When you own a small business, you get a lot of those annoying phone calls from companies that are sure that your business would benefit from their wonderful product or service. These types of calls are par for the course, I know.
“Hello, The Movie Store...”
“Ahh yes....may I speeek to de owner of de beeeznez plez?
Oh boy, here it comes.
It is difficult to understand why a multinational company whose business it is to cold call and find new customers would use telephone sales people who speak English with a thick and sometimes totally unintelligible accent. I realize that many of these companies have outsourced their call centers to other countries, and that this makes total economic sense to do so in the global marketplace of today's world. A company's reason for existence may be to provide a good or service, but ultimately they want to make a profit. To some it seems not only a good economic choice but also a good humanitarian one. Some multinational companies have offered the chance to a whole generation of young people to earn more money than their parents ever dreamed of. To people who have been living on less than $2 a day, the opportunity to earn $1000 a month is a dream come true. Somehow though, there seems to be something wrong with this picture.
Not the part about earning great money and living a better lifestyle. Everyone understands the need to improve your life and make your way upwards in the world. No, it's the part about working for a company that was not there a year ago and may not be there a year from now. The ease with which a multinational corporation can move its operation halfway around the world shows how easy it would be for them to decide to move again. These are not companies that have a stake in the welfare of the country into which they have relocated. And the young people that they employ have no real chance of working their way up the company ladder. This is not a permanent circumstance for either side.
Globalization has become a familiar word in today's culture, and for the most part is considered a positive concept. But a closer look at the concept itself may not always show a positive outcome for both sides. People who live in developing countries look toward the United States as a model of what they would like their country to someday be. Not all multinational corporations have the kind of ethics that most Americans would like a company that represents us to have. It is a good thing to offer people the opportunity to live a better lifestyle, but to give them that chance and then take it away may be worse than never offering it in the first place.
Globalization should mean never having to say your sorry.
5 comments on "Globalize Me, Please"
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On the one hand I am happy that people in these poor countries are being given work. However, I am very upset when I call my bank for help and a person from a third world country tries to help me with my problem. I did not leave that interaction feeling positive.
It must be really weird for them also....imagine answering a phone and trying to help someone with their account who is halfway around the the world and living in a very different culture than you are. The only link you have with this person is the computer screen in front of you. It is all becoming very impersonal and the fact that you know the person you are speaking with is that far away just makes it more so.
I very much like your spin on this idea. I agree that when taking a closer look it may not show a positive outlook for both sides. But we do live in a capitalist country which gives companies the right to free markets and to pursue profit by means that do abide by the laws. The only hope is that MNCs can only be ethical when pursuing business in other countries.
unfortunately power and ethics are uncomfortable bedfellows...the larger and more impersonal a company gets, the hard it is to see all the "little people" down there that work for you. A sad fact of human nature is that power corrupts...and I dont think I know of any example of a powerful person who isnt unethical in some way.