Devoted to the call center industry, the agents on the phones, and their managers

The news this week tells of the passing of Peter Drucker at the age of 95. To quote one writer:

Drucker was one of the first to recognize the switch to a knowledge economy, changes in non-profit management, that we should focus on enhancing our strengths vs. correcting weaknesses, that employees were valuable assets and not costs, and and a host of other firsts.

Tom Peters calls him the Father of Modern Management. I know I was influenced by his writings and was one of the early business strategists I ever read.

I have continued to think about SC's comments that I wrote about in my last entry.  In thinking about Drucker and his view on enhancing strengths and focusing on where we can create strong barriers of entry, I think it will be tougher and tougher to maintain a US based call center for many companies.  The comparative advantage of an India or a Philippines or a Costa Rica will be just too great.

Here are some comments around the web about this.  Tell me what you think:

A great review on "What's This India Business? Offshoring, Outsourcing & the Global Services Revolution" by Paul Davies by Donna Vallin. Donna summarizes some of the points of the book:

This book talked about how a company should focus its efforts on what they do best and analyze the parts of their operations that they could outsource to save money. For example, human resource administration, accounting, payroll administration, customer service and, most popular, IT services.

It also explained that the companies that do not participate in this global service revolution will miss out on the competitive advantage through missed cost savings, driven by productivity improvements, as well as lower wage rates, quality services and access to a flexible, dynamic, highly educated workforce.

Here is one about India's future:

I am a firm believer that India will be the "knowledge center" for the world

One about Comparative Advantage of Nations:

By not having to do as much low-grade work (such as basic semiconductor manufacturing or machining bolts that go into Boeing aircraft), Americans can move to jobs of higher value that China, India, et al, could not perform as well. This is Ricardo's principle of comparative advantage. My own blog has a few entries on this and other dynamics of foreign trade, including why it's not a bad thing for jobs to be reallocated among labor-rich nations (like India) and capital-rich nations (like the U.S.). And if Americans won't improve themselves so they can perform superior jobs, perhaps we're not as competitive as we think we are, and we therefore don't deserve our wealth.

Compare the above argument with this US employee's view of outsourcing:

I work in the Information Technology field, I have a number of friends who have had their jobs outsourced to India or China. I am also afraid of seeing my job outsourced. One day I called Dell about my sister's laptop and got a call center in India. When did Americans become unable to work in a call center? My company's help desk is located in Massachusetts, so this is a job Americans can do. I would sincerely love to see corporations punished for moving jobs from the United States to other countries.

On Service vs Accent:

For example, there are call centers in India where people go through language training to match the specific accent of the people from various states where calls are originated.

Well, Citibank's representative that took my call from India didn't exactly have an Ann Arbor accent. Still sounded Indian to me! But he sounded intelligent and the service was great. I have talked to many call center people over the years, but very rarely people on the other side sound like they can do anything beyond the script they've been given.

What do you think the US's Comparative Advantage is?