Nearshoring shores up channel support
Firms look to move call centres to Europe
Nearshoring is becoming increasingly popular as firms look to move their call centres to Europe, rather than the Far East or South Africa, according to analyst firm Datamonitor.
"Companies want to move contact centre positions overseas, but they are reticent to do so because of the sheer distance involved in flying to South Africa, the Philippines or India," said Peter Ryan, CRM analyst at Datamonitor.
"Nearshoring will increase in importance, which is good news for the channel because these centres will need to be multi-modal, capable of handling email and instant messaging as well as phone calls."
Ryan added that having contact centres in eastern Europe is an opportunity for resellers to branch out into other countries, either by partnering with local resellers in countries such as Poland, Romania and the Czech Republic, or buying one outright.
"Having a local presence is vital," he said.
Previously Datamonitor has been sceptical about the impact of offshore contact centres. It claimed Indian call centres represent only 1.5 per cent of the call centre seats contacted from the UK.
Paul Rennuci, managing director of Damovo, which specialises in public-sector call centres, said: "Obviously the UK public sector does not outsource call centres overseas, but there is a move to eastern Europe for firms looking for services at the right price.
"Eastern Europe has a good demographic profile, as well as highly educated and computer- literate people. The expertise and the cost of it is driving this trend."