Canada s cultural diversity is a key difference. Another differentiator is Canadian corporations have not embraced a complete customer-centric environment. They tend to outsource small pieces of customer communication, preferring to keep customer service close to the vest. The population of Ontario is 11.3 million with a workforce of 5.9 million. Ontario workers are multi-lingual, with more than 70 languages spoken.
Wage rates are lower than most U.S. locations.
There is a considerable advantage for U.S. dollars in the exchange rate with Canadian dollars. Stentor is developing network-based solutions and continues to develop call center features and services that are based in our national network and require little or no upfront cost to our customers. If this rate of growth continues, there will be a doubling of Canadian call centers by the year 2002. At the end of 1997, there were approximately 6,500 call centers in Canada employing more than 330,000 with half of these operations located in Ontario. The Canadian call center market is worth an estimated one billion dollars annually, according to Gartner Group statistics.