Call centres face hurdles

IT professionals work at a call centre in Dhaka. The nascent call centre industry runs into policy hurdles and a crunch of skilled people. Photo: ELECTROPAC Md Hasan

The nascent call centre industry is facing policy hurdles and a shortage of skilled human resources that are posing a threat to nip the promising industry in the bud.

Only seven out of 300 call centre licence holders in the country are inching towards grabbing a share of the $450 billion global market.

The remaining licence holders are in a dilemma, as they go round in circles trying to figure out how they can transfer calls to end users by using the international internet lease line providers.

Industry insiders said as per the call centre policy, to transfer voice call centres have to pay $4,000 per month on an average for the 2 mbps connection from the global consortiums of International Private Leased Circuit (IPLC).

"Such high expenses are the main obstacle to running call centres in Bangladesh, scarring future growth," said a call centre owner, seeking anonymity because of their reliance on foreign companies.

The call centre policy says connectivity between call centres and overseas clients shall be through IPLC, which can be obtained from authorised submarine cable operators.

The policy also says primarily connectivity would be through the SEA-ME-WE 4 submarine cable. The operator may have backup routes through satellite or VSAT (Very Small Aperture satellite Terminal) until availability of the alternate submarine cable(s).

Therefore, all call centre voice or data should be routed through the Bangladesh Telecommunications Company Limited (BTCL)-owned IPLC and then foreign IPLC.

However call centre businessmen said they have no alternative to going for the IPLC connection as the VSAT rent is very high.

The new call centre owners suggested opening up voice through internet. They also urged the government to open up the voice over internet protocol (VoIP).

But in Bangladesh VoIP is still illegal. Call centre businessmen said they should not suffer due to illegal business practices.

"If the telecom watchdog wants, it can monitor all call centre calling lists on a day-to-day basis, " said Salman Karim, director of Electropac Industries Ltd, a call centre with a capacity of 54 seats in Dhaka.

Karim, who handles two clients from UK and the US, said there is scope for Bangladesh to make a mark in the call centre market. But a dearth of high quality manpower is another major impediment to the industry.

Since the advent of call centre licences, several call centre training centres have sprouted.

"Despite training centres, we are unable to recruit skilled human resources,” said Karim.

Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) started to issue call centre licences in April last year. Along with local entrepreneurs, non-resident Bangladeshis also came forward to set up call centres that require comparatively low investment.

Bangladesh's call centres presently outsource services for various companies mainly from the US, Canada and the UK.

The global recession has taken a toll on the call centre industry worldwide. However, this proves to be an opportunity for Bangladesh.

“We were awarded the UK-based company's contract as an outcome of the recession,” said Karim. His company handles the loan promotion activities of the UK-based company.

Industry insiders said the Indian call centre industry boomed mainly after the withdrawal of the mandatory IPLC use.

"If call centre owners are permitted to use internet voice through internet connection from local internet service providers, the problem can be solved," said a call centre licensee, who is getting ready to launch his venture soon.

He said BTCL recently cut its bandwidth prices by more than 60 percent. But it ultimately does not help the call centre owners, as the foreign IPLC owners charge hefty amounts.

A call centre is a physical place where customer and other telephone calls are handled by an organisation, usually with some amount of computer automation. Typically, a call centre has the ability to handle a considerable volume of calls at the same time, to screen calls and forward them to someone qualified to handle them, and to log calls.

The typical call centre reports a total turnover rate of 20 percent per year. However, there is great variation in turnover, ranging from a low of 4 percent in Austria to 40 percent in India, said a report by the Global Call Centre Research Network.

The report said call centre sales growth averages 10 percent per year. However, the study shows that sales growth in India was 89 percent, Brazil 38 percent and in Poland 23 percent in 2007.

hasan@thedailystar.net