Thanks, in part, to higher online self-booking in North America, Siemens Shared Services in November closed its Bangalore call center operation that was servicing travelers in Canada and the United States, placing that work in a Boise, Idaho, center with travel management provider BCD Travel.
The move ended a four-year experience that represented the highest-profile effort by a multinational corporation to service North American corporate travelers from an offshore location. BCD Travel, meanwhile, hired many of the Indian agents (then Siemens employees) who were servicing Siemens travelers, and the travel management company out of its Indian center now provides various processing services for hundreds of clients and voice services for five corporate accounts. BCD still provides after-hours services to Siemens from India.
"In the fall, we tripped over 60 percent online adoption, which meant domestic was about 72 percent and we're now in the high 70s," Siemens Shared Services travel management director Steven Schoen told The Beatlast month. "With every percentage point increase in adoption, the savings opportunities associated with going offshore were diminished. There certainly is cheaper labor, but when your vendor needs to manage an operation halfway around the world, there are costs associated with that."
When former Siemens Shared Services vice president of general services Hanna Murphy launched the program in October 2004, Siemens had achieved 40 percent online adoption, according to Business Travel News. By early 2005, more than 80 agents in India were handling a large portion of Siemens' Canadian and U.S. travel reservations--reducing travelers' incentive to book online, according to BTN.
But online adoption in North America subsequently "took off," despite Siemens' reluctance to mandate it, according to BCD Travel senior vice president of strategic operations Mark Majewski.
BCD's center in India has 185 seats, with 90 filled, Majewski said this month. "We were primarily voice [services] when we started there; now we're about 50-50 voice and processing," he said. "There is not a big migration of business for BCD over there. It's not a thousand jobs or anything."
Part of Murphy's effort had included a comprehensive training program for the Indian agents. While BCD has adopted much of that groundwork, Majewski said training needs were underestimated. BCD Travel now takes twice as long as first expected to train Indian agents, largely because of nuances in language.
" 'I need an SUV, and don't put me on any RJs or props,' " Majewski said, mimicking a U.S. frequent traveler using acronyms and terms potentially unfamiliar to a foreign professional. In addition, he said, "We say all these things in the U.S. that have secondary meanings. So it is a slower training period, but once Indian agents are up to speed, the accuracy is as good or better than among U.S. agents. When it's all said and done, I'm very excited about their energy and commitment."
In addition to Galileo, US Airways and other travel companies that pulled back offshore services for service quality reasons, American Express Business Travel in 2004 ended a partnership in the Philippines--in which an external vendor had handled as much as 20 percent of emergency service calls for Amex clients--and Expedia Corporate Travel in 2006 moved back to the United States some functions that had been handled in India, The Beatreported. Amex and ECT corporate customers were concerned about having U.S. traveler profiles and itineraries displayed on computers outside of the United States.
BCD's Majewski said, "We use screen-shot technology, so we can screen-shot the agent request on the personal computer in India, but the data and data dipping is on the U.S. side. We don't actually ship the data; it's an image."
Nevertheless, "We're never going to force a customer into an environment they don't want to be in," Majewski added. "This is an elective choice. Many have looked at it and decided they don't want to do it. Others have said they want their travelers to experience what their own customers are experiencing. Savings is just the frosting on the cake."