Bad apples in the outsourcing business

BBC runs a report today about mounting privacy concerns for data within Indians call centers. Apparently, criminals offered personnel in those call centers large amount of money to get access to credit card data.

Let’s reiterate the overall picture in the call center industry:

The industry is booming, and that means that there are a lot of market entries from good, and also from bad companies. They hire and hire and hire – just to fill the seats in the centers. The question is what do they do to ensure the quality of those that are hired – do they just hire anybody who walks into the door, or do they have certain procedures and backchecks? Companies might outsource to cut costs. Now, the speculation is possible that if one company wants to save costs, they might do this firstly, by outsourcing in the first place (also outsourcing does not necessarily save costs), and secondly, they might look for a cheap service provider in India, China, Malaysia or the Philippines. And it is here, where the trap is opening – a company can quickly choose the wrong provider.

What to make of this? Well, as usual, companies planning to outsource need make sure that their overseas partners are reliable. Not just the technology, but also the people employed. They might want to check some of the recruitment and training procedures in call centers.

(By Asia Business Consulting)