Dell to Hire 5,000 People in India

AP ^ | 1-30-06 | RAJESH MAHAPATRA

[Fawn]

Computer maker Dell Inc. said Monday it planned to add 5,000 jobs in India over the next two years, bringing its work force in the country to 15,000.

"Dell is also looking to set up a manufacturing center in India, a move that could help boost the sale of Dell computers here, President and CEO Kevin Rollins told reporters after a meeting with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

The Round Rock, Texas-based company will hire 700 to 1,000 workers for a new call center in Gurgaon, a satellite town of the capital, New Delhi, Rollins said. The new call center, the company's fourth in India, will open in April, he said.

The other new hires will staff call centers in the cities of Bangalore and Hyderabad in southern India and Mohali in the northern state of Punjab. Also this year, the company plans to double the staff at its product testing center in Bangalore, which currently employs 300 engineers, Rollins said.

During his previous visit to India in April last year, Rollins had said Dell would make India a hub for its software development and back-office work.

Currently, the company has three call centers in India, a product testing center for corporate customers and a global software development center. Some 10,000 people are employed at these facilities.

Scores of Western companies have been cutting costs by shifting software development, engineering design and routine office functions to countries such as India, where English-speaking workers are plentiful and wages are low.

But Rollins said his company's expansion plans were not limited to tapping the talent, but also benefit from the growing demand for desktop computers and notebooks.

Dell accounts for less than 4 percent of the 4 million computers sold in India, whereas the company's share in the global market is about 18 percent, he said.

Taxes levied by the Indian government on computers and computer parts are a major factor affecting pricing of Dell products and their sluggish sales here.

A manufacturing facility could help the company boost its presence in India, where computer sales are expected to increase to 10 million annually over the next three to five years.

"We have come to the conclusion that time is ripe to consider a manufacturing facility in India," Rollins said. "We want to do it fast," he said, but gave no time frame or investment details.

He said the company was talking to local authorities in several Indian states to identify a site and a decision will be made soon.

Dell currently operates nine plants, six of them outside the United States.

[tonycavanagh]

re :The young woman in India was very professional (if not very technical) and was able to help me diagnose and rectify the problem within a few minutes.

LOL I bet your train always comes on time, your queue always come fast and your lottery ticket always comes up.

I usually get gobbldy gook, have to explain again and again and usually get cut off. :)

[tonycavanagh]

I agree with you, before my last tour in Iraq, I lost my job as a IT developer I was made redundant, the project was outsourced to India.

When I was in Iraq I actually questioned was I fighting to make the world a safer place for India and China.

Back in IT again, but left the reserves want to protect my job.

[oceanview]

if you want to have any kind of meaningful career in the private sector, you had better adjust your plans to stay the hell away from any industries that can use offshore labor. unless you can work yourself into the executive class, or stay in sales, marketing, legal, or carve out a niche in management that the executives don't have earmarked for offshoring.

many service industry jobs pay very well - especially if you can structure yourself to stand in between the wealthy and some thing or some service they want - their mercedes dealer, working at a top hotel or restaurant, etc. of course, you have to be in an area of the country that has wealthy people, to work in these positions. and there is always health care, which is quasi-government employment since so much of the money paying for these services comes from government. of course, there is always real estate and any of the jobs that play off whatever financial bubble happens to be in vogue at the time.

I can't tell you how many young people tell me they want to be teachers. we had better plan on class sizes of 8 kids if we are to employ them all. and many american technical professionals are piling their own kids - into law schools.

[1Old Pro]

I don't care if they hire 10,000 people in India, Iowa or Indonesia JUST TEACH THEM TO SPEAK ENGLISH so they can be understood.

[maineman]

Can't we do something about this? Don't buy a Dell. This is the tip of the iceberg, EVERY major corporation is looking into an Indian based customer service department.

[Toddsterpatriot]

Do you work for Walmart?

No. What union do you belong to?

[oceanview]

they hire them because they work for $15K a year. once EVERY company in the sector offshores, then none of them have any competitive advantage over one and other, and they all get the cost savings. that's the goal. so Dell offshores, what are you going to do, buy an HP? guess what, they offshored tech support to. AMEX offshores, try VISA - oops, so did they.

there is no place to run to.

[OB1kNOb]

I purchased $150,000 worth of Dell computers in 2005. I have another $150,000 to purchase computers -- needless to say, it won't be spent on Dell computers..

If you have the opportunity, be sure and tell Dell just what you said. The company I work has bought many many Dells for a number of years. The Dell I have now, I got in late 2003 and in the first six months it blew two motherboards and a harddrive. It blew its third motherboard four weeks ago. I would not risk my own money to buy a Dell anymore.

[brownsfan]

"Back in IT again, but left the reserves want to protect my job."

That's really sad. Does it irritate you to read the posts here from business owners or free traders when they get darn near giddy about outsourcing to India and China?

[commonerX]

"""Can't we do something about this?"""

Pay American workers what they pay the Indians workers.

Problem solved

[William Terrell]

Then you must also be opposed to US companies selling their products overseas?

Let me clarify my position by going back to simple basics.

In a country there are a lot of people. These people need to have certain things to live in some quality of life: clothing, footwear, transportation, food, shelter. They also want certain things to improve their quality of life: entertainment, creative outlets like hobbies, specific forms of the above 5 that are slicker and nicer than the dirt basic forms of those things.

In order to get these things, the people have to produce them, either make them themselves for their own use (spin flax and weave it into cloth, make foot wrappings out of a tough material like leather, build a wagon and train a draft animal to pull it or engineer an alternative vehicle, grow gardens and hunt, build a house or log cabin), or dedicate their time to making lots of one thing and trade to others for something the other devote their time to making.

In that process, everybody has what they need to live pleasantly because they can trade what they make with others who make something they need. All of this can occur within the confines of one country, and only some raw materials not in that country need be imported from other places.

In America, we can make anything our people need to live comfortably and entertain themselves. We have done it, with some minor exceptions like fruits and cute design of other things we may like to have that is not necessary to life here. We trade these things back and forth and have a high quality of life.

The whole point of trade is to get these things for ourselves, the people of the country. To make the process more efficient we use a medium of exchange that is easy to carry around and give to one another. So, instead of trading 20 chickens for a cow, we can sell the twenty chickens and buy a cow.

Prices don't matter because if you make plenty of compensation for making a thing that others need, you have no problem paying the price that others charge for the things they make that you need. Market forces stabilize that process.

So, give me some reason why we have to mix saliva with Japan, China and Korea? It obviously is not to our advantage because it is currently being proved by simple observation that it is not to our advantage.

[Toddsterpatriot]

It obviously is not to our advantage because it is currently being proved by simple observation that it is not to our advantage.

How's that? I enjoy my goods produced in Japan, China and Korea. I also enjoy my investments in Japan and Korea.

[wolfcreek]

I'm sick of this! When I call for tech service, I can't understand a DAMN thing those guys are saying. It's like having a conversation with a RETARD!

[William Terrell]

I enjoy my goods produced in Japan, China and Korea. I also enjoy my investments in Japan and Korea.

In other words, you like living for the momentary gains, without regard to the future.

Maybe evolution is true, and men descended not from apes but from lemmings.

[Toddsterpatriot]

In other words, you like living for the momentary gains, without regard to the future.

How is my purchase of low priced goods, saving money to be spent on my family, having no regard for the future? How are my profitable foreign investments, reducing current consumption, living for a momentary gain?

[oceanview]

seriously, don't call. when Dell sees that no one is calling to speak with an actual human being - they will fire their Indian call center jockies.

[MD_Willington_1976]

And?

Wages aside, education wise how do they stack up with the average dumb@ss rap star wannabe kid in North America...

I know plenty of Asian Engineers younger than I with degrees from the USA...

[OpusatFR]

You just have to learn to work for less, less benefits and work smarter.

[evangmlw]

Knowing this would disuade me from purchasing a Dell if I were in the market for a new computer. About a year ago I had to deal with GMAC Mortgage and the Customer Service reps in India. After talking with them on several occasions, they simply could not understand my problem. I spoke with Angel, Bob, Dan, Jerry, Sally, and Jane to no avail (all had Indian accents). I had to send a letter to GMAC Mortgage and inform them that I would not send another dime to them through an escrow account in order to get the issue resolved.

Had a similar experience with AOL Customer Service, I do not have AOL as a provider now. Companies moving these jobs overseas are having problems and customers are becoming fed up. I work in the Insurance Customer Service field, U.S. based and hear horror stories from our customer base all the time about how they had to deal with foreign reps -- it can be a nightmare.

[oceanview]

I am so fed up with people calling american engineers and young college bound people "dumb". the engineers who created the internet revolution, the global telecommunications boom, were all americans - all working in the US, through the late 90s. what happened, all of a sudden, just 6 years later, everyone got "dumb", and that's justification for all this offshoring? that's BS, american kids are not going into this field anymore because they don't see career opportunites in it.