Orcon is looking at relocating its Philippines call centre to Southland.

Forums › 2degrees (including Slingshot, Orcon, Flip, Stuff Fibre, MyRepublic, 2talk and Vocus) › Orcon is looking at relocating its Philippines call centre to Southland.

pctek

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#116163 20-Apr-2013 07:20

http://www.stuff.co.nz/southland-times/news/8574512/Mayor-hopes-call-centre-will-set-up-in-city

Yesterday, Mr Shadbolt said Orcon had decided to move its call centre from Manila back to New Zealand, and he had been involved in initial discussions about establishing it in Invercargill.

sbiddle

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#802654 20-Apr-2013 09:01

Do they have power or internet in Invercargill yet?

old3eyes

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#802655 20-Apr-2013 09:04

sbiddle: Do they have power or internet in Invercargill yet?

The power comes from the Tiwai Point excess.. If the smelter closes they will have power to burn.. Internet ?? well who knows..

Regards,

Old3eyes

pctek

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#802767 20-Apr-2013 13:44

Mr Shadbolt is well known for his love of the weed.....he crashed the mayoral car a while back while rummaging about for his joint, no, sorry, his sunglasses, which he dropped apparently.

Oriphix

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#802825 20-Apr-2013 16:40

Wow that's interesting.

alasta

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#802836 20-Apr-2013 17:36

I don't understand why more businesses don't establish functions like this in provincial New Zealand. Residential rents in Invercargill must be about a third of what they are in Auckland, so people could be much better off even if they're being paid less.

mattwnz

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#802846 20-Apr-2013 17:58

old3eyes:
sbiddle: Do they have power or internet in Invercargill yet?

The power comes from the Tiwai Point excess.. If the smelter closes they will have power to burn.. Internet ?? well who knows..

A call centre would use hardly any power, it is just basically an office building, and looks like a pretty small staff too. A McD's can hire more staff than that. I can't really see the benefit of it being in southland. I would think wellington somewhere would be a better area to base it in.

old3eyes

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#802963 21-Apr-2013 08:30

mattwnz:
old3eyes:
sbiddle: Do they have power or internet in Invercargill yet?

The power comes from the Tiwai Point excess.. If the smelter closes they will have power to burn.. Internet ?? well who knows..

A call centre would use hardly any power, it is just basically an office building, and looks like a pretty small staff too. A McD's can hire more staff than that. I can't really see the benefit of it being in southland. I would think wellington somewhere would be a better area to base it in.

What to give all the x public servants jobs? The couldn't handle it..

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Old3eyes

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NonprayingMantis

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#802965 21-Apr-2013 08:39

Labour is probably cheaper in invercargil than Manila.
But on the flip side I wonder how they will get over the language barrier between deepest darkest south land and civilised NZ.

:p

linw

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#802966 21-Apr-2013 08:42

Yea, those rolled rrrrs will be a problem.

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#802971 21-Apr-2013 09:00

due to the farming population there the average (asset not liquid) wealth in southland is probably higher than the rest of the country :p

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#802982 21-Apr-2013 10:10

alasta: I don't understand why more businesses don't establish functions like this in provincial New Zealand. Residential rents in Invercargill must be about a third of what they are in Auckland, so people could be much better off even if they're being paid less.

Human capital. Rent and setup becomes tiny when you consider how much work it is to train humans and then execute year on year with staffing, service levels and performance. The territory would be a little cheaper than Auckland or Christchurch but not by much - you still have to pay a decent wage to attract people.

The actual amount of people available and willing to work in a call centre in any market is really small - we've all heard what a CC environment is like, and the turnover of people can be really high. Keeping a call centre staffed and functionally effective fundamentally comes down to the humans doing the work, a bit like a military unit.

Invercargill is about 50k people. Keeping a CC resourced with capable people and delivering good service levels is really hard work, made a lot worse when the market is small.

The large populations of our Tier 1 towns makes operating a CC easier - and eventually, it always becomes a question about the available pool of humans.

________

Antoniosk

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#802987 21-Apr-2013 10:44

Probably more realistic in all cities larger than Palmerston North.

I hope they consider Tauranga!

Cost of living here is far less than the cost of living in Auckland.

pctek

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#803004 21-Apr-2013 11:25

alasta: I don't understand why more businesses don't establish functions like this in provincial New Zealand. Residential rents in Invercargill must be about a third of what they are in Auckland, so people could be much better off even if they're being paid less.

Because you can get the staff in big cities.

As for being better off, housing costs are the only thing cheaper.
Everything else is way more expensive - power, rates, petrol, food.
It's actually cheaper to live in Auckland, so long as you don't have a massive mortgage.

He's talking out of his hat anyway, why would they bother bringing it back to NZ at all, Manila staff are far cheaper......Mr Shadbolt does this sort of thing all the time....

crazed

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#803006 21-Apr-2013 11:32

SO your saying that Orcons call centre will be offline from 4am till 7am and 3pm till 7pm?

Those Milking times really play havoc with things.

CraZeD,
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ObidiahSlope

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#803029 21-Apr-2013 12:23

If alternative employment means starting work at 4AM to pull teats on cows, then staff turnover may not be as high as expected.

Obsequious hypocrite