Call center industry in India
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

The call center industry in
India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...
is a part of India's
business process outsourcing Outsourcing is an agreement in which one company hires another company to be responsible for a planned or existing activity which otherwise is or could be carried out internally, i.e. in-house, and sometimes involves transferring employees and ...
industry.


Centers

A
call center A call centre ( Commonwealth spelling) or call center (American spelling; see spelling differences) is a managed capability that can be centralised or remote that is used for receiving or transmitting a large volume of enquiries by telephone. ...
is an office with the capacity to field many telephone calls for a company. Types of call center work can include customer service and telemarketing. Factors that have made India attractive as a hub of call center work from the US, UK, and Australia include its convenient time zone, low labor costs, and large English-speaking population. The introduction of call center and other business processing work to India picked up in the 1990s as
Fortune 500 The ''Fortune'' 500 is an annual list compiled and published by ''Fortune'' magazine that ranks 500 of the largest United States corporations by total revenue for their respective fiscal years. The list includes publicly held companies, along ...
companies began
offshore outsourcing Outsourcing is an agreement in which one company hires another company to be responsible for a planned or existing activity which otherwise is or could be carried out internally, i.e. in-house, and sometimes involves transferring employees and ...
this work to India.
British Airways British Airways (BA) is the flag carrier airline of the United Kingdom. It is headquartered in London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a populati ...
,
American Express American Express Company (Amex) is an American multinational corporation specialized in payment card services headquartered at 200 Vesey Street in the Battery Park City neighborhood of Lower Manhattan in New York City. The company was found ...
,
AT&T AT&T Inc. is an American multinational telecommunications holding company headquartered at Whitacre Tower in Downtown Dallas, Texas. It is the world's largest telecommunications company by revenue and the third largest provider of mobile tel ...
,
United Airlines United Airlines, Inc. (commonly referred to as United), is a major American airline headquartered at the Willis Tower in Chicago, Illinois.
and
Dell Dell is an American based technology company. It develops, sells, repairs, and supports computers and related products and services. Dell is owned by its parent company, Dell Technologies. Dell sells personal computers (PCs), servers, data ...
are examples of companies that utilize call centers in India. Other countries with comparable call center industries include
Bangladesh Bangladesh (}, ), officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh, is a country in South Asia. It is the eighth-most populous country in the world, with a population exceeding 165 million people in an area of . Bangladesh is among the mos ...
and the Philippines.


Workers

There were approximately 350,000 call center workers in India . Call center workers in India are largely under the age of thirty, unmarried, and college-educated, regardless of gender. Call center work is typically done overnight to accommodate time zones in the US, UK, and Australia, and employees are required to be fluent in English.


Gendered dynamics

Although there are roughly equal numbers of men and women working in the lower levels of the call center industry, scholars analyze gendered dynamics of call center work because of the association of call center work tasks with femininity and feminine traits such as hospitality and empathy. There are also fewer job opportunities for women (see also:
gender inequality in India Gender inequality in India refers to the health, education, economic and political inequalities between men and women in India.
) and the wages of call center jobs are higher relative to other jobs that are open to women. Women in call center work are more likely to consider their jobs as permanent, or as their permanent employment until they marry, whereas men typically view their call center jobs as temporary. There have been many scholars that have studied the gendered impacts of call center work on Indian women. Some of these researchers have claimed that there are ways in which call center work subverts gendered expectations of Indian womanhood, and can thus be in some ways liberating. Many of these scholars point to the opportunity for financial gain or independence. They have also taken into consideration the workplaces themselves as environments where gender norms are subverted, though these environments are still hierarchical with men still more commonly holding leadership positions. Singh and Pandey in their research on the impact of call center work on the health of female call center workers in India found that many young women suffered from ailments such as
indigestion Indigestion, also known as dyspepsia or upset stomach, is a condition of impaired digestion. Symptoms may include upper abdominal fullness, heartburn, nausea, belching, or upper abdominal pain. People may also experience feeling full earlier t ...
,
eye strain Eye strain, also known as asthenopia (from Greek ''a-sthen-opia'', grc, ἀσθενωπία, ), is a common eye condition that manifests through non-specific symptoms such as fatigue, pain in or around the eyes, blurred vision, headache, and ...
,
headache Headache is the symptom of pain in the face, head, or neck. It can occur as a migraine, tension-type headache, or cluster headache. There is an increased risk of depression in those with severe headaches. Headaches can occur as a result ...
, and
sleep disorder A sleep disorder, or somnipathy, is a medical disorder of an individual's sleep patterns. Some sleep disorders are severe enough to interfere with normal physical, mental, social and emotional functioning. Polysomnography and actigraphy are test ...
due to the abnormal hours call center work entails. To adjust to the hours, many workers turned to and subsequently became addicted to caffeine and cigarettes. Various researchers describe the stigma that Indian women experience when they work at night as call center work requires. Being outside of the house at night is not considered respectable for single young Indian women, and thus challenges gendered expectations. Because of this the reputations of young women working in call centers are called into question, which in turn can prevent their families from making any gain in status from their employment.


Criticism

Many customers of the companies using Indian call centers dislike the practice, partly because of the frequent difficulties caused by accent, and partly because of the loss of equivalent employment in their own country. There is also the factor mentioned below that many scam telephone calls originate in India and some customers fail to distinguish them from genuine calls from legitimate Indian call centers. Consequently, some Western companies have now moved their call centers back to their home country. It has become a selling point in advertising for companies to have a home based call center. At the same time there has been a growth in telephone scamming from criminal call centers in India masquerading as legitimate ones of well known companies, usually initiated by a cold call to a potential victim with a claim that there is a problem with their account. Some of the agents at the scam call centers have previously worked at legitimate ones, so have been trained in dealing with customers and their plausibility is increased by their knowing the procedures and operations of the legitimate companies.


Media portrayals

Indian call centres have been the focus of several documentary films, the 2004 film ''Thomas L. Friedman Reporting: The Other Side of Outsourcing'', the 2005 films ''John and Jane'', ''
Nalini by Day, Nancy by Night ''Nalini by Day, Nancy by Night'' is a 2005 documentary film by filmmaker Sonali Gulati. This film explores business process outsourcing in India. Told from the perspective of an Indian living in the United States, the film provides a glimpse i ...
'', and ''1-800-India: Importing a White-Collar Economy'', and the 2006 film ''
Bombay Calling ''Bombay Calling'' is a 2006 feature documentary film directed by Ben Addelman and Samir Mallal. Produced by the National Film Board of Canada which follows the journey of Kaz Lalani the pioneer of Call Centre Outsourcing. ''Bombay Calling'' ...
'', among others. An Indian call centre is also the subject of the 2006 film '' Outsourced'' and a key location in the 2008 film, ''
Slumdog Millionaire ''Slumdog Millionaire'' is a 2008 British drama film that is a loose adaptation of the novel '' Q & A'' (2005) by Indian author Vikas Swarup. It narrates the story of 18-year-old Jamal Malik from the Juhu slums of Mumbai. Starring Dev Patel ...
''.
Chetan Bhagat Chetan Bhagat (born 22 April 1974) is an Indian author, columnist and YouTuber. He was included in Time (magazine), Time magazine's list of Time 100, World's 100 Most Influential People in 2010. Five of his novels have been adapted into films ...
's bestselling book ''
One Night @ the Call Center ''One Night @ the Call Center'' is a novel written by Chetan Bhagat, first published in 2005. The novel revolves around a group of six call center employees working at a call center in Gurgaon, Haryana, India. The themes involve the anxieties an ...
'' is based on call centre employees.


References

{{Reflist Outsourcing in India Industries in India Call center industry by country