The Call Centre Initiative, launched by the economic development agency IGAPE in Galicia, north-west Spain, is going from strength to strength. In the past 16 months, the region has won three major projects, fighting off fierce competition.

“We focused on various sectors but promotion of call centres is important because they create a lot of jobs and bring technology and management skills,” said Leopold Yeste, deputy manager of promotion at IGAPE.

Cuno de Haas, a call centre consultant for Buck Consultants in the Netherlands, said: “Galicia can be a good alternative to expensive areas such as Barcelona and Madrid. Wages are estimated to be 10%–15% cheaper than the Spanish average.” Galicia also has the advantage of being eligible for European Union subsidies. “We can pay for up to 40% of an investment due to this status – this is a really good advantage,” added Mr Yeste.

It certainly made the difference to Rolf van Kalderkerken, president of US stationary company Office Depot’s European operations. He said: “The EU subsidy is attractive. We looked at the Basque country and Barcelona but they did not offer this.”

Office Depot has opened a 160-seat contact centre in the Ourense province of Galicia. This will serve the Spanish market, although a spokesman for the company said: “We also chose the region for its closeness to Portugal. The dialect in Ourense is very close to the Portuguese language and it is also easy to hire Portuguese people there.”

Office Depot’s logistic centre is located just outside Madrid, so the company originally started looking in that area.

However, IGAPE scouted for centre locations and eventually found what Mr Kalderkerken, who spent a couple of days touring sites, describes as a “perfect” building for a call centre. He continues to be very impressed with the aftercare offered by IGAPE and the “very good and motivated workforce”.

To counter any potential high turnover, the company offers extensive training and development. There is also a university in Ourense from where to recruit any temporary workers that may be required.

Mr de Haas did point out that Galicia does not host any pan-European call centres as yet due to the lack of multilingual staff. Although people speak Spanish, Catalan and Galician, English skills are weak.

The region is, however, attractive to the American market. Florida-based outsourcing company Sykes Enterprises is recruiting for its first Spanish contact centre facility. This is not only to serve the home market but also the huge amount of Spanish speakers in America. In this case, Galicia is competing against Panama, Mexico and the Dominican Republic.

Stream International, a Massachusetts-based firm and part of high-tech manufacturer Solectron, chose La Coruńa on the coast of Galicia for its call centre. It wanted to take advantage of competitive labour costs and the availability of a young and educated workforce.

John Boyd of the Boyd Company, a Boston-based location consultancy, praised the area: “In our view, Galicia's attractive lifestyle and warm climate also distinguishes it from competitors in the northern UK and in Eastern Europe. Stream International’s decision to locate an outbound call centre in Galicia was viewed as a vote of confidence for Galicia and gave it heightened credibility in many corporate boardrooms.”