HP To Expand Costa Rica Call-Centre Operation,
by Leroy Baker, for LawandTax-News.com

US computer firm Hewlett Packard recently announced a major expansion of its call-centre operation in Costa Rica, which already employs 3,300 staff.

HP handles IT support, payroll and accounting services for its clients, which include Proctor & Gamble, with a us$3 billion contract. The call-centre can work in English, Spanish and French. HP expects staff levels to double

The company will construct a new building to house the expanded work-force, which already handles 70,000 support calls a day.

HP has been consolidating its own service centres under new CEO Mark Hurd, announcing plans to concentrate 85 data centres into just six locations.

The company recently sponsored a report from London's Economist Intelligence Unit which says that the future of offshoring is not the destructive race to the bottom lamented by so many commentators, but a search for the right skills at the right price.

'The new face of offshoring: closer to home?' says that locations closer to home - 'nearshoring' operations in Central and Eastern Europe and North Africa - will be a key focus of expansion, especially for companies based in Europe.

The report asserts that the most important development in offshoring is not the drive for ever-lower costs, but the emergence of diverse new locations that support more sophisticated offshoring requirements.

"As costs rise in nearshoring locations like the Czech Republic and Hungary, some expect them to become just a footnote in the broader history of offshoring," says Delia Meth-Cohn, Senior Consultant, Economist Intelligence Unit. "But demand is increasing for more complex capabilities and a closer linguistic and cultural fit with customers-that makes lower-cost European locations very competitive alongside global centres in India and China."

The conclusions of the report are based on in-depth interviews conducted by the Economist Intelligence Unit with senior executives, responsible for managing shared-service and outsourcing centres in the EMEA region and beyond.