Friedman points out that 80 percent of America Online's e-mail queries are answered by customer service representatives in the Philippines. Recent articles about the booming Irish economy have shown how Dublin has become the customer service headquarters for numerous international companies. Phones are answered in the correct language by multilingual representatives, and service is provided worldwide. What matters to these companies is both the cost and the quality of the work they receive. Many U.S. health care organizations now routinely transfer voice recordings of doctors to Indian health specialists who transcribe these recordings into electronic medical records and transfer them back to the United States electronically.
Rapid globalization poses many new challenges for the quality professional.
Many of our current procedures were developed for a much slower world and rely on human auditors and inspectors and cumbersome reporting structures. As we become more enmeshed in the global marketplace, we will all have to redesign many of our quality management practices and rethink many of the fundamentals. About the author A. Blanton Godfrey is dean and Joseph D. Moore Professor at College of Textiles, North Carolina State University. Copyright 2000 QCI International. All rights reserved.