(5 February 2007 – UK) A British building society is bucking the trend to outsource back office jobs to India and will in fact shut down its Indian operations and boost UK staff numbers.Newcastle Building Society, headquartered in the north east of England, announced it will close its back office processing unit in Mumbai after it found its UK based team was more cost efficient, accurate, and as a result, cheaper.
The building society said it established a pilot operation in India two years ago and compared its performance with the UK team.
It found that the Indian operation did not deliver the expected flexibility, accuracy or efficiencies.
As a result the building society will increase the number of staff it employs at its operations in the north-east of England.
UK insurance firm Norwich Union is another provider reportedly repatriating some 150 call centre jobs that had been outsourced to India, primarily due to the difficulties British customers were having communicating with Indian staff.