Ireland isn't going to be the next Calcutta or Mumbai. It isn't trying to be the back office, customer care call center Mecca of the Western world. Which is probably just as well.
What it does want to do is build its position as a leading European provider of the next business step up from contact centers - contact center plus, if you like - by offering detailed technical support and a wide range of services way beyond giving simple solutions to straightforward customer inquiries. Some are operated by outsourced suppliers, but most in Ireland are managed by the companies they serve.
Called shared services centres here and managed services centers in the United States, they perform key functions for vast, multinational corporations. They handle not only traditional technical support calls for their staff and business customers but deal as well with HR issues like recruitment, sick leave and other policies; with payroll and accounting; and with internal communications including running companies´ Intranet sites.
These facilities are where Ireland sees its growth potential, although the Irish have no intention of turning their backs on ordinary call, or contact, center investments either.
A Customer Backlash May Boost Ireland´s Efforts.
A recent survey of 1,000 UK adults by research firm ContactBabel found that 142 had switched suppliers, because their existing one used an offshore call center; additionally, three out of four said they felt more negatively about their supplier if it used offshore agents.
Steve Morrell, principal analyst at ContactBabel, says "If UK businesses do not address the concerns of their customers, the level of customer defection will increase and their profits will decline further."
Therein lies a problem - and for Ireland, an opportunity. In India, university graduates, attracted by the prestige of jobs in call centers, earn perhaps ten times the average wage but still only cost their employers a tenth of a European or US-based operation.
Hypothetically, that means a typical UK bank with 12 million customers and revenues of $400 per customer each year would save over $17 million by replacing 1,000 of its expensive call center staff with 1,000 in India. The downside is that same hypothetical bank would need only about one per cent of its customers to defect to another bank in protest to have lost all those savings instantly.
"Ireland is the only English-speaking member of the Eurozone," says Brendan Haplin, International Media Manager at the IDA, the Irish government agency which seeks inward investment from around the globe. "Ireland offers a first-class advanced telecommunications infrastructure that includes vital bandwidth and hosting capacity, and we back this all with solid IDA support, both financial and practical."
The Appeal? Language and Low Taxes.
The landscape in Ireland - corporate and cultural - has attracted its share of not only European but US business as well. "Ireland has changed radically from 10 or 20 years ago," Haplin says. "We now have between 60 and 70 shared services centers that are multilingual, pan-European and trans-Atlantic."
We're talking about major companies the size and scale of IBM or Dell. On the whole, Haplin continues, these organizations are extremely happy with the quality of staff, the quality of life and the delivery of service they have found in Ireland. They bring in selected technical experts from the States and then use locally selected personnel to develop and expand the skills base.
These big operators are evidence of success, not just because they stay there but because they can point to significant cost reduction, increased efficiencies, better quality customer service and a real surge in sales which ultimately delivers better returns to shareholders.
Ireland, adds Haplin, offers an appealing package, complete with low taxes. Plus, it works hard to minimize bureaucracy and instead engineer a low-risk, quick start-up, high-performance knowledge economy. "We have a well developed environment for call center and shared services operations, because we have all the basic ingredients in place: the skills and knowledge, the experience and availability of IT-literate and multilingual staff and the global strategic fit that provides facilities for companies to ''follow the sun'' on a 24-hour model."
A Population Increase Bodes Well for Employers.
While Ireland may merit a spot on a company´s short list of potential offshore locations today, what about tomorrow? Will the right talent - and enough of it - be there? According to Dr William Harris, Director General of the Science Foundation of Ireland, the answer is a resounding ''yes.'' "The key element in creating knowledge is intangible assets such as expertise, insight, talent, passion, imagination, and persistence.
"Investing in such abilities, we believe, is the best predictor of success Ireland could have," Harris adds. "Ireland has a wealth of young talent ready to make science and engineering the next great wave of Irish innovation."
Ireland is one of very few European countries with an increase in its population, and approximately 260,000 people, 12.6 per cent of the total workforce, are employed in business services. While the population of workers in other countries is declining - some dramatically - and leading to fears about the availability of workers, Ireland foresees a growing and youthful talent pool on a par with that of the US.
Maggie Stanfield is a business writer based in Edinburgh.
