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Gateway 2000 Logs On to Ireland
Ireland has emerged as a leader in pan-European call centers. In fact, some 60 companies have chosen Ireland for European call centers during the past four years.

"In Europe, most companies have chosen to put their call centers in three countries where you can get multilingual labor, good telecom infrastructure and very significant corporate tax breaks: The Netherlands, Belgium and Ireland," says Jeffrey Maszal, Virginia-based principal consultant with TARP (www.tarp.com), a research and consulting firm specializing in call centers. TARP is a wholly owned subsidiary of TeleSpectrum (www.TeleSpectrum.com), a leading teleservices firm.

"Ireland was the first to offer those tax breaks, and its call centers sector has just been booming since it decided to make call centers a major employer," he says. "However, it is beginning to show a little difficulty in providing enough bilingual people."

Computer maker Gateway 2000 is among the high-profile firms choosing Ireland recently. "When we weighed all of the factors involved, Ireland was the clear winner," says MIS Director Geoff Obeney. "Telecom Ireland's pricing package was unbeatable. Salaries are as much as 50 percent lower for a work force that is younger and better educated than elsewhere, many with second and third languages."

In other developments, Computer printer manufacturer Lexmark International is adding 110 jobs at its Dublin call center. Database software leader Informix Software Ireland recently chose Dublin for a call center that will employ 100, and electrical and electronic equipment maker Siemens recently chose Cork for a 150-employee operation.

Western Union, Raychem,
EDS Choose Belgium
Belgian workers' language capabilities continue to be a major attraction for firms establishing European call centers.

Belgium has three official languages (Dutch, French and German), and a fourth language, English, is spoken by more than half the population. What's more, the presence of the European Union headquarters in Brussels, with its 11 official languages, has created a huge translation and inter-language publishing industry there.

Western Union, a world leader in electronic non-bank financial transfers, has chosen Belgium for a call center that will serve Europe, Africa and the Middle East. The company also considered five other options in Europe for the new facility.

"One of the critical ingredients in our selection was the quality of the Belgian work force," explains Rich Levine, Western Union vice president for global service. "It is highly educated and, just as important, culturally diverse. And from a financial point of view, the tax and investment incentives offered by the government were impressive."

High-tech concern Raychem has established two Belgian call centers that handle both inbound and outbound calls. Due to the complex nature of its products and the number of countries in which it operates, the company needed a highly educated, multilingual work force. It was also impressed with Belgacom's location assistance.

"Belgacom is able to meet the call center requirements of major international corporations such as Raychem because of its knowledge of what it takes to do business in Europe," says one company official.

Yet another high-profile firm to pick Belgium is Electronic Data Systems (EDS). The company has established a Dealer Assistance Center at its Antwerp office to serve General Motors Corp.'s 3,500 Opel and Vauxhall dealers in 16 European countries.