Powergen close their Indian Contact Centres – Has the Indian Contact Centre bubble burst?

Without doubt the most significant news to break this week was Powergen’s decision to close their Indian based contact centres and bring them back to Blighty.

Powergen’s Managing Director Nick Horler commented “Offshore contact centres may have their place for certain industries. However, we believe that we can best achieve industry-leading customer service by operating solely in the UK. When customers contact us they need to be confident that their query will be fully resolved quickly. Although the cost of overseas outsourcing can be low, we’re simply not prepared to achieve savings at the risk or expense of customer satisfaction”.

But does this signal the end of the Indian Contact Centre Industry as we know it? Talk to Powergen and Apple and the answer would be Yes – talk to IBM, who recently invested $6m in their Indian contact centre operation, and the answer would probably be an emphatic NO.

Reaction to the news breaking has, as one would expect, differ greatly depending on what side of the world you contact.

From an Indian prospective a spokesman from NASCCOM said that Powergen’s decision was simply a ‘blip’ citing that the work inflow to Indian contact centres is still gaining momentum. In addition, Devashish Ghosh, COO, Wipro BPO, commented “The advantages of having operations in India far outweigh the disadvantages.???

read the full opinion here:
http://www.contact-centres.com/newsletter.23.06.06.htm