by frog
Yesterday responses to the ANZ National announcement to send hundreds of call centre jobs offshore to Bangalore focused tightly on the impact of the workers. And rightly so. It was sick day for New Zealand workers with Fisher and Paykel and Tamahine knitwear making similar announcements.
To me the ANZ National announcement is the most challenging of the three. These skilled service jobs were the jobs that we were promised would form the base of our economy when our manufacturing jobs were moved offshore in the 1980s and 1990s. Now we find that these jobs are going overseas too.
But the other aspect of those ANZ National jobs being outsourced is that bank customers will now be giving their bank data to someone who doesn’t work for the bank, but is only subcontracted to the bank.
This is the first significant attempt by one of New Zealand’s major banks to swap its experienced, loyal, internal staff for an overseas working culture over which it has little control.
As the Gossip noted 15 months ago ANZ’s board chairman Mr Charles Goode told Australians he was committed to keeping its Australian call centres in Australia.
“We understand that our Australian customers prefer to deal with someone at a call centre in Australia and we have committed to maintain all our customer call centres here.”
It’s time that ANZ National afforded the same respect to its New Zealand workers and customers. Instead customers will now be sharing their bank details with Bangalore call centre workers who do not even work for ANZ National.
Published in Economy, Work, & Welfare by frog on Fri, April 18th, 2008
Tags: ANZ National, bangalore, call centre, Charles Goode, Fisher and Paykel, jobs, offshoring, outsourcing, Tamahine Knitwear
on the trolls and those who are unable to keep on topic
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I think the only surprise is that its taken this long for call centre jobs to move out. The Monbiot article you linked to was dated October 21, 2003, and stated If you live in a rich nation in the English-speaking world, and most of your work involves a computer or a telephone, don’t expect to have a job in five years’ time. So five years is six months away. One could argue that ANZ are slow on the uptake.
Perhaps this is a sign that banking in NZ is becoming more competitive…?
I’m an Amex customer, “Member since 94″ it says on the card. Although Platinum Card cardholders still have an 0800 number that links you to what I’ll call First World call centres, Green cardholders were shipped off to Indian support centres years ago. Talked to Dell support lately?
Sometimes I muse that perhaps our schools should teach Gujarati rather than M?ori…
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I thought you would be pleased with these job losses. It wasnt so long ago that you were railing against the ANZ/National because of their association with companies doing logging in Indonesia. Seems like your campaign might have been successful as the Bank is obviuosly hurting.
Sometimes you should be careful what you wish for.
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Dear Roman,
The banks are hurting because of their own irresponsible speculative behaviour. The only reason ANZ dumps its workers over here, is because they don’t need them here any more. With the coming economical collapse which will follow the collapse of the Financial System there won’t be a lot of banking transactions done here. Be prepared to see banks such as ANZ to close a lot of its offices in the next year or two.
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Roman: I take it your comment is to travellerev rather than me, as it reads in the blog, for some peculiar reason…
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I’m not sure it is hurting that much. It announced a $1 billion profit in NZ last financial year. As the bank workers’ union, Finsec, [pdf link] says:
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I’d be interested to know how the sums were done for these moves offshore, but more especially in the suppositions that were used regarding conditions in these locations.
While I can see that F&P moving to Mexico may move its manufacturing closer to the US, the US economy is hurting, as is Mexico, and the Dom Post recently had an article regarding drug wars and street fighting in Mexico, not to mention that Mexico’s main source of revenue the Cantrell oilfield is depleting rapidly..
As for ANZ National to Bengaluru…India is already having Marxist insurrection, Muslim/Hindu sectarian violence and terrorism; and food riots are highly likely as rice prices rise..so again in a year or 2 this may not look like such a smart move.
As for relocating to China, when your communication and transportation lines are now 5,000 miles long and transport costs are increasing, this may look like a bad move very soon too…
Not that I want to be a Cassandra, but I am concerned that basing these moves offshore solely on the bottom line may well come back and bite these companies on the proverbial.
Another question that should be asked regarding these factories is where does the production equipment itself go..if these companies ever need to re-open NZ operations or (God forbid) we are cut off from outside supply, then it may be rather difficult to do if all this equipment has been scrapped. We could well in future face the need to rebuild our basic manufacturing and it could prove to be impossible. (For example what happened to the equipment used to produce glass milk bottles?..even if we made the environmentally friendly decision to revert to glass bottles we may not be able).
Oh, yes, and the DomPost also had an article about Japanese stores running out of stocks of butter…an ilustration of how vulnerable long supply lines for imported food and feedstock can be…(oh well, perhaps Fonterra can profit from this at least)
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Outsourcing to India does not work (long term). The costs in India are fast approaching our levels. So it’s only a question of time until call centres and other outsourced infrastructure will move back. Never mind that the loss of customers will force the hand of the banks in the process.
What security of data is concerned have a closer look at IT outsourcing to India and other countries. I am convinced that personal data will shift to those countries for testing if not day to day work. Never mind the security issues with developing software in those countries.
IT outsourcing has been going on for years and nobody’s really picked up on it. We stopped banks outsourcing to Australia but that does not seem to be the case for India….
We’re already seeing IT projects coming back because “India” doesn’t work as it was expected. Lots of money lost and lots of cost to fix it now.
Also have a close look at what government and their outsourcing companies are doing. Especially the big multi-nationals. There’s lots of things that happen cross border that probably shouldn’t. Sometimes probably without the know how of government….
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Are these REALLY “skilled service jobs”?? I would guess…not. Call centres are the sort of jobs a student would do over the holidays, and perhaps part time, not something they would aspire to after leaving university. Semi-skilled perhaps…
Roman’s comment would seem to indicate that people are using ANZ less, and things are so bad that they have to move overseas…all over investing in some logging companies in Indonesia? ‘Profits up 76%’ I don’t think so. What would make the greens happy would be the cessation of support for those logging companies, not lay-offs!
Incidentally, there is so much staff turnover every year (the news said about 800 jobs a year) that they will be moved to different jobs within the bank. Not too shabby?
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Why would they ‘move back’ Oliver? Why not go somewhere cheaper?
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the jobs are unskilled in the sense that any literate person can be trained to do it, but banks seem to have been aiming for a “classy” atmosphere by setting a requirement of tertiary degrees for recruitment. not quite pizza delivery driving, but still overkill.
stephenr, did the bank say that about moving them to different jobs within the bank? or are you speculating?
as for the impact on customers, terrible. you’ll be speaking to people who supposedly speak english, an immensely frustrating experience when you’re having a complicated problem (or even one which doesn’t need to be complicated).
apparently they train them to act as if they’re in the country they’re dealing with – at the bottom of their computer screen there’ll be a news feed telling them about the weather, sports results etc in the locality of the person they’re speaking to so they can go “how bout those crusaders huh?” etc. phony phony phony.
where possible customers should resolve to deal with branches, it’s the only thing we can do
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Not speculating, it was on 3 news last night. I’m not sure if the quote was directly from a banker, or the news just reported it as coming from the bank.
You’d be right about the ‘training’ – there have incidentally been 2 movies on the subject ‘John & Jane’ and ‘Outsourced’. Quite funny apparently.
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The indians are trained to understand the American accent how are they going to handle the New Zealand one. I’ve been living in the US for 6 years and people here still can’t understand me when i call customer support.
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You guys are complaining about bank call center jobs try the xray’s from your local hospital which are outsourced to the other side of world for reading. My friend in NZ came off his mountain bike and hurt his neck he went to the hospital and they did an x-ray and set it off to the other side of the world where they didn’t pick up on his broken neck. He went home and two days latter got a call from the hospital telling him to sit down and not to move as an ambulance was on the way to take him to the hospital, turns out one of these guys on the other side of the world had re-read his xray and discovered that he had a broken neck after all.
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Having x-rays interpreted by someone on the other side of the world might actually get a better result, if they are appropriately qualified and experienced. By the time the accident has happened, the patient got to hospital, processed and x-rayed, there is a good chance that it is outside the normal 9am-5pm hours. Would you rather the x-ray was read by someone working normal hours or a shift worker suffering from sleep disruption and overload? The interpretation of the x-ray doesn’t change much from country to country, so it is only a question of whether the result can be communicated accurately, and that is probably emailed rather than spoken.
New Zealand specialists can probably return the favour during our day/their night.
Trevor.
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Moving production to China doesn’t always lengthen the supply chain. Most components used in electronics are sourced from Asia anyway – including cases and circuit boards – and New Zealand exporters are exporting much of their product to American or European markets which can have shorter delivery lines from China than from New Zealand. If the device being manufactured is only a sub-assembly, then the purchaser may be combining it into the final product in China anyway.
Trevor.
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One of the problems for Fisher and Paykel is that our dollar is too high. And our dollar is too high because dairy farming is so profitable. If we charged the dairy farmers for the net greenhouse gas emissions they produce and the kyoto credits they cost the country as a result, their cost structure would be higher, the dollar would be lower and Fisher and Paykel would be more profitable.
Greenhouse gas emissions by dairy farming didn’t cause the problem for Fisher and Paykel, but it’s a happy coincidence that charging dairy farmers for the cost of the Kyoto credits the country is buying for them would make things better for manufacturers like Fisher and Paykel (and probably Tamahine Knitwear, the timber industry and lots of other exporters).
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Does anyone take the emission trading thing seriously? Is China joining in? Will greedy people manage to turn it into a rort? Will there be free emissions for smokers and log-burner owners????
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F&P decision tip of iceberg
Apr 18, 2008 6:40 AM
An economist says Fisher and Paykel’s decision to close its Mosgiel plant is a sign of things to come.
The company has announced plans to move its operations to sites in Mexico, Thailand and Italy, with the loss of 430 jobs.
BNZ Chief Economist Tony Alexander is pointing the finger at high labour costs and government legislation. He says a number of manufacturers have indicated in the past that decisions to move offshore are something they look at on an ongoing basis.
http://tvnz.co.nz/view/page/410965/1722395
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So much for building motorways to keep F&P happy.
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kahikatea, I thought the only thing currency speculators took into account was the profitability of governments. Something that Cullen appears to be well aware of judging by the “drug addict in denial” flavour of his response to the multitude of major manufacturers moving offshore in the last six years.
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kahikatea: the trouble F&P face is that the value they (and similar manufacturers) add to their raw materials is largely through the labour of man. In the global environment that is a battle they cannot win, as there are countries where the labour of man is valued far less than NZ, or America, or much of Europe. We aren’t the first country in the world that has lost manufacturing offshore for this very reason.
You could even say this is a measure of success of F&P (the company) as they no longer need nor care about NZ, as they are a successful international manufacturer.
Our dollar is high because in a world of low (and dropping) interest rates, NZs high interest rates give our currency perceived value.
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yep. what do you suppose would happen if the price of dairy went up & the dollar went down as a result? the reserve bank would see it as inflationary & would raise interest rates again.
exporters have a hostile environment because of government policy.
and the wages thing.
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Granted this is an old article but there are some fundamental factual mistakes in it and I think it’s fair that they should be pointed out.
Firstly ANZ National in New Zealand is not offshoring call centre staff; only back-office roles will head to Bangalore.
ANZ National customers will have no interaction with staff in India at any time; all customer contact will be performed by staff within New Zealand.
Secondly, the staff will be employed by ANZ in Bangalore – ANZ National has had a very successfully presence in Bangalore for over 15 years now – and all of the staff in Bangalore are employed by ANZ National.
As a result ANZ National customers financial information will not be handed to a 3rd party sub-contractor, it will continue to be safely in the hands of ANZ staff.
ANZ National’s well established working culture in Bangalore has proven over many years to be beneficial to the ANZ customers by way of lower costs, improving operational hours and subsequently the product portfolio. India has substantial expertise and is not constrained by some of the resourcing issues faced in New Zealand – leveraging off of that benefit is also good for business, and ANZ’s customers to boot.
I agree there are issues with offshoring for our economy, but not perhaps for individual businesses and their customers, who arguably benefit from offshoring.
New Zealand’s economy needs to change substantially to make offshoring unattractive, and that is many years off when you look at the current state of the global economy.
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