Qantas-Accenture deal "may" send 1000 back-office jobs to India

[Melburnian1]

'AFR' and subsequently other Nine Group newspapers such as 'The Age' are reporting that in an AI (not Air India!) deal with consulting company Accenture, Qantas may shift up to 1000 jobs in finance, human resources and marketing to India.

The proposal is called 'Project IQ".

Transformation staffer Rachel Yangoyan is in charge of this initiative, but a final decision is yet to be made. She said discussions were at 'an early stage'.

The article points out that way back in 2006, QF signed a $188 million contract to transfer some technology roles to India, but last year unveiled an 'innovation hub' (whatever that means) in Adelaide where 'it is planned' to have 420 employees.

Although the fairly recent, much criticised hacker incident emanated from a mistake by a contractor in Manila, Philippines, other companies such as Wesfarmers have preferred Philippines as a location compared to India.

It would be interesting to know how many of the Australian staff currently in these roles in finance, human resources and marketing 'work from home'.

As some CEOs have stated or implied, many jobs that can be 'done from home' can just as efficiently, and at lower cost, be undertaken by contractors based in nations like Philippines, India and Sri Lanka.

 

[offshore171]

Is this the same Qantas that received $2.7 billion in government funds and Australian taxpayer-funded support during Covid?

 

[RooFlyer]

“I still call Australia home …”

 

[Vic]

Assume, send our QFF data to an offshore data centre in India. Because they never do scamming from India...

 

[TheInsider]

Is this the same Qantas that received $2.7 billion in government funds and Australian taxpayer-funded support during Covid?

Not a big difference, but out of that, $856 million was job keeper for staff.

 

[Warragul]

The choice of consultancy as well. They have a few significant failures or cost blowouts in Australia - Aged Care Agency, Home Affairs, Bureau of Meteorology.

 

[Saab34]

Tech changes have enabled many departments to be moved offshore. I’ve seen a lot of this recently, not just the stock standard IT department offshoring either.

This year my company has started moving parts of the commercial team to parts of Asia. A whole bunch of people who dealt with suppliers got the chop earlier this year and those jobs went to India and Phillipines.

Marketing is an interesting one though. HQs are definitely thinning out down under.

 

[dajop]

This is a glimpse of the future we haven’t fully grasped yet.

 

[AuSammy]

In a previous corporate life, out of all the contract / consulting houses we used, Accenture was the most overpriced and simultaneously incompetent organisation that I had to deal with.

 

[Daver6]

'AFR' and subsequently other Nine Group newspapers such as 'The Age' are reporting that in an AI (not Air India!) deal with consulting company Accenture, Qantas may shift up to 1000 jobs in finance, human resources and marketing to India.

The proposal is called 'Project IQ".

Transformation staffer Rachel Yangoyan is in charge of this initiative, but a final decision is yet to be made. She said discussions were at 'an early stage'.

The article points out that way back in 2006, QF signed a $188 million contract to transfer some technology roles to India, but last year unveiled an 'innovation hub' (whatever that means) in Adelaide where 'it is planned' to have 420 employees.

Although the fairly recent, much criticised hacker incident emanated from a mistake by a contractor in Manila, Philippines, other companies such as Wesfarmers have preferred Philippines as a location compared to India.

It would be interesting to know how many of the Australian staff currently in these roles in finance, human resources and marketing 'work from home'.

As some CEOs have stated or implied, many jobs that can be 'done from home' can just as efficiently, and at lower cost, be undertaken by contractors based in nations like Philippines, India and Sri Lanka.

This started to read like an article you'd see on the 1st April....

 

[piec]

This is a glimpse of the future we haven’t fully grasped yet.

This has been going on for decades already.

 

[dajop]

This has been going on for decades already.

The AI bit hasn’t. It takes “outsourcing” to a different dimension. .

 

[Melburnian1]

The AI bit hasn’t. It takes “outsourcing” to a different dimension. .

But AI is imperfect: one version said a person was a collection/lump of blueberries.

Rubbish in , rubbish out.

It can never 'think' like men and women: doesn't it fail on some nuances?

 

[dajop]

But AI is imperfect: one version said a person was a collection/lump of blueberries.

Rubbish in , rubbish out.

It can never 'think' like men and women: doesn't it fail on some nuances?

Yes. But it’s good at time consuming repetitive tasks based on information you feed it directly..

Of course it depends on the model and how much you pay but I’ve had some impressive results based not on universal data set but very specific Information I have.. So it wasn’t rubbish jn.

But agree if you are just using based on its universal training data, riddled with errors if you know anything about a topic. Definitely rubbish in … rubbish out.

 

[SeatBackForward]

The choice of consultancy as well. They have a few significant failures or cost blowouts in Australia - Aged Care Agency, Home Affairs, Bureau of Meteorology.

But a great old boys network no doubt.

 

[SeatBackForward]

The article points out that way back in 2006, QF signed a $188 million contract to transfer some technology roles to India,

Management that made the short term gains during the offshoring in late 2000's had well moved onto their next gig's when the sheet hit the fan in all those organisations. After sometime you realise, none of these Executives, consultants are actually interested in improving anything for the corporations they work on, they're just a revolving door of extracting wealth for themselves at any cost.

 

[Daver6]

But AI is imperfect: one version said a person was a collection/lump of blueberries.

Rubbish in , rubbish out.

It can never 'think' like men and women: doesn't it fail on some nuances?

Sounds like you've just described a regular call centre operator

 

[Melburnian1]

'AFR' has updated its article, with Qantas confirming (via a leaked internal 'note') that a 'small team' will travel to India next week to meet with Accenture, though QF continues to stress 'no decisions have been made at this stage.'

It says it'll keep employees updated.

Despite the 'AFR' article implying most if not all potentially affected employees are not unionised, the Australian Services Union is sticking its bib in.

It's further proof individuals who claim some 'right' to 'work from home' ought be very careful for what they wish.

Companies such as NAB have correctly insisted that staff spend most or all work time in offices. This has the side benefit of helping small businesses such as CBD cafes and gyms whose owners often put life savings at risk, and even more importantly, improves productivity and collaboration rather than employees sitting at home and taking the dog for a walk or raiding the fridge every couple of hours.

A case of 'reap as you sow'.

 

[esseeeayeenn]

'AFR' has updated its article, with Qantas confirming (via a leaked internal 'note') that a 'small team' will travel to India next week to meet with Accenture, though QF continues to stress 'no decisions have been made at this stage.'

It says it'll keep employees updated.

Despite the 'AFR' article implying most if not all potentially affected employees are not unionised, the Australian Services Union is sticking its bib in.

It's further proof individuals who claim some 'right' to 'work from home' ought be very careful for what they wish.

Companies such as NAB have correctly insisted that staff spend most or all work time in offices. This has the side benefit of helping small businesses such as CBD cafes and gyms whose owners often put life savings at risk, and even more importantly, improves productivity and collaboration rather than employees sitting at home and taking the dog for a walk or raiding the fridge every couple of hours.

A case of 'reap as you sow'.

This is a complete rewriting of history to make an ideological point.
Outsourcing to offshore call centres has been happening for decades.
As has been noted, QF signed a deal of this nature back in 2006.
The surge in working from home didn't happen until COVID.
In 2020. 14 years later.
You can't reap a crop 14 years before you sow it.

Further, the concept of working from home as a "right" didn't circulate widely until after the COVID crisis, when some employers tried to force people back into the office. Largely to prop up property investors who were watching their CBD real estate portfolios devaluate.

There are many reasons to oppose offshore outsourcing.
Knowledge of local laws, customs and culture are among them.
Language proficiency, pronunciation, accent and intelligibility are among them.
Using profits earned in Australia to employ Australians is among them.
Stimulating the Australian economy and putting money in the pockets of your own potential customers is among them.
Preventing employers from circumventing Australian regulations on fair pay and working conditions is among them.
Preventing exploitation and modern slavery is definitely among them.
But pretending roles which can easily be done from home require a permanent office presence isn't among them.

On a lighter note (and also because the two replies were auto-merged):

“Spirit of Australia India”

 

[exceladdict]

I'm more curious that they're willing to play with outsourcing one of their most core functions, given how much revenue loyalty/ marketing contributes