Streets of London

Music

00:00

Corcoran: Another working day in the City of London. Now one of the high streets of the global village where distance and national boundaries are irrelevant.

00:12

Music/Police siren

Corcoran: London is also a multicultural hub that lures people from all corners of the old British Empire. So when a businessman takes a call on his mobile – he doesn’t think twice about the operator’s accent.

00:23

Businessman on phone

Businessman: Hello.

Delhi operator: Good afternoon, my name is Rashmin, are you the main user of this mobile phone?

Businessman: Yes I am.

00:36

Telephone operator

Corcoran: What the customer doesn’t know is that this friendly voice is nearly 7,000 kilometres away in India.

00:43

Streets of London

U.K. consumers have unwittingly joined the inevitable march of globalisation, as big corporations such as British Telecom, British Airways and Citibank move their customer services to India. Bills are paid, tickets booked and assistance sought from someone who has never set foot in the U.K.

00:51

Delhi operator on phone

Delhi operator: Okay, the balance on your account at this moment is £250.

01:12

Corcoran: Operators are trained to gossip about the London weather, the football – pretty much anything – just never, ever admit they’re in India.

Delhi operator: Oh yes I agree the weather is terribly cold out here and especially this time in London.

01:18

Raman Roy

Raman: We don’t tell them – they don’t ask and we don’t tell them.

01:33

British union official

British union official: I think it is misleading if they are trying to hide the fact that their employees are employed in India, and one wonders -- it's questionable actually -- why they feel the need to do that.

01:35

Streets of Delhi

Music

01:44

Corcoran: This is about more than just national pride – at stake are the jobs and locations of the multi billion dollar call centre market – now one of the world’s fastest growing industries.

01:48

Delhi operator

Delhi operator: Since how long have you been using the washing machine? When did you purchase it from the company?

02:00

Raman Roy

Raman Roy: I don’t know of very many other industries that are growing at that pace – the opportunity is huge and mammoth.

02:05

Marching band in Delhi

Music

02:12

Corcoran: Disciples of the Jaan faith parade through the commercial heart of Old Delhi, encouraging others to join them on the righteous path to Nirvana.

02:24

Music

Corcoran: They ignore the signage hinting at great riches at end of another path – the information superhighway. Many of the big dotcoms have since crashed and burnt.

02:42

But in this society that so strongly believes in reincarnation – the “next big thing” is now rising from the cyber wreckage – the Call Centre.

Telephone Operators

Operator: Sure, I could increase your credit balance for you. Is there anything else you want me to help you with?

03:02

Operator 2: So may I take a few minutes of your time please?

Operator 3: Can I please have your name along with your number?

03:06

Call centre

Raman Roy: We answer the 1800 calls that go to companies, we answer them – we initiate calls for telemarketing credit collections, we do accounts processing, we pay bills on behalf of companies.

03:11

Corcoran & Raman Roy in call centre

Corcoran: Raman Roy is the boss of Spectramind – a Delhi-based call centre company. He employs five hundred staff; by the end of the year that will double, servicing corporations in Britain and the U.S. All this - in an industry that didn’t exist five years ago.

03:27

Raman Roy

Raman Roy: So from 1998 at 250 million dollars it is going to go to 17 billion in the year 2008.

Corcoran: And how many people will be employed?

Raman Roy: Definitely in excess of a million.

Corcoran: So from nothing to 17 billion dollars employing one million people in under a decade?

Raman Roy: That’s right.

03:45

Corcoran: A key to India’s burgeoning call centres has been the great leap forward in communications technology.

04:07

Raman Roy with satellite dish

Raman Roy: That is our lifeline – that is the earth station – that dish connects us to the world – points directly to a satellite. We do not rely on the local Indian telecom infrastructure to be able to service our customers – we are totally self reliant. That is one of the modes of contact. This building is connected five different ways to the outside world.

04:16

Streets of Delhi

Corcoran: In a country where it’s an achievement to make a successful local call, an entire industry has now been built upon millions of daily connections to the other side of the planet.

04:46

Raman Roy

Raman Roy: It’s pretty incredible – some of the advanced technologies used all over the world were managed by our fellow countrymen. We’ve now reached a stage where some of them are motivated to come back with their learning and their technology and use it for their country.

04:58

TV variety show on TV

Music

05:14

Spectramind campus

Corcoran: The real secret behind India’s call centre success is its people. Spectramind has a campus feel – not surprising considering everyone here is a recent university graduate.

English speaking, highly motivated and prepared to work for a tenth of the wages of their British counterparts. With around 30% unemployment for graduates, this is regarded as a big career opportunity.

05:34

Corcoran: How many graduates are being turned out by the Indian education system each year – English-speaking graduates?

Raman Roy: Well in excess of a quarter of a million every year. And we do not create enough jobs in this country for the number of people that we churn out today.

05:48

Female Trainee

Female Trainee: All the customers are different, so we get different customers, different kind of perspective they have. So it’s different. We don’t get bored of the same calls – it’s good – it’s good fun.

06:03

Operator

Operator: Sure, it'll be done within 24 hours.

06:14

Corcoran: And while they may speak fluent English, they still have to be tuned to the nuances of their clients.

Operator: All right, so your bill has been overcharged?

06:23

'The Bill' on TV

'The Bill' opening title music

06:24

Policeman: It’s scarpers Sarge – doesn’t seem to be my lucky day – always the bridesmaid –never the bride – that’s me.

Trainees watching TV

Corcoran: This is called cultural education. None of these trainees have ever been to the U.K. let alone Sun Hill – but when they hit the phones they’ll be expected to trade football gossip with the best of them.

06:38

Trainees in classroom

Instructor: What are these? Manchester United, Arsenal and Liverpool? What are these?… Football clubs, yeah. Do you see the picture next to that? Okay, can you identify who it is

Trainee: David Beckham

Instructor: David Beckham. Wonderful. Great. Good job.

06:55

Female Instructor: I may really be a great raving fan of football and I’m very excited about what is happening and I want to discuss it with you, and you only have a very basic knowledge about that – how are you going to handle this situation? This very tricky situation?

07:19

Trainee: I would say that okay, since I have very little knowledge about that, maybe you could just find someone who's really interested in that.

07:39

Female Instructor: What you can actually say is tennis is my favourite game and not football. I'm sure he'll understand that.

07:49

Corcoran: Not only do trainees have to walk the walk of British sport, they’re also expected to talk the talk, knocking the edges off that Delhi accent. In marketing speak this is called “voice neutralisation.”

07:57

Male Instructor: Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers.

[Class repeats]

Male Instructor: Where's the peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked?

[Class repeats -- laughter]

08:14

Corcoran: But it’s fun with a very serious intent. For Indian call centres to succeed in Britain depends on a marketing strategy of deception.

08:26

Instructor The same thing, when you speak too fast over the phone, you're going to lose clients, you'll lose the message you're trying to deliver.

08:35

Girl in class: Like we have Indian accent and we have to speak to those people and we don’t have to let them know like we are calling from India, so we have to speak in that accent and we have to modulate our voices.

08:41

Streets of London

Music

08:52

Call centre

Corcoran: In Britain, more than 400,000 people now work full time in call centres, making it one of the largest employment sectors in the U.K.

09:03

Sarah Veale

Super:

Sarah Veale

Trades Union Congress

Sarah Veale: There's evidence that the sort of people who are attracted to working in call centres in the U.K. are quite often part time women who can fit it in around their family requirements. Also a lot of students work in call centres – students need to get finance to get their way through their course – and again they can work quite unusual hours.

09:13

Call centre

Corcoran: It’s hardly a lucrative career choice. These students and single mums are treated as unskilled labour earning about £12,000 a year.

By comparison their Indian counterparts get only a tenth of that, making it almost impossible for British call centres to compete.

09:35

In a bid to protect jobs, British unions conjure up images of blue chip corporations exploiting sweatshops on the subcontinent.

09:53

Sarah Veale

Sarah Veale: They're often only working there out of desperation, and working conditions can be quite appalling there with very, very long hours and sweat shop conditions. They’re not going to get the kind of dedicated service that the -- well – the better paid staff in the U.K., and the well trained staff are able to offer.

10:04

Streets of Delhi

Music

10:17

Delhi call centre

Operator: Let us tell you about our latest service…

10:29

Corcoran: And this is what the British insist is a sweatshop. Just as Britain lost its textile and steel industries to cheap competition from Asia, the same thing looks set to happen again to the customer service industry. It’s a harsh lesson in the realities of globalisation.

Raman Roy

Super:

Raman Roy

C.E.O Spectramind

Raman Roy: In the real world, boundaries and barriers are disappearing and the service requirements will move to wherever they can be best fulfilled and to an extent we have a role to play and we will play it.

10:50

Operators in transit

Corcoran: These young Delhi call centre operators are from a very different social strata to their British counterparts, who are treated as so much unskilled factory fodder.

They’re on their way to work in a chauffeured company vehicle -- one of the trappings of the middle class to which they belong.

11:08

Much of the India they pass does fit the British image of a sweatshop – but it’s certainly not where they’re headed.

11:26

Delhi Call centre

Shift Leader: Good afternoon everybody – the main news of the U.K., – about the foot and mouth disease that's still happening. It's again a major issue in the U.K. nowadays.

11:34

Corcoran: It's the start of a shift at Spectramind – a briefing for another day of deception.

British and American corporations are extremely sensitive about outsourcing jobs to India – and in many minds the sweatshop tag still sticks.

11:44

We are only permitted to film on the condition we don’t reveal the names of the companies – just as these workers must never let on to the customers that they are in New Delhi.

12:04

Raman Roy

Corcoran: When someone calls in, do they necessarily know that they are speaking to someone in India – is it something you’d tell them?

12:17

Raman Roy: No, we don’t tell them – they don’t ask and we don’t tell them. People who call in want their query resolved – they want the information that they need, and as long as that is handled in an effective and efficient manner that meets their needs.

12:20

Sarah Veale

Sarah Veale: I have some doubts about why they feel that they need to pretend they are not using staff in India. It's probably because they do feel that there'd be accusations of exploitation. There’s a general business ethics view that if possible you should do your business in this country and if that’s where you are making your profits and that’s where your customers are then the whole thing should be kept here.

12:33

Delhi call centre

Corcoran: But there’s more to this business than just a pleasant telephone manner. As part of an equally lucrative call centre spin-off - India is fast becoming what has been dubbed “the back office of the world” -- providing accounting and administrative support for major corporations.

12:56

Raman Roy

Raman Roy: Call centres are just one of the arenas in which we play, and about 40 percent of our business is to do with voice, 60 percent of the business that we do is not voice.

13:14

American Express has established its own back office in India, and many other corporate heavy hitters have followed – but this is perhaps the ultimate in outsourcing.

13:26

A team of 14 scientists hired to work via e-mail on a complex research project for an American company.

13:39

Raman Roy

Raman Roy: Each one of my colleagues here is a PhD in mammalian molecular biology – where we work on genomes and we help create a database which is highly technical.

13:48

Corcoran: And it’s all done for about half the cost of a US- based research team. This kind of project dramatically raises the stakes of the globalisation debate.

For this is not just cheap labour – but a direct threat to the intellectual capital of western universities and research institutes.

14:02

Raman Roy: They are doing things at cutting edge of what research is being done all over the world. They still get to live in their own country, be with their own families and work in the same environment that they would if they were in the United States or the U.K. It’s a win-win.

14:22

Streets of London

Music

14:39

Corcoran: As for the British they’ve already lost the call centre battle before it ever really began. At last count there were 18 Indian companies in London aggressively chasing more British business.

Whether you see it as another example of the evils of globalisation or an opportunity for the developing world – it doesn’t really matter – help is still just a phone call away.

14:47

Credits:

"Call Centres"

Reporter: Mark Corcoran

Camera: Brett Ramsay ACS

Geoff Clegg

John Benes

Editor: Stuart Miller

Research: Alison Rourke

Producer: Ian Altschwager

15:22