Malaysia

People in the West are now getting used to the idea that the person answering the phone, dealing with a banking enquiry or a problem with a faulty television could as easily be sitting in Beijing or Bangalore as in Bangor or Baltimore. Early in 2003, India and China were rated as the two most attractive countries for businesses looking for outsourcing opportunities - the country which came third, surprising many, was Malaysia. Malaysia's young can make a lot of money working for foreign firms: while still politically sensitive, it makes economic sense for business leaders to outsource service sector jobs to less expensive parts of the world.

The South East Asian nation has been trying to position itself as a high tech hub ever since the mid-nineties, when its former prime minister, the technology loving Dr Mahathir Mohamad, launched the Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC) with the support of IT luminaries including Bill Gates. The corridor is basically a zone around Kuala Lumpur where companies can locate, enjoy tax breaks and a guarantee that the infrastructure will work with a money back deal if it does not. Hitherto, Malaysia has, if not spurned, then at least not encouraged the likes of call centres. It wanted biotech, IT hardware, software design and other industries to make Malaysia their home. Then, exhibiting something of a U-turn, in September 2004 it underlined its recent orientations hosting the Asia Pacific Outsourcing Conference.

Malaysia's position at the crossroads of Asia is reflected in the number of languages spoken there. It handles enquiries from customers of the mobile phone maker Nokia from around the Asia Pacific region. Offices are relaxed and pleasant, a far cry from the cramped, high pressure call centres which are the employment option of last resort for many in the West. Here they field calls in nine different languages including Indonesian, Japanese, Korean, Mandarin, Malay, Tagalog, Thai and English. Besides having five Asian languages that are spoken natively, there's great quality of life, and these are thought to be the reasons why people from the Philippines, Thailand and Indonesia are being attracted in great numbers to work in Malaysia.

Adapted from BBC Business news, August 2004

chinese translation | japanese translation | korean translation