5 years ago... Moss Side call centre creates 500 jobs

14.05.99: Plans have been revealed for a £9m call centre and hotel complex to be built in Moss Side, Manchester, creating around 500 jobs.

The project is still waiting for planning permission and there are no details as yet of which companies will work in the call centre operation, but the hotel and conferencing facilities will be managed by the US-based company Howard Jones Group.

14.05.04: For Moss Side, read Mumbai. India is very much 'where it's at' now for call centre operations and realistically given choice between the two a lot of workers would probably quite gladly opt for Mumbai.

However, the move to offshoring has been dogged by concerns over quality of service and a loss of jobs in the domestic market. Companies which are based in the UK and which rely on UK customers have been accused of turning their backs on UK workers - and many don't like it.

And while there is definitely a strong business case behind offshoring some of these concerns are understandable especially when expressed with reason and consideration of all the issues.

However, there is also a knee-jerk reaction which represents the uglier side of nationalism. Comments about the ability of Indian staff to carry out job often border on the racist and many in the UK have done themselves a disservice getting dragged into arguments along these lines.

More promising in terms of quality of service is the fact that long-term things will improve. Once teething problems are overcome the quality of the service should be as good as it ever was in the UK - and that owes much to motivation.

Call centre staff in India are relatively very well paid and want the jobs. In the UK the call centre job had become synonymous with a lack of motivation - the lowest of the low - phone monkeys working for peanuts.

A lot of call centre staff who lose their jobs to overseas workers will probably only have themselves to blame - but that's never as easy as blaming 'the Indians'.