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What goes around, comes around

[Excerpt from The World Is Flat, Chapter 1, "While I Was Sleeping," p. 28 ff.]

I spent an evening at the Indian-owned "24/7 Customer" call center in Bangalore . . .

When you look around at 24/7's call center, you see that all the computers are running Microsoft Windows. The chips are designed by Intel. The phones are from Lucent. The air-conditioning is by Carrier, and even the bottled water is by Coke. In addition, 90 percent of the shares in 24/7 are owned by U.S investors. This explains why, although the United States has lost some service jobs to India in recent years, total exports from American-based companies -- merchandise and services -- to India have grown from $2.5 billion in 1990 to $5 billion in 2003. So even with the outsourcing of some service jobs from the United States to India, India's growing economy is creating a demand for many more American goods and services.

What goes around, comes around.

Posted by Martha Rudolph at March 2, 2006 04:45 PM