Why India?

I called my Bank and then my telephone/cable service provider and both calls were answered in India, although the staff used English fore or surnames, and in some cases both, possibly to try and gain my confidence in their ability to deal with my query.

Now I am in no way suggesting that a person's intelligence level can be guaged based on their nationality, but when making a call that is not free I hope that it will be recolved sufficiently and in a timely manner.

It got me wondering, if these big corporations are trying to save money by getting cheap labour in India, why not utalise ex or existing British colonies, when outsourcing calls, where the population speak English as a first language? i.e. Caribbean Islands like Jamaica, where the currency is actually weaker than the Indian currency and the Island and its people are still suffering from the effects of colonialism.

The reason is: India has built the infrastructure to court business. They've built huge call centers, trained workers with job specific skills, and enticed big businesses with lucrative deals. No one chose India....India beat out the competition. It's capitalism at it's finest (stated with no sarcasm).

Side note...isn't India an ex-British holding?? Please forgive me if I'm mistaken, my grasp of basic world history is fleeting at best...I'm American.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Eas...

i agree with u. the service network provider for mobile is like that, perticually 3!

good question, The only thing is yes cheap labor but most US people have problems in the after noon or early morning.... and they are more awake maybe...

Yeah I like the use names like John or Sarah..... Yet if you ask them to spell it... thats where the fun starts. "Oh john, my sons name is Jon, how do you spell it?" John then replies "ahhh P.... F .... H...K.. yessir P.. F..H..K tat is how you spell john" I love it gets them every time. Any way back to the question. Education, they already most times have a great back ground in computers, the labor rates are good and the resources are great. As far as the British colones they don't have the infrastructures to support the amount of data that flows in and out of India. Also if they were to have a call center in the same or similar time zone to get around the clock support they would have to pay some one a premium to get them to work the 3rd shift, India works well for late night and after business calls due to their time zone.

Michael E gave a pretty good answer and I will expand on that.

Companies like Verizon actually do have call centers setup in Jamaica however the Jamaican Govt. has not offered the kinds of incentives that the Indian Govt has in terms of tax-deferments, low-interest loans, grants and so forth.

The infrastructure exists, there is one fiber optic cable connecting the Caribbean directly to the US and 2 more are being built right now. The education level up to high school is comparable to the US and there is a large pool of applicants.

The resources are just not coming from the Govt. and the private sector is slow to act when the Govt. isn't incentivising.