Posted on 01/30/2006 7:24:12 AM PST by 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.
By HP...most local Best Buys and the like have people that can repair them or assit you with maintenance.
I hear you about the Dells. They've really gone down hill over the last couple of years.
The wife of one of the guys here just got a job there a while back. I'll have to ask him about it.
Opps! You're right!
Goes to show how much good advertising does on me...
it's a joke.
I am all for making computers in India if they are sold in India. I am also against foreigners working here. India sure as Hell wouldn't want Americans in India.
"Having India take calls in the evening (their daytime) makes a lot of sense."
No, it doesn't. Amercians of all types work night shift, including doctors. There is no reason to outsource to foreign nations our personal information that is NOT protected by our laws in foreign nations.
Well...i was on the phone with a person from India....who was working for BEllsouth....and I had to keep asking him to repeat what he was saying. Asked him to slow down....and told him I couldn't understand him. The call was very aggravating.
Now that comment was just....wrong.
"Can't we do something about this?"
In order to do something, you have to see it as a problem. Many, if not most of the people here at FR see this as a good thing. They're business owners and they want labor as low as it can possibly be in cost.
The FR line is that Americans should retrain, or open their own business. For those incapable of starting a business, or the 50 some year old who is losing his job to India... sucks to be you.
And even though capitalism is good, and free trade is fundamentally the best option, this causes people to run to the left, the socialists. Free trade is good, but when it's unrestricted on one side, (ours), then it's not so good.
There are many here who believe that the US should be a totally service/information based economy, manufacturing little or nothing. That was tried in Spain. Didn't work out so well for them.
THe people that work here in our small company have to go back to INdia about one month a year and work with the office we employ over there.....they do this for visa reasons I hear.....I believe we pay for their transportation. Isn't that nice?
It seems almost every Indian I have met over the past 10+ years has no desire to be American. They simply come here for the paycheck, which I find insulting to say that America is nothing but a paycheck.
Just checked with a friend of mine whose wife works there. Here's the scoop:
They want to double their size (~ 200 employees total) within the next 4 yrs.
So - I don't know - maybe 100 programming jobs over a 4 yr period.
Still, no doubt that will make them one of the larger employers of probrammers in this area. Right now the main place arround here for programming jobs is probably Progressive inssurance - and that's obviously not even their main thrust business wise.
You'd be surprised. Europeans too!
Article: "Currently, the [Dell] 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."
It seems to me that AMERICAN working mothers would like to work out of their homes for a computerized call center. By doing so, there are many advantages and savings to justify the low pay.
I worked for a small non-profit in the late 1990s. They had me research and prepare a report on purchasing new computers. I decided on a local company that custom built the machines and provided local support for slightly more than the cost of the Dell machines. Needless to say that my advice was ignored, my report went unread, and the person in charge ordered the Dells. Out of six Dells, two were sent back as defective out of the box. One of the defectives was replaced with a defective.
It goes without saying that being in Hawaii makes Dell's support difficult to take advantage of. Local support is a pay for service. My contract ran out and I didn't renew. I hope they enjoyed the Dells.
If Dell has gone downhill since then, then I feel bad for anybody who has bought a Dell recently.
Uh-oh, I saw the words "new call center"...
I stopped having anything to do with Dell products after I ordered a spare disk drive for my laptop. It shipped without a plastic enclosure case that I needed, which was not in the manual and was clearly a mistake, but to get it I was going to have to pay another round of shipping charges. And I have been in IT for over 20 years and I spent all the time doing the research beforehand to make sure I knew what I was doing.
There's nothing like getting brow-beatin' and told that I am clueless by a know-it-all Indian when I am the customer... You have to experience it for yourself to understand what a unique treasure it is :-) which is why Dell can blow it forever.
There is definitely more that needs to be done to ensure proprietary data is not accessible by people outside the US jurisdiction. However, Indian law enforcement does vigorously purpose malicious, data stealing, perpetrators in India since the government there does not want this to become a problem that will prevent additional off-shoring. For the most part, impersonation crime is committed by Americans against Americans (or at least by people on American soil).
I am getting ready to buy a computer this week ... what is Gateway's policy regarding outsourcing?
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