do you think?

India's IT industry, ID theft and you!

In order to address US and European fears of identity theft, India's IT industry launches a full-blown campaign to prove it is tightening its data protection procedures.

See Fortress India

Strict bag checks, the signing of confidentiality agreements, and shredding of conversation transcripts are only daily fare for the people who work for one of the four call centers run by ICICIn OneSource, based in Bangalore. The company employs 4,000 young Indians to process credit-card bills and make telemarketing calls for big U.S. and European banks, insurers, and retailers.

In another part of India, Mumbai-based Patni Computing Systems has declared that it rigidly observes the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) and the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOA), both major laws which highlight the importance of confidentiality of customer records.

See HIPAA And SOA Adhered To In Faraway India

Patni generally follows the security and privacy guidelines set by the ISO 17799 and BS 7799, international and British security standards, respectively.

In general, the IT industry in Bangalore has a need to focus on IT outsourcing security. Whether or not it will be possible for the companies involved to PROVE that they have implemented the necessary security...remains to be confirmed.

India has a LACK of Manpower?

TIMES NEWS NETWORK
[ MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 13, 2004 09:49:39 PM ]
MUMBAI:

The BPO sector is facing a roadblock of sorts, a human one. BPO companies are struggling to hire new employees in sufficient numbers in the metro cities. Consequently they are trawling small towns looking for 'employable' graduates. For cities like Mumbai, Delhi, Hyderabad and Bangalore demand is already outstripping supply of people, industry sources say.

The maximum number of companies in the BPO space are in the National Capital Region (NCR) which includes Delhi, Gurgaon and Noida. There are more than 100 companies in this region. Some of the big companies that are based in the NCR region include GE, Spectramind, Daksh, Convergys and Keane. The demand for fresh graduates from BPO companies in the NCR region is between 20,000 to 25,000.

The colleges and the universities within the NCR are unable to supply 'employable' graduates to meet this demand. Bangalore follows with more than 60 large and medium BPO companies based there. Some of the major companies with BPO centres in Bangalore are Accenture, ACS, Progeon, 24/7customer.com, Dell, Gecis and IBM global Service. The BPO industry in Bangalore is generating a demand for more than 17,000 to 20,000 fresh graduates every year. Again the city is unable to meet this demand.

Mumbai follows with more than 50 BPO companies based in and around the city. The annual demand in Mumbai is peaking at around 20,000 fresh graduates. Hyderabad follows Mumbai with more than 40 companies and an annual demand for 10,000 people. Chennai follows Hyderabad in terms ofthe total demand. According to recruitment firms which supply people for BPO companies, the total number of graduates from all colleges, diploma institute and universities is not necessarily relevant.

97% customers hate call centres

ANI
[ WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 08, 2004 01:50:13 PM ]
LONDON:

Customer care centres don't seem to fit the satisfactory framework anymore. According to a survey, 97 per cent people cringe at the thought of having to dial a call centre number. People find call centres very annoying for one reason or the other, reported the Mirror. Being left on hold too long, was the most common complaint but complicated automated options also riled more than a third of users.

The survey, conducted by the Citizens' Advice Bureaux, revealed that a whopping 90 per cent of all call centre customers had complaints, while 40 per cent were completely dissatisfied. While being put on hold was named as the most annoying aspect of call centres by more 50 per cent of the 2,253 people taking part in the survey, more than 30 per cent said that the long lists of options weretoo complex. A fifth said they hated the lack of human contact, and 17 per cent were disgusted on being passed from one department to another.

The experience was even worse if the caller happened to be bad at speaking in English, had limited phone access or if they were not rich enough to afford the long calls, which most call centres require. Utility companies were the worst offenders followed by financial institutions. Government offices, banks and insurance firms were also listed as companies with bad customer care services.

Language wars

from:
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/729062.cms

*NOTE: The following article is based on the viewpoint of the India press and business concerns.
________________________________

TIMES NEWS NETWORK
[ TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 07, 2004 11:31:26 PM ]
BANGALORE:

The BPO industry and IT services sector do not pose any direct threat to each other as they operate in different spaces. But today, at least on one front, they vie for the same pie: the talent that speaks "quality English".

IT services firms are now looking for people with excellent command over English to fill positions that demand increased customer/end-user interface or product understanding. This makes the job turf tougher for BPO players who are already hard pressed for agents who speak good English.

Earlier, IT firms were willing to hire candidates who could think and develop software. Communication capabilities or English language proficiency were not given any additional importance. However, like in the case of BPO, IT industry too gauges candidates on four-main yardsticks: Voice clarity, neutral accent, fluency and grammar.

In fact, IT companies have been asking their head hunters to scout for candidates with excellent communication skills.

"This is a fresh trend. Earlier, IT companies looked only for domain knowledge and technical expertise. Today they are keen to get people with excellent communication skills in addition to technical qualification," says B S Murthy, CEO of Human Capital, a Bangalore-based hiring firm.

According to M Padaki, director of soft skill assessment firm MeritTrac, average skills are enough to handle testing, designing, maintenance or support jobs. It is important for project leader to be in touch with clients to understand product specifications."In certain cases, the interaction extends up to the end-user level, who is mostly a native English speaker," Padaki says.

Republicans test new phrase in debate over jobs: Outsourcing is bad, insourcing is better

In reponse to Democrats' attacks on the U.S. jobs going overseas, Republicans have a new term to describe the friendlier flip side of free trade.

Insourcing is the movement of foreign jobs to the United States.

Otherwise known as foreign direct investment, some foreign firms are coming to American to set up operations.

Example: the 4,300-worker BMW factory in Greer, S.C.

Based on figures compiled by the Organization for International Investment (OFII), insourcing has accounted for adding 6.4 million jobs nationwide in 2001, which appears to represent that the growth rate for insourcing is faster than the rate of outsourcing.

This trade group is responsible for coining the term insourcing, and currently represents the U.S. subsidiaries of such corporate giants as Nestlé (Switzerland), Siemens (Germany) and Toyota (Japan).

GOP lawmakers — armed with OFII's numbers — hope to offset Democratic arguments that free trade hurts American workers. The OFII information also represents that insourced jobs pay 16.5 percent more than the average domestic job,

"Outsourcing is a matter of concern," said Senate Majority Whip Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on the Senate floor, "but we are proud of the insourcing that is going on, too, and the fact there is an enormous number of foreign corporations that have come into our country because they think it has a good business environment."

Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, has called outsourcing a "double blow" to U.S. workers already suffering from a rise in unemployment. He proposes requiring companies to notify their U.S. employees if they intend to hire overseas.

McConnell was the first lawmaker to mention the term insourcing on the floor of either chamber. References to insourcing have been circulating in Republican circles for several months.

House Rules Committee Chairman David Dreier (R-Calif.) sent around a "Dear Colleague" letter that introduced House members to the insourcing term and included a Feb. 4 op-ed piece from the News & Observer of Charlotte, N.C., trumpeting the benefits of insourcing.

A whitepaper on outsourcing written by the Senate Republican Policy Committee, which is chaired by Arizona Sen. Jon Kyl, also referred to the News & Observer op-ed and said, "A flip side to the consequences flowing from outsourcing is that foreign firms are also using this practice to move jobs into the United States, which provides additional benefits to U.S. workers and the economy.

"You can't get upset about outsourcing without considering the benefits of insourcing," said Todd Malan, executive director of OFII, which considered a number of terms, including "onshoring", before promoting the insourcing term.

Thea Lee, chief international economist at the AFL-CIO, said: "I think everybody welcomes inward foreign direct investment, especially when people pay good wages and don't bust unions and so on." But she cautioned that current trade numbers showed that even with insourcing, U.S. workers were on balance losing. "In terms of international engagement, we are on the losing end of that equation", she said.

The author of the News & Observer op-ed, North Carolina State University economics professor Michael Walden, told The Hill that, while insourcing has grown at a faster rate than outsourcing over the past 15 years, it has grown at a slower rate since 1994, when the North American Free trade Agreement and the Global Agreement on Tariffs and Trade were signed.

Outsourced jobs outnumber insourced ones by 3.4 million, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis.

Democrats brought the debate to the Senate floor when Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) proposed an amendment to the corporate tax bill that would place limits on outsourcing of federally funded contracts. His amendment passed 70-26 after Dodd worked out a compromise on its language with McConnell and Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John McCain (R-Ariz.).

Case Study report claims Outsourcing benefits the US economy in the long and short run

According to The Mackinac Centre for Public Policy, a non-partisan research and educational institute: "foreign outsourcing allows US companies to dramatically cut the cost of certain information technology services."

In their recently released report, the American research institute said "As a result, US companies become more competitive in what they do best, their core competencies. Better and more affordable services become available for consumers and taxpayers. Outsourcing allows companies to operate on an around-the-clock, 24/7 production cycle, further adding to productivity."

Speaking of the political benefits reaped from outsourcing, the report says: "As the United States seeks to win friends and influence events in South Asia and elsewhere, it would be hard to find a more naturally pro-American enclave than the Indian high-tech sector."

The case study report, "Outsourcing Benefits Michigan Economy and Taxpayers", says while most of the jobs outsourced from the US are on the lower end of the pay and status scale here, they are "among the best jobs available in India and other developing countries".

The report released this month credits outsourcing for enabling thousands of college graduates in cities like Bangalore, Kolkata and New Delhi to "reap the fruits of middle-class life" that Americans take for granted.

It adds that it would be "terribly short-sighted" to disrupt America's "growing, mutually beneficial trade and security relationship with the world's most populous democracy to save a relatively small number of jobs that are not among the more well-paying in the US".

As the rhetoric over job losses due to outsourcing heightens ahead of the November presidential elections in the US, the report says, "it appears that job losses catch the attention of politicians only if they can be blamed on a foreign bogeyman". It points out that "far more Americans lose their jobs to technology, domestic competition, and changing consumer tastes than to foreign outsourcing or other forms of international competition. Think of all the former typists, telephone operators, and bank tellers whose work has been replaced by computers and other machines".

The Mackinac Centre explains that the recent job losses in IT have not been driven mainly by foreign outsourcing, adding that, "instead of blaming IT providers in India, displaced high-tech workers should blame the bursting of the dotcom and telecom bubbles in 2000, the subsequent plunge in the Nasdaq, the recession and decline of business investment in 2001, the Sep 11 terrorist attacks and the uncertainty that followed, corporate scandals, and slow growth abroad".

The report says the most frustrating part of the outsourcing debate is the lack of definite numbers. It adds that the "best estimates from the industry are that perhaps 300,000 to 400,000 jobs previously performed in the US are now done overseas through contractors".

The Mackinac Centre quotes a recent update of the 2002 study by Forrester Research, which predicts that "the number of US jobs outsourced abroad will increase from an estimated cumulative total of 315,000 in 2003 to 3.4 million by 2015. That would mean an average of257,000 additional jobs outsourced each year". However, the centre describes these losses as "just a few drops in the big bucket of a $11 trillion economy that employs 138 million people and creates and destroys millions of jobs every month".

It emphasises that if "the US, its companies and its workers are to remain leaders in the global economy, offshoring must remain a tool available to our corporations".

As the rhetoric over job losses due to outsourcing heightens ahead of the November presidential elections in the US, the report says, "it appears that job losses catch the attention of politicians only if they can be blamed on a foreign bogeyman".

It points out that "far more Americans lose their jobs to technology, domestic competition, and changing consumer tastes than to foreign outsourcing or other forms of international competition. Think of all the former typists, telephone operators, and bank tellers whose work has been replaced by computers and other machines".

The Mackinac Centre explains that the recent job losses in IT have not been driven mainly by foreign outsourcing, adding that, "instead of blaming IT providers in India, displaced high-tech workers should blame the bursting of the dotcom and telecom bubbles in 2000, the subsequent plunge in the Nasdaq, the recession and decline of business investment in 2001, the Sep 11 terrorist attacks and the uncertainty that followed, corporate scandals, and slow growth abroad".

The report says the most frustrating part of the outsourcing debate is the lack of definite numbers. It adds that the "best estimates from the industry are that perhaps 300,000 to 400,000 jobs previously performed in the US are now done overseas through contractors".

The Mackinac Centre quotes a recent update of the 2002 study by Forrester Research, which predicts that "the number of US jobs outsourced abroad will increase from an estimated cumulative total of 315,000 in 2003 to 3.4 million by 2015. That would mean an average of 257,000 additional jobs outsourced each year".

However, the centre describes these losses as "just a few drops in the big bucket of a $11 trillion economy that employs 138 million people and creates and destroys millions of jobs every month".

It emphasises that if "the US, its companies and its workers are to remain leaders in the global economy, offshoring must remain a tool available to our corporations".

Is this a Win-Win situation or a Bad Deal for formerly employed tech support employees?

Losing faith in Indian IT

Despite India's efforts to remain attractive to businesses overseas, faith seems to be crumbling on the home front.

In a recent debacle, India-based Jolly Technologies suffered a security breach when one of its programmers emailed herself a vital source code,
[ Source code stolen through Yahoo e-mail ]
and the code was stolen and sold off, leading the company to shut down its operations. Jolly Technologies proceeded to file an intellectual property (IP) theft suit, but to no avail.

See:
India Ill-Prepared To Protect Outsourcing Firms

At the moment, India simply does not have the right IP rights laws to ensure protection for Jolly Technologies. The Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) also says India is in an 'unsafe IT network environment.'

See:
India Inc in 'unsafe IT network environment'

But these are not the only problems. It seems India's premiere IT firms, particularly the ones based in Bangalore, are losing their appeal.

IT firms are threatening to leave Bangalore and set up shop elsewhere in the country because of the region's "poor infrastructure, irregular power supply and increasing taxes."

Nonetheless, large companies continue to be interested in India. SAP, the global business software solutions major, announces that it plans to offshore projects to India.

Also, National Savings & Investments (NS&I) has extended its contract with Siemens Business Services for another 5 years. Among the proposed moves is the offshoring of new small administrative tasks to Siemens in India, entailing no job loss or site closures in the UK branches.

Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) could become unionized

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/msid-792570,curpg-1.cms

ECONOMICTIMES.COM
[ WEDNESDAY, JULY 28, 2004 12:25:40 AM ]
NEW DELHI:

Swank offices, young crowd and increasing salaries - these are the blessings of BPO wave to name a few. This sector, thriving on the outsourced projects, is full of carefree young employees who are enjoying money and BPO lifestyle and thats it.

Till now the sector has been away from any kind of unionism. But the bug is fast catching on here also. Trade unionism is entering the infotech bastion, reaching out to the low-wage sweatshops that business process outsourcing outfits have become.

The global Union Network International has launched a new organisation that targets workers in Indian back-offices . The Centre for Business Process Outsourcing Professionals has been launched in Hyderabad and Bangalore and will be formally registered in August.

The centre has already begun talks with BPO outfits in Noida, Chennai, Mumbai and Pune. The organisation claims to have about 200 members and expects its ranks to swell to more than 5,000 by year-end.

The rise of a trade union in BPO space has spooked the industry, which has already been under fire in the US and Europe for spiriting away jobs to the sub-continent. Some experts say that this could kill the BPO boom in the country, which even the powerful India-bashing lobby in the US has not managed. "This is bad news for the sector," Pavan Duggal, a senior cyber lawexpert and Supreme Court advocate, told the Telegraph."Over the last few years, the BPO segment has emerged as a major foreign exchange earner. Growing trade unionism will kill this industry.

The centre does not term itself a union, but its mandate is not much different. "We are not a union; it is an old word, we are a forum. However, we will take up issues that need to be addressed to ensure the well-being of the workers," centre chairman J.S.R. Prasad told The Telegraph.

The centre will be registered as a forum affiliated to the Union Network International, linked to the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions. Major Indian trade unions are members of the latter, which will make the centre another union.

He also said that the BPO industry is unregulated and has many problems. The managements do not take care of the workers' health or fix proper working hours. There is no job security. Salary structure, job security and the future of workers in an organisation are on the agenda.

Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) firms continue to increase outsourcing jobs in astounding numbers

from:
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/729062.cms

*NOTE: The following article is based on the viewpoint of the India press and business concerns.
________________________________

TIMES NEWS NETWORK
[ THURSDAY, JUNE 10, 2004 12:42:18 AM ]
BANGALORE:
The backlash on outsourcing in the US and the UK notwithstanding, MNC BPO players are set to deluge India with jobs.

Companies such as IBM, EDS, Accenture and Convergys are aggressively ramping up their headcount in India to astounding numbers. The profile of work they do has also gone up significantly, meaning the new jobs will require higher skill-sets.

According to US consultant McKinsey and Company, Big Blue, which recently acquired the Gurgaon-based BPO firm Daksh, is planning to scale up to around 25,000 BPO professionals in India over the next five years. EDS plans to hire 3,000 people here over the next three years.

Similarly, Accenture pursues the ambitious target to cross 10,000 people over the next couple of years and Convergys aims at growing its manpower by five times in as many years, which will take it beyond15,000 people.

At the same time, BPO leaders like GE already employ around 20,000 agents in India, while Citibank and HSBC have 10,000 employees each.

According to Nashir F. Kaka, partner, McKinsey and Company, a big shift is taking place in the MNC mindset as they move from tactical piece of work to handling complete business systems out of India. He said the MNC BPOs are beginning to focus on enhancing productivity than depending on cheap labour available in India.

According to Kaka, contrary to the popular belief that ITES (Information Technology Enabled Services) is less lucrative than IT services, the providers can enhance their profit margin by reengineering the supply chain and automation. He said a true BPO in the US earns 2.5 times more margin than an IT systems integrator.

The MNC BPOs, while ramping up their operations here, have to cope with challenges like retaining and attracting talents, managing financial pressures, effectively tackling the issue of transfer of control and maintain quality. Outsourcing to India offers compelling business proposition to companies and has helped companies achieve 40-50 per cent cost savings. At the same time, the BPO buoyancy here is creating 200 new jobs in the country every day and in the last financial year, ITES-BPO companies were the largest recruiters with 70,000 jobs.

Dubious about Dubai

Outsourcing to the Middle East?

City officials in Dubai announced during the recent Outsource World
summit in London the Dubai Outsource Zone which targets service
providers both regional and global.

Some of the key sectors targeted include finance, accounting, IT,
payroll processing, healthcare, insurance, engineering, biotech,
multimedia, R&D and design.

The city's officials also cited a study by a global consultancy firm
[but didn't say who exactly] ranking Dubai among the top three
destinations for offshore locations, based on available talent,
environment and economy.

Dubai, according to them, is geographically positioned to offer easy
access to workers from countries like India, Egypt, Jordan,
Philippines, Lebanon, Sri Lanka and Iran.

The zone is also looking to serve as a possible site for disaster
recovery facilities for call centres located offshore elsewhere in the
world as well as facilities for BPO operations, both of multinational
firms and third-party services.

Now if only Dubai officials can downplay the threat of war in the Middle East.

The downside of outsourcing

Satisfaction isn't guaranteed!

In a recent E-commerce Times article, the problems that may be encountered with outsourcing are examined.

At the moment, many businesses are very excited about the potential of offshoring projects. When they learn of the marked wage differential between first world and developing world labor, an entrepreneurial business mind will start by thinking "What can't be outsourced to India?"

Before rushing your company into its first offshored project, here are a few points to keep in mind.

With any new project, an engineer will face an initial learning curve. Even the most skilled engineer, from the most famous university will need time to learn the business process and technology in a new company. Human knowledge and production is not operated in the same way that a water faucet is. It may take a week or a month or longer before an engineer can reach a period of peak productivity.

A newly assembled team will require time to work effectively together. Just as an engineer may requires an initiation period, so does a new team. Over time, leaders will emerge, as will the team dynamics. While team building exercises can help to make this faster, pushing too hard on a new team may have adverse consequences.

There can be many hidden costs in any outsourcing arrangement. In many outsourced businesses, labor costs will be the most costly expense. This is especially true when dealing with knowledge workers.

True, the actual cost of employing an engineer in India might be 10% of the cost of employing an engineer in Silicon Valley. However, don't forget to account for office equipment, and office, management costs, recruiting costs, the cost of international communication, and even the cost of lost sleep.

These costs are often hard to plan for. As a general rule, after you have estimated the cost of running your project with an offshore team, double that cost. Does it still make sense to proceed if the costs would reach this level?

Lack of informal interaction between business and technology workers may suppress potential innovation. There is no denying that innovation happens most effectively at the level of production. Workers or engineers who are building your product or providing a service are the ones who should have the best ideas for making improvements. How can you capture these ideas?

Summary:
The E-commerce Times is taking an impartial stance and is very fair in highlighting the downside of outsourcing. A rational examination of the process of production or service when completed offshore shows that there are many inefficiencies that are easy to overlook.

Does your business make sense to offshore if costs are twice as much as expected?

Mid-sized Outsourcing combined with Reverse Outsourcing

With large companies vocal about cost-savings, interest towards outsourcing has trickled down to mid-sized businesses and some enterprising companies like ELance Online are cashing on it.

Elance Online markets itself as a one-stop shop for outsourcing, particularly targetting mid-sized businesses who do not have enough time and know-how to develop an extensive lists of outsourcing candidates for tasks such as programming, software development, Web design or database application development.

So far, the company has lured about 14,000 service providers in its website and surprisingly, most of them are also based in the US and others from India and as far as Russia. Elance screens the contractors upfront, verifies credentials and provides work samples when possible.

An Elance official also noted a trend referred to as "reverse outsourcing"; that is, international companies are outsourcing their IT functions to small U.S.-based businesses

And according to the company, price alone does not guarantee these companies contracts. References, past performance and turnaround time are among the factors that often outweigh price.

The value proposition lies in the fact that since service providers are small players, clients can save a lot more since they're not dealing with the likes of Infosys or service behemoths like IBM.

Convergys leads the nation in shipping high-skilled, high-pay jobs to countries like India and the Philippines

From:
www.ocsea.org/privatization/index.html
________________________________


BAE recommendations to privatize, offshore HR work driven by politics

Study offers misinformation about Florida's offshoring

Jan. 26, 2004 - A recent study suggesting that Ohio government privatize and offshore its human resource (HR) services appears to be motivated by political factors, rather than sound data and the public's best interest.

OCSEA Operations Director Bruce Wyngaard said BAE's recommendation to contract-out the HR work —instead of allowing state managers and workers to re-engineer these systems —is not supported by their evidence.

Instead, the BAE study undermines the HR improvements already underway through the state's Ohio Administrative Knowledge System (OAKS), a larger, government-wide Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) project. OAKS is scheduled for completion in 2007.

Ironically, on the day the BAE report was published, the Governor's office announced that OAKS is again moving forward after being stalled in 2003 due to funding cuts.

Wyngaard said that BAE had a clear motive to make an unsupported recommendation.

"BAE is known to have close ties with the Convergys Corporation, the main company that stands to benefit from its recommendation. BAE successfully recommended that the State of Florida hire Convergys in a similar privatization effort. In proposals to Ohio officials when it was seeking the consulting work, BAE noted its experience with Convergys, an unusual step when most consultants seek to emphasize their independence and objectivity," said Wyngaard.

Ohioans should be leery of the Convergys connection, OCSEA leaders and staff warn.

"Although most Ohioans haven't heard of Convergys, it is a major political player and contributor in this state," said OCSEA President Ron Alexander. "I think Convergys is arrogant enough to believe it deserves to get the HR contract as a return on its campaign donations."

BAE was also dishonest about the Florida experience, added Wyngaard.

"BAE liberally sprinkled its Ohio report with unverified success stories, anecdotal information and data from Florida despite the fact that the Florida effort has been plagued by so many delays, performance problems and cost issues that Florida officials have withheld payment to Convergys."

Convergys leads the nation in shipping high-skilled, high-pay jobs to countries like India and the Philippines. It is the biggest example of how big business unfairly profits and undermines the nation's economy by offshoring tens of thousands of US jobs.

Wyngaard emphasized, "Although it promised to keep the work done for the State of Florida in the U.S., Convergys shipped the technical work to India. It also appears that it keeps copies of Florida workers' private medical and work records on computer servers in Asia."

Convergys has been the center of several negative news stories, aside from the offshoring issues.

In 2003, a PR firm hired by Convergys was discovered to have planted plagiarized op-ed columns touting the benefits of HR privatization in the Columbus Dispatch, the Baltimore Sun and other major newspapers.

In anther case, Convergys found itself in a controversy after receiving nearly $200 million in Ohio and Cincinnati tax breaks after the company threatened to move 1,500 jobs to Kentucky.

OCSEA and other organizations complained that these tax breaks unfairly subsidized Convergys at over $100,000 per employee.

Convergys also recently angered northwest Ohio officials when it closed a call-center in the Toledo area while apparently shifting the work to Asia.
OCSEA represents over 37,000 state employees and estimates that it represents over half of the more than 1,200 employees who could be affected by the BAE recommendations.

Monday is when Forrester Research issues its long-awaited study on the number of American jobs being sent offshore. Forrester helped fan the fires of this debate a couple of years back when it predicted the U.S. would lose 3.3 million jobs. There are still some who question whether offshoring would have turned into such a huge campaign issue for 2004 if the economy had not went into recession with little or no recovery. The original author of the report, John McCarthy, complained to the Wall Street Journal earlier this spring that he was miffed how people were seizing on his long-term projections, which he said represented an "educated guess."

DMS reviewing Convergys contract

Found this while doing some research on the web:

from Tallahassee.com
____________________

Democrats assail privatization efforts

By Bill Cotterell

DEMOCRAT POLITICAL EDITOR


Hoping privatization will be an election-year embarrassment for Gov. Jeb Bush and his brother, Democratic legislators said Thursday that the state's $278 million Convergys contract is "a disaster" for taxpayers and state employees.

Bill Simon, head of the Department of Management Services, said for the first time that lawyers are "reviewing" Florida's largest privatization effort in case the state has to bail out. But he assured members of the Legislative Budget Commission that the system is "in the final throes of testing" and that the state won't start paying the company $3 million a month to handle personnel, payroll and benefits until the system works.

"We kind of burned that bridge behind us before we're completely over it," Simon told the Tallahassee Democrat after he left the meeting.

The deal with the Ohio-based management consulting firm was signed in August 2002, eliminating 900 state jobs and avoiding the $40 million cost of upgrading the state computer system used to handle personnel functions.

Simon, who wasn't DMS chief at the time, said Thursday that the state was "overly aggressive" in setting dates for the company. Convergys assumed staffing services May 1 but missed June and January deadlines for taking over payroll, records management and benefits.

The Budget Commission approved a $3.7 million patch to keep the old computer system running through June 30, taking the money from a fund that would have paid Convergys.

Simon and Convergys officials in Jacksonville vigorously denied accusations by Democrats who said the company was running the Florida contract out of its India call center.

Chris Emerick, operations vice president of Convergys Employee Care, said the company has created 500 jobs - about half in Tallahassee - to handle state government personnel functions. He said Convergys serves some big companies through India but is contractually required to handle Florida service in the state.

'A total, total disaster'

Senate Minority Leader Ron Klein, D-Boca Raton, joined others in urging Simon to consider pulling out of the contract but said DMS needs to see the final payroll tests through and hope they work.

"We rushed headlong into this," Klein said. "I have no problem with outsourcing services if it's going to be better, cheaper, whatever. This has not been the case."

Sen. Rod Smith, D-Alachua, used a variant of the old saying "that dog won't hunt" to describe how hopeless the Convergys situation seems: "Sometimes, you just have to shoot these dogs."

"If any vendor had done this with any company I've worked with, we would have taken them to court," said Sen. Les Miller, D-Tampa, the incoming Senate minority leader. "It's been a total, total disaster."

"It seemed like when they were lobbying for this, you couldn't get from your office to the bathroom without hearing how great it was going to be," Smith told Simon. "Have you hired a lawyer yet on this thing?"

"We've reviewed the contract, yes," Simon replied. He said DMS staff attorneys would advise him on exit options.

At issue: keeping jobs in Florida

Earlier Thursday, State Democratic Party Chairman Scott Maddox and a dozen legislators signaled that they will use privatization to try to upstage the Republicans during the Legislative Session that starts March 2.

House Minority Leader Doug Wiles, D-St. Augustine, and state Sen. Walter "Skip" Campbell, D-Fort Lauderdale, said they will try to amend any privatization bill so that contractors would be required to hire Florida workers and to make monthly payroll reports so lawmakers could see whether the state is saving money.

"Our economy in Florida is struggling," Campbell said. "In the past four years, our state has lost more than 58,000 manufacturing jobs. Those employees who sought retraining in the high-tech sector are now finding themselves downsized again, as companies move jobs to countries where people live on as little as $1 a day."

Campbell and Wiles also cited the Department of Business and Professional Regulation's contract for outsourcing its computer operations to Accenture, a Bermuda-based company, and the hiring of the Staubach Group in Dallas to negotiate office leases for the state.

Staubach is not being paid by the state, Simon said, but works on commissions paid by landlords who lease space to state agencies. The legislators maintain that Florida companies could provide those services.

There are no major privatization efforts on the legislative agenda so far, and with only 14 votes in the Senate and 39 in the House, the Democrats couldn't stop any. But they could use their amendments to keep the issue in the public eye during the presidential campaign.

"In my personal opinion, George W. Bush should run for president of India," said Maddox, the party chairman, "because he's created more jobs there than he has in the state of Florida."


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Contact political editor Bill Cotterell at (850) 222-6729 or bcotterell@tallahassee.com.

Call Center Jobs Drifting Overseas

Excerpt from online article
(to see full article, click on title above)
___________________________

The Philippines' chief competitor in attracting call center business is India, but the government and industry leaders say the Philippines has some advantages: a cultural affinity with the United States, its former colonial master, and its relatively cheap labor and modern telecommunications infrastructure.

Another difference is that Filipinos speak Americanized English as a second language, "while the Indians may speak the Queen's English," Crawford said.

Just last month, Dell Inc. said that in response to complaints it would no longer route tech support calls from some U.S. corporate computing customers to India, and instead handle them in the United States.

Dell would not discuss the complaints, though callers are known to have been dissatisfied with agents' inability - or lack of authority - to solve their problems.

As a hedge against such troubles, the Philippines has a Call Center Academy that focuses on teaching English proficiency, as well as American culture, call center technology and sales, telemarketing and customer service skills.

Convergys Plans 2 Call Centers In Manila

Reported by: Philippine Headline News Online

Convergys Corp., a billing software and customer-care services provider, announced plans to open two call centers in the Philippines in about two months in a move to cut back costs.

Convergys, which along with its competitors has suffered from the prolonged slump in spending among telecommunications companies, has recently built call centers in markets where labor is considered cheaper than in the United States.

The two new call centers, which will be in Manila and handle phone calls from clients' customers, will employ between 1,000 and 2,000 workers when they reach full capacity in 12 to 14 months, the Cincinnati-based company said.

The company, which in December announced plans to cut 950 jobs, said in April it hoped to double its headcount in India to 6,500 where it plans to open additional call centers.
Convergys employs 46,000 people altogether.

Jack Freker, president of the company's call center business said that Convergys plans to build four more call centers in India, in addition to its two existing centers.

"Demand from our clients is outstripping our ability to supply them" Freker told Reuters. "If we build at the same rate over the next year we will still be behind."

Freker would not say how much the company was spending in the Philippines but noted that call centers typically cost about $6 million to $8 million to build.

Convergys said its Manila call centers will be close to offices of other U.S. companies, such as Microsoft Corp. and Hewlett-Packard Co.

OFFICIAL NEWS

Microsoft moves U.S. jobs to India

Story Copyright © 2003 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.
July 2, 2003, 5:35 PM PT


Microsoft is starting to shift U.S.-based jobs to India as it seeks to lower technical support and development costs, the company said Wednesday.
The Redmond, Wash.-based software giant, long seen as a growing company immune to job losses, is now considering cutbacks in the United States while increasing staff in India, which turns out tens of thousands of English-speaking software engineers each year.

"With lots of English-speaking talent, we were thinking of a better way to tap into that," said S. Somasegar, Microsoft's vice president of Windows engineering services.

Boosting employee ranks in India became a priority for Microsoft after its Chairman Bill Gates announced, during a visit to India in November, that the company would invest $400 million there over three years.

So far, Microsoft has about 200 engineers developing software in Hyderabad, the south India city where, five years ago, it opened its first product development center outside the United States.

Microsoft, whose Windows operating system and Office desktop software run on more than 90 percent of the world's personal computers, is recruiting people for a customer support center being launched in Bangalore as part of a pilot program.

Initially, Microsoft is hiring 150 people, but industry sources said the center could easily be scaled up to at least 1,000 people in about two years, if the pilot plan is successful.

"To meet the needs of our customers worldwide, we expect to continue to invest in a technical work force in India to assist us with our expanding product development, information technology and customer support functions," a representative of Microsoft in India said.

The software giant is betting on India's vast pool of low-cost technical workers and engineers who can be hired for roughly one-fifth what their counterparts earn in the United States.

Somasegar said Microsoft could increase the number of software developers in India to as much as 500 by 2005. However, it is still evaluating whether to expand its support staff there.

That's a key question for Microsoft employees who work in product and technical support at several U.S. locations.

Last week, Microsoft cut 161 jobs from its consulting services business. On Tuesday, unionized workers warned that Microsoft was planning to cut at least 800 employees from a facility in Texas.

The software company, which is also advertising aggressively for jobs in Bangalore, did not comment on the Communications Workers of America report.

"There may be some impact to U.S. sites, but no decision has been made at this time," said Microsoft spokeswoman Stacy Drake.

India is of strategic importance to the company as the nation's booming $9.5 billion-a-year software services export industry emerges as a key battleground in the tussle between Windows and its rival Linux operating systems.

Story Copyright © 2003 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.

BIG CHANGES

Regarding my efforts to best serve my customers and perform my craft of information dissemination...I'll admit it, I have come to a nexus point. And so I've made an agonizing choice* and decided to end a 3.5 year stint at the University of Arizona Science and Technology Park.

*The choice being, get layed off or take another position in a different project run by the same outsource vendor: Convergys.

After 4 different gigs at the Rita Ranch facility: Raytheon, Tucson Technology Incubator, IBM and Convergys, I now have a completely new day-job address on the opposite side of town.

As of MAY 2003, PABlo is no longer working with

Microsoft's (outsourced) Technical Support.

It's the end of an era. The end of 50 mile-a-day round trip bicycle commuting and ride sharing, and a parting with some of the most brilliant people I've ever had a chance to work with in this phase of my career. Fortunately, some of my current team mates are also taking this new option offered by our employer, so we'll be starting our training courses and together facing the changes of an altered environment and workplace conditions. Yes, I'm leaving behind lots of memories as a Tech-Writer, Programmer and Support Professional, and this blog continues as I become a technical support agent for *another* Convergys outsource client... SBC Internet Services.

Here's the background story (circa 2003)
_________________________
You could do a query on the following
http://www.google.com/
search terms:
convergys
cvg
us
call center
india
and you would get the following results:

CONVERGYS MEETS FIRST-YEAR
GROWTH GOALS FOR INDIA CONTACT CENTER
November 14, 2002
Pre-eminent customer care outsourcer
in India builds out 1,900-seat contact center --
(Cincinnati and New Delhi; November 14, 2002)
Convergys Corporation (NYSE: CVG),
the global leader in integrated billing, employee care, and customer care services, announced today its contact center in India has met its first-year growth projections as the center marks its one-year anniversary of operation. Since opening in October 2001, Convergys has expanded the center's capacity to support a growing base of multinational clients. By year's end, the Convergys center will employ nearly 3,000 and have a 1,900-seat capacity. Convergys' India contact center provides technical help desk services along with customer support programs for Fortune 1000 companies in the financial services, communications, and consumer products fields. All of the center's key staff members are India nationals.

INDIA AS AN OUTSOURCING LOCATION:
Leading global business intelligence and consultancy firms such as Giga, Forrester Research and McKinsey & Co. have cited various reasons for the increase of offshore outsourcing to India. India's quality and cost benefit edge is one of the major draws for these organizations, analysts say. Giga predicts that, compared to other competing countries such as China, Ireland, Israel, and the Philippines, India will continue to dominate as the preferred off shore country.

LEADING PLAYERS IN INDIA:
One of the cases is Convergys Corporation
(NYSE: CVG), a member of the S&P 500 and the Forbes' Platinum 400, global leader in integrated billing, employee care, and customer care services provided through outsourcing or licensing.
The Convergys 1,900-seat contact center is located in the New Delhi suburb of Gurgaon. Globally, Convergys (tm) employs more than 44,000 people in 46 customer contact centers and in their data centers and other offices in United States, Canada, Latin America, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. GE, HSBC, DELL, Microsoft...
you name it they have their call centers all across India.

HERE'S WHAT THE INDUSTRY LEADERS SAY:

Jack Welch, General Electric
"A truly global company will be one that uses the intellect and resources of every corner of the world. India is a developed country as far as intellectual capital is concerned. The opening of (offshore) development centers marks a new level of commitment by GE in India."

John Chambers, CISCO Systems
"We are expanding our presence in India to take advantage of the ample research and development talent available...our Global Development Center is a critical component of our future success."

Michael Dell, Dell Computers
"India can become a major part of Dell's operations and a major source of the human capital that Dell takes on as a company...and we are looking for further opportunities to take advantage of skilled labor."

Lawrence J Ellison, Oracle Corp
"I love Indian food and only a few minutes away from my house in Redwood Shores is Gaylord where I eat a lot of naan, dal makhani and baingan bartha. Oracle is committed to India and has invested huge amounts of money in engineering. Yes, symbols are important for other top CEOs like Gates, John Chambers and Carly Fiorina have come to India, but I am deeply committed to the Indian venture where we have 2000 employees, which we will scale up to 4,000."

Bill Gates, Microsoft
"Three years ago, during my visit to India, the country was emerging as an IT superpower. Today, the country is handling the most sophisticated projects in the world...I am impressed with the talent we have in our India Development Center and the quality of software being developed."

Convergys Receives "Call Center Of The Year" Award

(Cincinnati; June 2, 2003) - Convergys Corporation (NYSE: CVG), the global leader in integrated billing, employee care, and customer care services, announced today that it received Call Center Magazine's "Call Center of the Year" award. The award recognizes the best in call center operations.

Published monthly, Call Center Magazine provides product and strategic information for contact center executives making purchasing decisions on the hardware, software, and services that are critical to their success. Since 2001, the publication's editors have nominated and selected award recipients from call center operators featured in the magazine during the prior year.

Call Center Magazine presented the 2002 Call Center of the Year awards at its annual Call Center Demo and Conference event in Orlando. The publication's editorial staff recognized Convergys for the success of its India-based operations and the attention given to national cultural practices. The magazine also acknowledged Convergys for its overall investment in and use of technology, ability to meet or exceed sales and services goals, effectively train and evaluate agents, provide a good work environment, reduce turnover, and deliver continuous productivity improvements.

"Convergys earned the attention of our editors in 2002 as we covered the company's expanding business presence in India and featured its contact center expertise in articles ranging from teleworking to outsourcing and contact center site selection," said Brendan Read, Services Editor, Call Center Magazine. "Convergys has long been and continues to be a global leader in developing and deploying contact center practices and technology."

"Receiving this recognition marks an exciting time for Convergys as we continue to broaden our global contact center capabilities and deploy new technologies that enable us to deliver flexible, robust, and cost-effective customer care solutions," said Jack Freker, President, Customer Management Group, Convergys. "Our goal is always to provide our clients with the best customer contact services to enable them to satisfy customers and build loyalty."

Convergys' customer care solutions offer a "high-tech, human-touch" approach that combines well-trained customer care specialists in Convergys' integrated contact centers with advanced information management technologies and high-tech communication channels like the Web and integrated voice response systems with advanced speech recognition. Each day, Convergys customer service agents working in 45 contact centers manage more than 1.7 million customer interactions over the telephone or the Internet. Convergys' comprehensive customer management services enable its clients to achieve greater customer loyalty and increase revenue.

From Website:

About Convergys
Convergys Corporation (NYSE: CVG), a member of the S&P 500 and a Fortune Most Admired Company, is a global leader in integrated billing, employee care, and customer care services provided through outsourcing or licensing. We serve top companies in telecommunications, Internet, cable and broadband services, technology, financial services, and other industries in nearly 60 countries. We also provide integrated, outsourced, human resource services to leading companies across a broad range of industries.

We bring together world-class resources, software, and expertise to help create valuable relationships between our clients and their customers and their employees. This commitment is validated by the more than 1.5 million individual bills our software produces each day to support more than 100 million subscribers, and by the more than 1.7 million separate customer and employee contacts we manage each day, both live and via electronic interaction.

Convergys® employs more than 60,000 people in 57 customer contact centers and in our data centers and other offices in the United States, Canada, Latin America, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. Convergys is on the net at www.convergys.com and has world headquarters in Cincinnati.

(Convergys and the Convergys logo are trademarks of Convergys Corporation.)