PAXATO, part of SOFTWIN Group - Cum se fac bani zicand “alo” in limbi straine

Romania tends to become a new India for the foreign companies that choose to outsource their customer relationship services. The low costs, the language abilities and the West geographical proximity are Romania’s main advantages.

In a flat from the central area of Bucharest, several young people sitting in front of their computers are hastily writing messages. At a first sight, you might believe they’re chatting with their friends. In fact, their messages are answers for the inquiries sent by the clients of a virtual shop from UK, and the flat is a Call Center.

Such activities gain more and more interest in Romania, which has become in the last 3 years the favorite outsourcing destination for many occidental companies preoccupied by the costs lowering. For the western European and USA companies, selling their products or services from a location situated thousand of kilometers away is much more profitable due to the cost pressure.

India, Philippines and China are locations in which outsourcing the customer relationship and sales services has registered a veritable economical boom. In the beginning, the western clients appreciated the fact that in India they could find English speakers with much more lower labor cost than in USA, England or Canada.

Nevertheless, during the last years the market’s standards became more and more exigent and the low cost criteria lost its exclusivity. It became obvious that neither all the Indian operators are flawless English speakers nor the infrastructure has always the best quality level. Gradually, the multinational companies turned their look to the Eastern Europe, realizing that they could obtain a higher profit due to the high quality labor force and the geographical proximity.

The Romanian companies took immediate advantage of this opportunity. Schnecker van Wyk&Pearson is one of the companies for which outsourcing represents a long-term business. “Comparing to India, Romania offers a triple cost reduction”, says Marian Vasile, company’s IT manager. There are appreciatively 200 operators working in the four call centers opened in Sibiu, Brasov, Timisoara and Bucharest. Their daily activity is called in professional terms telemarketing. More exactly, the operators call from Romania potential German clients to whom they offer newspaper subscriptions, lottery tickets or insurances. And they all speak flawless German, so that the person who receives the call is not even noticing that his / her interlocutor is a Romanian and is located thousands of miles away.

Moreover to the linguistic abilities and the cultural and geographical approach to the West, Romanians are also competitive due to the labor costs.
“For example, an USA operator requires 2.000$ expenses while for a Romanian the average is around 500$”, explains Marian Vasile. Plus, most of the employees are students. Considering that the business proved to be profitable, the company is planning to open in a short time a call center for the USA clients, and in no more than 4 months another two workstations for the UK and Australia.

Otherwise, the antivirus soft producer SOFTWIN also focuses on the potential of this segment of services. Nevertheless, the company of Florin Talpes had opened in 2000 at Bucharest the largest Web Call Center from the Central and Eastern Europe. Presently, the 230 operators working in the Bucharest and Galati centers answer via chat or email to the client’s technical inquiries or for large French companies. One of the company’s most important clients is the Internet provider Wanadoo. Among the services provided by SOFTWIN is the web search assistance, requested by the Wanadoo subscribers. The latter indicates a keyword, as the Romanian operator is doing all the web research work.

Outsourcing’s high development is also demonstrated by the fact that a large number of players penetrate the market, many of them lacking any financial force and starting their business from 0, based only on contracts established on the Internet.
Three young people from Bucharest, age between 23 and 29 recently penetrated the branch with a 20.000 $ investment. For the moment they have 6 employees and they offer chat assistance services for UK online shops.
They hope that in three years they will reach over 1 billion dollars incomes.

The general opinion of the market observers is that Romania will be more and more regarded as a profitable option for the occidental companies who take in consideration the possibility of outsourcing their customer relationship and sales departments. Even though India will remain on the first position, the eastern European countries will definitely represent a serious competitor.

The source of a Call Center’s profit:
• The clients may be state lotteries, media companies, insurance companies, Internet providers, tourism agencies, or online shops.
• The Romanian company that signs an outsourcing contract receives for its services a sales commission
• In Romania this type of business developed after the phone market reforming, which led to lower costs for international calls.
• At Schnecker van Wyk&Pearson, an operator works for 200 euros per month and its average wage is 250 euro.

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