Hibernian to shift admin to India. I won't insure with them in future.

Radharc na Sleibhte · 24-06-2008 01:31PM

Fair play, but I don't think we should lose sight of the fact that Hibernian still employ a hell of a lot of people here, if or when this partial-move takes place.

miju · 24-06-2008 01:34PM

OPENROAD wrote: »

I would be interested to know peoples shopping habbits on this board and hand on heart do they actually buy/shop Irish irrespective of prices.

slightly off topic but how and ever. Personally I always try and buy Irish. However, if there is a similiar qaulity good for cheaper then that Irish product can go and ****e

Voting with your feet is the only way things will ever get cheaper in this countyr again

homerjay2005 · 24-06-2008 01:40PM

b.ie curious wrote: »

I don't get it. What have they done wrong? Would you prefer it if they charged you higher prices?

this wont affect their prices, they wont get cheaper, if nothing else, they will still put them up.

companies will continue to do this until people stop buying their product.

Sizzler · 24-06-2008 01:55PM

TBH I have never found Hibernian competitive on any of their insurance products in the first place.

I'd say VIVAS will be hit the hardest.

Board-in-work · 24-06-2008 02:01PM

To not continue a policy with Hibernian on the presumption that I'm not going to get good customer service, simply because the call center is located outside of Ireland is a bit of a generalisation.

I would be presuming that all of the workers in that call center would be unable to help me, because their accent, or cultural differences would impede their ability to do their jobs, and offer me assistance. So I would be making presumptions based on the race of the call centers workers.

You'll probably find that most call center workers in India are university graduates, highly educated, with an excellent grasp of English. India has more fluent English speakers than Ireland

......

Not continuing my policy on the basis that the re-location deprives the Irish economy of the work, would be a better arguement -although short sighted in a free market economy.....you're not getting our call center jobs, but we'll employ your children to sew shiny buttons on our Primark tops.....

mike65 · 24-06-2008 02:02PM

Alot of nonsense to be honest. Those who are going to move thier insurance polices should wonder if they will still be supporting out-sourced labour (and lets not forget Ireland is a location for admin support for US companies etc). Some woman has just been on Liveline saying how she switched to the AA who are British and employ fewer here than Hibernian I bet.

Mike.

24-06-2008 02:05PM

Their life insurance was very good last year & I used to deal with them alot. I know a few people losing their jobs

Radharc na Sleibhte · 24-06-2008 02:08PM

Board-in-work wrote: »

you're not getting our call center jobs, but we'll employ your children to sew shiny buttons on our Primark tops

Brilliant!!!!!

Yeah, there are multi-nationals here, but the difference is, they are employing people here. What people (think they) are doing by moving from Hibernian to QD is supporting Irish Insurers ie FBD and Quinns.

Aviva (Hibernians mammy) already have a massive presence in India, its not as if they are just moving these 500 jobs out there.

ART6 · 24-06-2008 02:11PM

I thought it was admin and accounts that they are shifting to India, but that the claims call centre was staying in Ireland?

chipclub · 24-06-2008 02:16PM

Everyone seems to have got the wrong end of the stick. The call centre will still be Cork. Hibernian are a part of Aviva who also own Norwich Union in the UK. Norwich Union did the whole call centre in India thing a few years ago and were stung badly and it seems that the lesson has been learnt. The public face of Hibernian will still be Irish. The are also changing name to "Aviva" which might hide some of the public ill feeling.

What Hibernian are doing is moving 500-odd "back-office" jobs from Dublin to India. Accounts, claim handling, that sort of thing. This would appear to be driven by their pay masters at Aviva.

Incidently, Hibernian's operating profit for 2007 was around the €350 million mark (euro) and Aviva posted something like £3.5 billion (sterling). They are hardly scraping the floor looking for pennies are they? That is what makes this sort of thing even more galling.

Joeface · 24-06-2008 02:21PM

first of Hibernia means winter , the romans referred to this place as the land of eternal winter (global warming my arse)

Second there is a bigger knock on effect to this aswell , Brokers ,Some do just deal with hibernin and if ppl pull business they are gone also . All these companies know the out sourcing doesnt work , The benifit of going out and comming back is you cut a lot of dead weight (as they have seen it)Top earners are gone start again smaller staff same job.

not explaining my self very well am i
ye get the idea

Radharc na Sleibhte · 24-06-2008 02:24PM

They'll be back.

Colonel Sanders · 24-06-2008 02:24PM

SimpleSam06 wrote: »

Oh I wouldn't buy, I've sat across enough boardroom tables from management in insurance companies to know I don't want into the old boys club and all that brings with it. I'd come in from the wings. Did your quarterly profit reports include VHI's 112 million euro surplus by any chance?

I don't work for VHI so no

in any case absolute profits are meaningless. Its return on capital thats importanat. If a company makes 'only' a 50m profit but has to service 500-600m of capital its quite like their CEO will be looking for another job. if profits fell further (assuming we are looking at an irish insurer owned by a foreign subsidary) then its quite likely the parent would be quite open to sell.

I hate to repeat myself but Premiums being written at the moment are barely profitable, never mind excessively profitable (as you claim).

Sizzler · 24-06-2008 02:33PM

ART6 wrote: »

I thought it was admin and accounts that they are shifting to India, but that the claims call centre was staying in Ireland?

"1st base" call centre, in other words the basics. Claims etc are to be dealt with offshore if you read back on the thread.

As regards the lady on liveline, she may have moved to the AA but they dont actually insure anybody direct, they are only a broker so she could have actually reinsured herself with Hibernian lol !

StupidLikeAFox · 24-06-2008 03:02PM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_f4Id8Z8tU

Dunno if this has been posted yet, funny though

HashSlinging · 24-06-2008 03:25PM

There still hiring, I think this is a very shrude business move by the MD to protect the rest of the people working there, I guess its best to lose 500 jobs rather than 2000.

http://www.exp.ie/Member.asp?Mid=1538

Fratton Fred · 24-06-2008 03:29PM

Up unteil recently, Ireland was the Bangalore of Europe.

For example, Wyeth closed their SMA nutrition factory in Havant, Hampshie and moved it to Limerick, nice for the company because they got a big EU backhander to do it and a few years tax free from the Irish government as well as a nice shiney new factory.

Tough **** if you were one of the several hundred employees in Havant who lost their job.

Why do people think Microsoft, Dell, HP, Intl, etc etc are here because they love the Irish so much they wanted to invest here, or because it was the commercially cheapest place to manufacture.

It's the way of the world and as the cost base in Ireland increases, then it will happen more and more.

Remember, even though Ireland has a very low corporation tax of a mere 12%, it is one of the most expensive places in europe to work from. That should worry people a lot more than a few jobs going to Bangalore.

thebman · 24-06-2008 03:39PM

Fratton Fred wrote: »

Up unteil recently, Ireland was the Bangalore of Europe.

For example, Wyeth closed their SMA nutrition factory in Havant, Hampshie and moved it to Limerick, nice for the company because they got a big EU backhander to do it and a few years tax free from the Irish government as well as a nice shiney new factory.

Tough **** if you were one of the several hundred employees in Havant who lost their job.

Why do people think Microsoft, Dell, HP, Intl, etc etc are here because they love the Irish so much they wanted to invest here, or because it was the commercially cheapest place to manufacture.

It's the way of the world and as the cost base in Ireland increases, then it will happen more and more.

Remember, even though Ireland has a very low corporation tax of a mere 12%, it is one of the most expensive places in europe to work from. That should worry people a lot more than a few jobs going to Bangalore.

Eh I think that is what people are worried about. Well that and the fact that our government doesn't seem to give a crap that it is happening.

Run_to_da_hills · 24-06-2008 03:39PM

Instead of having Greensleeves as background phone music you will have this next time you are put on hold.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rt_8Al1A9Dc&feature=related

Morlar · 24-06-2008 03:49PM

I have seen companies do this before for short term profit. In my experience they have calculated that the hit they will take in customer satisfaction ratings does not detract from the short term profit gain.

I have also seen companies reverse this policy this 2-3 years later at even greater cost.

The bangaloreans tend to be extremely cheap to hire - then when the company trains them up they leave to get paid .05 % more at any different company which is in the same area and does not want to spend as much on training.

Staff loyalty is Zero - turnover will rocket once a competitor moves in - morale and skills levels tend to be very challenging to operators there. Not to mention language/cultural differences and the fact that people in Ireland are generally (in my view) more comfortable talking to europeans than indians (whether they give fake western-ised names or not) also the tendency of working rigidly from a script (that when the call goes one centimetre off the script they are totally and completely lost and resort to their standard fallback stock answer like an answering machine) doesnt help much either imo.

silly1 · 24-06-2008 03:55PM

The big difference here is that Hibernian is an intrinsically Irish company selling services in the Irish market while Microsoft, Dell, HP, Intl et al are not.

These jobs plus all the ancillary jobs in small supplier companies will be forever lost to India.

Lets not be fooled into thinking that this is going to secure the remaining jobs either as this may be the thin end of the wedge.

If I have to pay €30 or €40 euro extra per annum on my insurance to have the satisfaction of securing Irish jobs for my kids then I think it's a price well worth paying.

I for one will be pulling my policies from Hibernian whatever their parent Aviva's motive is (either greater profit or cheaper insurance) !!!

Geraldo · 24-06-2008 04:02PM

In accounts there myself. The stuff about the call centres is nonsense. The main call centre for hibernian is galway and they're not losing anyone. It's the back office functions like accounts payable, treasury and credit control that are going in my area. That and lots of IT support, policy admin and related jobs are the ones to go.
It's not likely to affect customers really so can't see many jumping ship.
It's true about the premiums thing though. They are likely to get higher and not just hibernians.
It's a worrying trend though! Realistically, is there any job like this that couldn't be done cheaper in India?

Colonel Sanders · 24-06-2008 05:16PM

silly1 wrote: »

Hibernian is an intrinsically Irish company

but owned by a UK parent who's listed on the FTSE 100.

Do you feel Axa are intrinsically Irish? Another Irish insurer (PMPA) taken over by a foreign parent. Ditto Allianz (ex church and general). Both are as 'intrinsically Irish' as Hibernian.

Hibernian are soon rebranding as Aviva, then all 'intrinsic' links with ireland will vanish

if you want an irish insurer go to FBD or Quinn

BiddyBop · 24-06-2008 05:29PM

I am an employee there. In just February of this year a story hit the news that Hibernian were looking to relocate approx 250 jobs. We were assured that this was all speculation and there was nothing to worry about.

This is now 4 months later and it has been confirmed that 580 jobs are going to India. The current MD of Hibernian was previously the MD of Aviva in India (Aviva is Hibernian's parent company as previously pointed out). Hibernian's sister company, Norwich Union, tried the same thing approx 5 years ago and are now moving all their operations back to the UK, though there are also approx 1800 jobs going in Norwich Union as they are setting up 'centres of excellence' throughout the country.

We received an e-mail at about 4 pm yesterday calling a meeting for the whole company. There we received the announcement and it would appear the only reason it was announced then is because RTE has gotten hold of the story so they had to inform us before it hit the news.

It has still not been confirmed what jobs exactly are staying and which are going. For those of you hoping for cheaper General Insurance, I wouldn't get your hopes up. From what I gather the job cuts will be hitting the Life Operations more so than General Insurance though as I said nothing is confirmed.

This was not a decision I think that anyone was overly surprised at though I do think the number of jobs going is a bit of a shock.

In the fallout, we have still not been given any straight answers as to who is safe and who is not.

ART6 · 24-06-2008 05:39PM

Sizzler wrote: »

"1st base" call centre, in other words the basics. Claims etc are to be dealt with offshore if you read back on the thread.

As regards the lady on liveline, she may have moved to the AA but they dont actually insure anybody direct, they are only a broker so she could have actually reinsured herself with Hibernian lol !

OK, if you say so. I'm no expert on Hibernian. However, maybe you should look at the post by Geraldo?:)

DublinWriter · 24-06-2008 06:42PM

silly1 wrote: »

The big difference here is that Hibernian is an intrinsically Irish company selling services in the Irish market while Microsoft, Dell, HP, Intl et al are not.

Hibernian are about as Irish as Guinness is nowadays.

FBD are the only independent Irish Insurer around. Something tells me that their next marketing campaign will feature comely red-headed maidens dancing at crossroads.

We have done well by the world, and the world does well by us. Protectionism as an macro-economic strategy has never worked, anywhere, and especially not for Ireland.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to spray some Deep-Heat on my elbow as it's getting sore from all this delicious ironing.

OPENROAD · 24-06-2008 07:07PM

newestUser wrote: »

These jobs weren't *taken*. It's not like 'the English' or someone came in and "took" the jobs at gunpoint. The work is being transferred over to another country with lower costs and an educated workforce. We were the beneficiaries of such reasoning before, and were proud to boast of our wonderful economy's ability to attract FDI, and how the rest of the world loved us, blah blah blah, so complaining now about this action by Hibernia is *totally* hyprocritical on the parts of large sections of Irish society.

And in any case, what do you propose doing to prevent this? Handcuffing companies working in Ireland to this country and our people by some means? Goodbye FDI.

+1

Very good post imo, you are spot on, we were able to attract large inward investment for a number of reasons one of which was our relatively low labour costs at the time, sadly this is no longer an advantage we hold and to be fair this has been coming now for a number of years , I can't believe the govt have not anticiated this, then again maybe they have not.

Hibernian will not be the last company to relocate elements of their business to lower cost countries,we have to accept that we can't compete on labour costs. It is important that the govt invest in education and training in other sectors of the economy i.e we have to encourage companies to locate higher value activities here.

Hurakan · 24-06-2008 08:19PM

Support Irish jobs and boycott Hibernian! Im not saying u have to go to Quinn or FBD but somewhere that is comitted to keeping jobs in Ireland. There is going to be huge job implications within the financial services sector and the IT sector because of this announcement. It is only a matter of time before other big companies start outsourcing, like AIB, Bank of Ireland, Axa etc etc!!! Think of the bigger picture! Increased unemployment is not the way forward for this country! We have been there before!!! They are transfering 580 jobs to India, therefore the roles are not redundant! The work instead of being done in Ireland will be completed in India. Therefore support Irish jobs!

DublinWriter · 24-06-2008 08:27PM

Hurakan wrote: »

It is only a matter of time before other big companies start outsourcing, like AIB, Bank of Ireland, Axa etc etc!!!

Oh please...read the papers...BOI outsourced to HP years ago, HP have major IT R&D, software development and Ops centres in guess where?

Honestly, the only difference between Eircom and Hibernian outsourcing was that someone leaked the Hibernian plans early and their hand was forced in respect to issuing a statement to the press.

redeployed · 24-06-2008 08:44PM

Run_to_da_hills wrote: »

Is there anyone out there employed by this shower? would like to hear your input.

Hi. Ive been with them 10 years. This news was not a shock. Things have gone downhill the last few years. Its all about Corporate greed now under the Aviva umbrella. Some staff had tears in their eyes yesterday when this was announced. Used to be such a great place to work and was a symbol of Irishness I thought but will lose all its identidy especially next year when the name Hibernian is to be completely dropped and replaced by AVIVA.

Hibernian to shift admin to India. I won't insure with them in future.

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