Call Center Services

The Next Wave: Multilingual Call CentersEuropean population and Bangalore based Msource
Call centers catering to the English speakinghas set up a Spanish languagecall center in Tijuana
audience have been around for a while. While the( Mexico). HTMT has announced plans to set up a
market for Englishcall center in Mauritius to take advantageof the
Call centers is growing, the next wave ofFrench speaking population there. Companies like
multilingual call center outsourcing is arriving fromICICI OneSource, Progeon, Daksh eServices and
keynon-English-speaking markets like Canada,Tecnovate now offer some services in French
Japan, Germany, France, Netherlands and Italy.and German while iGate offers services in
The need for multilingual call centersJapanese, Mandarin,
With the expansion of the European Union withItalian and some South East Asian languages.
countries like Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Estonia,Promoting non english call center outsourcing in
Hungary,India
Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, the Slovak RepublicOne problem that India may face is the availability
and Slovenia joining the IT revolution and manyof non- English speakers. In India, though students
likeoften studyforeign languages like Spanish, French
Bulgaria, Romania and Turkey anticipated to joinand German, not many can speak such foreign
by 2007, there is a growing demand forlanguages fluently. In a noteprepared by the HRD
pan-European call centerswhich will operate notMinistry in association with the Indian BPO
just in English but in many languages notablyindustry, there is a realization for a need toimpart
German, French as well as Spanish,non-English language skills. With the increasing
Scandinavian and East European languages. In thedemand, such courses may soon be offered by
US too, with more people speaking differentIndian
languagesespecially Spanish, there is a demand forEducational Institutions. Tamil Nadu (a state in
bilingual and multilingual call centers to cater to thisSouthern India) has already indicated that it
segment of thepopulation.intends to create anenabling environment for
The Next Waveteaching of languages other than English.
According to Gartner, while the overall BPOKarnataka (another state in Southern India)
market is expected to grow to $173 billion byhasindicated in its IT policy that it will take
2007, a bulk of thisgrowth will come frommeasures to promote non-English businesses in
Western Europe rather than North America. Thethe state.
European BPO market alone is expected togrowAnother unique solution is slowly emerging. With
to $65 billion in 2005.the growing awareness about India, there are a
A recent report in the Financial Express statedlot of young peopleabroad, who would like to
that a number of German and French companiesspend time in India and would like to take up a
are seekingmultilingual call center outsourcing, forjob while they are here. They are providinga
both voice and non-voice based services. Theready stream of agents for bilingual and multilingual
report estimates that thecall centers.
French and German market could potentially growGiven the cost benefits, the non-English market is
to between 5% and 7% of the English speakingseeking out Indian companies as potential vendors.
market.With the
Outsourcing multilingual call centers to IndiaIndian government taking initiatives to teach
Indian companies have begun to recognize thenon-English skills, it is only matter of time, before
potential for multilingual call center outsourcing.India becomes amajor player in the bilingual and
HCL is setting up acall center in Ireland for a panmultilingual call center outsourcing segment.