TMCnet News
Stream Acquires Dominican Rep. Contact CenterStream has acquired a contact center in the Dominican Republic. By DAVID SIMS, TMCnet CRM Alert Columnist Stream, an outsourcer of technical support and customer service, has announced it has acquired 100% ownership of a contact center in Santo Domingo, the Dominican Republic, from Supra Telecom. The site will provide English and Spanish-language support for Stream's North American and Latin American clients. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed. Stream provides services to PC software publishers, Internet service providers and hardware manufacturers. The new site in Santo Domingo further supports Stream's so-called “Smart Shore” mix of onshore, nearshore and offshore locations. Offshoring in the D.R. has become a controversial issue as of late. The Central American Free Trade Treaty, currently awaiting approval from Congress, covering the United States, the Dominican Republic and five Central American nations would decree that 80 percent of U.S. exports of consumer and industrial goods become duty-free in Central America (including the Dominican Republic) initially, with remaining tariffs phased out over 10 years. “Job losses by computer programmers and other white-collar workers due to the offshore trend have become a hot-button issue in the past few years,” according to CNet, saying that CAFTA “raised the specter of more techie unemployment.” "The site's management and support professionals have expertise in our core support models: customer service, technical support, and revenue generation programs," said Portmann. "This enables Stream to immediately provide quality support for existing and new clients, with very little training and ramp time." For the last two years, the Santo Domingo site has provided support to Supra Telecom's North American business and residential customers of local, domestic and international long distance, voicemail, and Internet services. As of 2003 the Caribbean claimed “44 call centers varying from 7 to 800 agents per center with seating capacity ranging from 10 to 1,000,” according to James Beatty. MThe industry “has created over 11,000 agent jobs with a gross domestic product exceeding $270 million in the countries of Jamaica, Trinidad, St. Lucia and the Dominican Republic.” With the sale of the Santo Domingo location, Supra Telecom will consolidate support currently provided in Santo Domingo to its existing site in San Jose, Costa Rica. ----- David Sims is contributing editor for TMCnet. For more articles by David Sims, please visit: http://www.tmcnet.com/tmcnet/columnists/columnist.aspx?id=100005&nm=David%20 Sims |