- Contributed
Executive Director of JAMPRO with responsibility for Markets, Michael McMorris (right) makes a point to Tim Searcy, executive director of the American Teleservices Association, during the recent staging of the Call Centre Summit of the Americas in Montego Bay.
Erica James-King, Staff Reporter
WESTERN BUREAU:
A GROUP of American information technology specialists is predicting a downward spiral in the call centre sector in Jamaica and other offshore destinations, if certain debilitative legislative policies in the United States are not aggressively resisted by the international information/communication and technology (ICT) industry.
The lobby group for the teleservices industry in the United States American Teleservices Association (ATA) is warning that the 'Do Not Call Registry' which was enacted into law in the United States during October last year; and the current push in the U.S. Congress for a law requiring call centres to indicate upfront to customers where they are located, will stymie growth in the ICT sector. The 'Do Not Call Registry' gives U.S. consumers the right to block calls from telemarketers.
Tim Searcy, executive director and spokesman for ATA is vowing to crank up his organisation's lobby efforts in Washington against state and federal laws and regulations which threaten the survival of offshore outsourcing teleservices.
"The Do not Call List puts about 60 million householders out of reach of commercial telemarketers, but also leaves them to receive calls from charities and politicians. It's a violation of the First Amendment... we are saying that it is illegal," Mr. Searcy, told The Sunday Gleaner in an interview on Wednesday, at Half Moon Hotel. "We'd like consumers to be able to have control over their phones and that it not be regulated and determined by the Government."
The ATA executive director feels the 'Do Not Call' list can hurt up to 70 per cent of all the outbound calls in the telemarketing sector.
OFFSHORE JOBS
Turning his attention to the identification of the location of call centres, Mr. Searcy explains that such a law would undermine the sector, as the view of offshore jobs is not positive among consumers in the U.S. at this time, although it makes good business sense. "If the consumer recognises they are calling off-shore and has the opportunity to choose a domestic partner, they are going to want to choose a domestic partner," Mr. Searcy added.
His concerns come at a time when the surveys done by two management-consulting firms (Deloitte and Touche, and AT Kearney) are showing that US$365 billion worth of transactions will shift offshore over the next five years.
The Deloitte and Touche study reveals that one-third of all major financial institutions in the world are already utilising offshore outsourcing, with 75 per cent reporting that they would be doing so within the next 24 months.
But ATA is warning that the bright prospects could change dramatically, if offshoring res-trictions are not revoked.
Meanwhile, the ATA's lobby in Washington is costing a tidy sum. They have racked up US$3 million just in dealing with the lawsuit against the 'Do Not Call Registry', and the group is indicating that the lobby resistance against the offshore restrictions will run into multi-millions of dollars. Nudging senior executives from the United States, Canada, Latin America and the Caribbean to make their voices be heard on the opposition to the latest legislative developments in the United States, the executive director of the ATA outlined some necessary steps to succeed:
"If you are not involved in the legislative business to lobby for improvement...we are in for dark days," cautioned Mr. Searcy. "If you don't stop the (USA) Government now, we won't have a business."
LAW MAKERS
But the ATA are not the only ones worrying. So too is the Jamaican Government. Technology Minister, Phillip Paulwell, is reiterating his stance for U.S. investors to "strongly resist" the move by law makers to get legislation requiring call centres to indicate to customers where they are located.
Noting that his Ministry has been building an effective lobby comprising those American-based businesses in the call centres here, the Technology Minister further stated in an interview with The Sunday Gleaner on Wednesday: "We have also lobbied other governments in the Caribbean and we have been speaking with the black caucus in the U.S. to get them to recognise that in a competitive global environment, such a move (identification of call centre location) would be against the principles of globalisation."
Meanwhile, JAMPRO is a little bit more optimistic in its views on the offshore restrictions.
IDENTIFICATION LEGISLATION
Julian Robinson, JAMPRO's investment promotion manager feels that after the U.S. election, the drive to have the call centre identification legislation will wane. He feels that going into the U.S. elections there is a lot of emotion and unfounded fears that U.S. jobs will be lost to offshore destinations, and that explains the current thrust to have call centres identify their location to customers. The JAMPRO executive feels "the rational approach will win over the emotive approach", once the U.S. election campaign is out of the way.
"Americans have to find a way to reduce their operational costs in the call centre business, and the only way they can do it is to move offshore," said Mr. Robinson. "So after the U.S. presidential elections is out of the way, we are going to see a more rational debate on the issue."
He noted that while the U.S. lost just over 2.5 million jobs in 2002, it created 34 million jobs between 1992 and 2002. The JAMPRO executive indicates that new job creations in the U.S. exceed by almost 10 to 1, the jobs that the U.S. may lose to offshore outsourcing.
