Source: http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/amex-to-end-outsourcing-local-calls/2008/04/09/1207420493860.html

CALL centre operators in India or the Philippines will no longer field queries from American Express customers in Australia.

Credit card giant American Express will once again service all Australian calls locally, and has created 150 new call centre jobs in Melbourne and Sydney to do so.

Luisa Megale, the head of Public Affairs at American Express, said the company started to outsource Australian calls to their centres in Mumbai, India, and Manila, the Philippines, four years ago. She said the decision to reverse offshore outsourcing centred on customers’ calls becoming more complex and requiring local knowledge. “The reason we did it was because our card members have totally shifted the way they work with us,” she said.

Ms Megale said that as consumers grew more technologically savvy in recent years, more simple inquiries were being answered through the company’s website. As a result, most inquiries put to call centre operators were complicated, she said. “The calls we were getting to our call centres were multifaceted and really quite complex … some required local knowledge and just the depth and length of the calls meant it was probably better for us to service our customers locally,” she said. “It was right for the business then and the decision to bring the call volumes back is right for our business and our customers now.”

Ms Megale said that no jobs were lost in the company’s call centres in Mumbai, India, and in Manila, the Philippines. But she said over the past two months more than 80 new jobs were created in Melbourne and 70 jobs in Newcastle.

Finance Sector Union director Rod Masson welcomed the company’s decision to end offshore outsourcing. “We think it’s a good decision that stems from the wish to have people locally to deal with complex financial issues. I would think it is likely to be in direct response to what Australian consumers want.”

Source:http://www.televisionpoint.com/news2008/newsfullstory.php?id=1209010453

The decks have been cleared for the proposed Digital Entertainment City, the world-class facility designed to train animation professionals in Hyderabad.

The government will finalise the partner in the special purpose vehicle (SPV) designed to initiate the Digital Entertainment City in a few weeks. Four animation training schools - Picaso, Toonz, Crux and Taksha Academy, are in the race to set up an animation training academy in Hyderabad, according to IT secretary SK Joshi. While Picaso has a tie-up with Canada based Centennial College, Taksha has an association with University of Teesside, UK.

An SPV, Hyderabad Digital Media, has been launched to create the animation city in Hyderabad. The government is looking for an Indian animation company with foreign collaboration to be a leading partner in the project.

“We are selective about the partner and we will finalise a company with foreign collaboration in the coming 10 days. We want industry players to be part of the venture and not third party companies such as real estate developers,” Joshi said.

The government will take the equity partnership for the allocated land and the rest will be borne by the leading partner and other animation companies who wish to join in the project. The total outlay of the project will be about Rs 400 crore.

The 100-acre Entertainment City will house world-class infrastructure to encourage animation, gaming, television, film, multimedia, radio, music and new media. The city will also have a Digital Entertainment City Task Force (DECTF), comprising industry leaders and state government representatives.

According to estimates, a training institute with 100 animation and gaming work stations would cost around Rs 50 crore. India has around four such institutes — including the ones managed by Infosys and DQ Entertainment. However, this is reckoned to be expensive by many institutes and IT firms.

Several IT companies that are executing offshore animation and gaming projects are interested in partnering in the animation city. Featuring in this list are Wipro, DQ Entertainment, FX Labs and 7Seas Technologies.

At present, there is a huge shortage of trained professionals in animation and gaming in India. According to a Nasscom study, India will need over 3 lakh professionals in content development and animation segment by 2008 to cope with the growing demand. At present, there are only 12,000 people available in this industry.

The animation market in India is estimated at $285 million at present and is expected to touch $1 billion by 2010. This, coupled with low overhead costs, is making India a hub for outsourcing of post production work. The industry apprehensions are that a surge in demand coupled with talent crunch will lead to huge manpower costs, taking away the cost advantage that India enjoys in this segment.

According to the CII-AT Kearney study, the total cost of making a full length movie in India is around $15-25 million compared to $100-125 million in the US.