Costa Rica Call Center Blog

• 10 years ago two companies hired people with multilingual skills, today they are 14
• Portuguese, German and Mandarin, among others, are becoming stronger to provide services

Mastering English is not enough to get a job. Service Companies in the country are increasingly looking for professionals with different language skills.

Ten years ago, only Western Union and Sykes hired multilingual staff to provide services. Currently there are 14.

“The biggest challenge is to find the academic preparation combined with language proficiency,”  said Ericka Mora, human resources manager for DHL.

According to the CINDE, the 14 companies located in Costa Rica provide from services to financial and technical support in seven languages.

Companies like Intel, Sykes, Concentrix, Baxter and British American Tobacco SS Americas offer technical and financial support in English, Spanish, French, Portuguese, German, Italian and Mandarin.

Even the multinational DHL announced that, shortly, will offer financial services in Czech, Dutch, Swedish and Danish.

CINDE statistics indicate that 100% of service operations, 80% are in English, Spanish 8%, 7% in Portugal and the remaining 5% in other languages.

In line with the increased demand for multilingual personnel, Universities report a 235% growth in the number of people studying other languages besides English.

The Alliance Française also recorded a 20% increase in the number of new students.

Executives of seven companies surveyed said that to stay ahead, the country needs to keep up with supply of people.  They recommended not only graduating more professional in finance or engineering, but also encouraging them to be multilingual.

“Costa Rica has a very good level of training in general, however, the labor market demand has increased considerably in recent years,” said Arturo Barboza, director of public relations for Sykes.

Of the 2,800 employees working at its headquarters in Heredia and Moravia, 90% (2520) does in English-Spanish and the remaining 10% (280) does in German, French, Italian and Portuguese.

Another example: Intel has a global service center in Heredia where 45 people offer marketing assistance in Spanish, English and Portuguese.

“For us, the main challenge is to maintain the high standards of productivity, education and availability of languages to ensure that the model is sustainable over time,” said Rudy Sanchez, manager of British American Tobacco SS.

British American Tobacco, Hall employs 90 people for financial support: 70% Spanish, 20% English and the remaining 10% French-speaking markets.

CINDE has recorded 95 service companies here, which generate little more than 28,500 jobs.

Source: La Nacion

As imports came to a near halt during the economic crisis, the Costa Rica trade deficit was reduced.  A huge drop in oil prices helped this reduction of imports.  While this happened, Costa Rican exports, FDI and tourism did relatively well during the recession.  So pressure was taken off for the colon to remain pegged on the upper band of the exchange rate.

Now there are increasingly clear signs that the appreciation that the colon has been experiencing in recent weeks has been driven to some extent by speculative capital inflows entering the country lured by high interest rates and the upward trend of the colon.  This phenomenon cannot last long.  Should the Colon continue to appreciate, the Central Bank will have to intervene in the exchange market by buying the excess dollars.

Related:  El Financiero

• Provide Customer Services to 80,000 employees of the corporation
• Also since the country produces high-tech corporation

From Costa Rica, Intel not only designs, produce and export computer and server processors, but also provides technical support to over 50 countries and provides financial support throughout the Americas.

The company, which started operations in Heredia in 1997 alone with a chip assembly plant today makes 17 processes.

These include the production technology of the corporation and variety of financial services and engineering.

Michael Forrest, general manager of Intel general Costa Rica, said the country has exceeded the expectations of the multinational.

Proof of this is that in 2000 fewer than 50 people were charged with providing services in engineering and finance.

Currently there are about 1,000 employees who work in those fields, in addition to processor design and software, accounting, financial analysis and management, logistics, human resources and information technology. These areas are part of the global call center services. Just to give you an idea, from that center support is given to the corporation’s 80,000 employees in 50 countries worldwide.

Also from here, workers of the company are responsible for making the payroll of its employees in the US.

The 1,000 employees of the Centre for Global Services are part of the work force of nearly 3,000 people that the multinational has in the country, distributed in Heredia.

In an activity with the media, yesterday morning at the headquarters, Michael Forrest called the operation of Intel in Costa Rica as one of the most diversified global corporation. This site of “honor” he said, is shared with a site in Malaysia.

“The talent in Costa Rica is phenomenal. Here we have the best professionals and we are proud of that, “said Forrest.

Karla Blanco, manager of corporate affairs at Intel, announced that his contract represented just over 100 people, soon, for reasons of expansion in different areas of the company.

“That’s why I said that this is the footprint of Costa Rica in the world, because the operation of country covers the world and the operation of services has become increasingly important,” said Blanco, who noted some challenges of the country to remain competitive in attracting investment.

“Costa Rica should continue to invest in the generation of quality employment and creating a friendly business environment.

“Also in the issue of competitiveness, for example, in the areas of electricity and telecommunications. And talk about education and access to technology, and I must admit this is a vital point. ”

However, the executive assessed as positive the highly educated population.

Source: La Nacion