Dear Tallel, You said it yourself; this is about supply and demand. Let's face it, Call Centers didn't come to Tunisia because Tunisians are extremely special, there is not much grey matter that goes into working at a Call Center (sorry if you work at one and I hurt your feelings). This type of enterprise is merely conducting an arbitrage in international labor cost (some would even talk about arbitrage in tax rates, but that's irrelevant). This is the same phenomena that we saw in the shoe-making and textile industries about 20 years ago (my time frame might be off but you get the general idea), and which by the way generated the same type of hype that the call center industry does today. Looking back at that experience, we did have dedicated educational programs and some regulatory framework, but now that the industry is disappearing, the true benefit of that experience is the emergence of powerful economic dynasties in the country. These dynasties have expanded to tourism, infrastructure, telecoms, export and so on. My point is that Call Centers need to compete; this will be ugly for some, and it will not be a fair game, but business is not fair, because business is efficiency. Instead of barriers to competitions in this sector, the solution will need to be more encompassing. A Small business development strategy, providing business education, lowering entry costs (techno parks, low taxes, low import duties, and low cost loans), and supporting ongoing operations can have a more lasting effect than manipulating competitive forces through government intervention. The increased competition will definitely drive costs up and incompetent enterprises out. This will also help bigger/more efficient companies build capacity, market share, and capital, which they could later use for R&D, acquisitions, and expansion (geographic, vertical and lateral). This is the case in India, where companies that started in the outsourcing industry, leveraged by low labor costs, lenient tax schemes, and a fluid regulatory environment have moved to the next stage, providing complete enterprise solutions, IT consulting, software development and so on... Cheers. B.K. Réaction à l'article : Tunisie - Recrutement : La guerre des centres d'appels aura-t-elle lieu?
