Subject: RNC outsources it's fundraising phonecalls to India
Date: Wed, 26 May 2004 18:23:43 +0000
Bush campaign ran from Noida call centre
KA Badarinath and Prerna K Mishra
New Delhi, May 16
The political split in the US over outsourcing
notwithstanding, till very recently the fund-raising and
vote-seeking campaign for the Republican Party was done
partly out of India. And this was handled by two call
centres located in our own friendly neighbourhood in Noida
and Gurgaon.
For 14 months between May 16, 2002 and July 22, 2003, HCL
BPO Services — the 100 per cent-owned subsidiary of Shiv
Nadar-promoted HCL Technologies — had some 125 agents
working in seven teams soliciting financial contributions
for the Republican Party. US presidential elections are
slated for November 2004.
The mandate for the teams was to mobilise support for
President George W. Bush and solicit political
contributions ranging between $5 and $3,000 from lakhs of
registered Republican voters. The voters’ database was
provided by the Republican National Committee (RNC), the
party’s premier political organisation.
The contract for running the campaigns was originally
awarded by RNC to Washington-based Capital Communications
Group that provides consulting services to government and
private clients for cultural and political networking. For
cost and efficiencies gains, the company outsourced the
work to HCL Technologies that in turn sent it offshore.
When contacted by Hindustan Times, sources close to the
deal within HCL BPO Services said, “We work under a
non-disclosure clause with most of our clients (barring
British Telecom) and hence would not be in a position to
comment on any such deal.”
According to the deal details, at any point in time, 75
agents worked on a $9.25 per hour per person billing rate,
and contacted at least 20,000 voters through an automatic
dialer. Sources confirmed that on a conservative estimate
at least 80 lakh registered republican voters have been
contacted.
During the period, HCL ran nearly six to seven campaigns on
various issues, some in the form of simple ‘yes or no’
polls on issues like ‘Pro Choice Pro Life’ that tried to
capture the sentiment in the US audiences about abortion.
There were other campaigns that were of the fund raising
nature where the voter would pledge an amount to the party.
The RNC would do the follow up in the US for fund
retrieval.
The target for the team was to get a pledge of $400 per
day. Going by conservative estimates, at least funds worth
$10 million were committed for President Bush through the
BPO centres in India.
But the million-dollar question is why was the contract
called off? Insiders say the growing resentment in the US
audiences against outsourcing to India and strong reactions
from Democratic Presidential candidate John Kerry were at
the root of capping the contract. The anti-outsourcing
lobby within the Republicans also had a hand in ending the
contract, insiders divulged. But according to HCL sources
one consideration was non-viability in the last few months
after having covered most voters from the RNC database.
Maybe the Indian political establishment can take a lesson
from or two from Republicans in US and outsource its fund
raising campaign during next general elections. |
