Virus upends outsourcing as firms ‘reshore’, embrace AI

MUMBAI: Coronavirus is permanently shaking up the global outsourcing industry as lockdowns from Bangalore to Manila prompt firms to “reshore” jobs and, with AI, to move further away from needing humans at all. Restrictions on normal activity in these countries and others have created a logistical nightmare for the managers of call centres and other back-office operations for foreign corporations. Having their staff work from home is difficult because of rules governing the handling of sensitive material such as financial transactions for bank customers from Scotland to San Francisco. Also, many workers in places like India and the Philippines live in crowded housing with poor-quality broadband, while some firms do not have enough equipment like laptops to provide to employees. “The outsourcing industry doesn´t lend itself to working from home,” consultant Vivek Sood, author of “Outsourcing 3.0”, told AFP. “We are talking about companies which used to ask employees to leave even their pens and pencils outside the office because of security concerns.”

Desperate to stay operational, some firms have resorted to having staff live at their place of work. Vodafone India, for example, says it has “organised temporary stay arrangements at our data centre locations, (and) made food and groceries available at critical locations”. Similar practices by others have sparked the ire of trade unions. Mylene Cabalona, president of the Business Process Outsourcing Industry Employees´ Network (BIEN), told AFP the union had received reports of some workers “effectively quarantined and locked down in their offices”. The Financial Times in early April published photos that it said appeared to show workers sleeping on the floor of a call centre in the Philippines, living in what they described as “subhuman” conditions.

Anthony Esguerra, who works at a Manila firm handling data for a Chinese online gaming company, admitted that 80 percent of its operations were disrupted. “The workflow of processing players´ requests really slowed down, since our internet access was limited compared to when we were working at the office,” he told AFP.