Original post by The Economic Times
BANGALORE: Groupon Inc, based in President Obama’s hometown Chicago, is testing the waters to set up a customer support centre in Chennai, ignoring the anti-outsourcing noises that have surrounded the hotly-contested presidential election in the United States.
The daily deals site, which sells discount coupons of local merchants, is experimenting with the suitability of Chennai as a base to run email-based services to support its subscribers in the United States and Canada, senior executives of the company said. Groupon, a former internet darling whose business model is now under fire, has some 400 customer service executives based in Chicago.
Its Chennai plans were first reported by technology magazine Wired.
Despite Obama’s strident anti-sourcing rhetoric in his reelection campaign against Republican Mitt Romney, top American corporations have been choosing India for its deep pool of relatively inexpensive talent.
In recent weeks Facebook, Amazon, Xerox and chipmaker AMD are among companies which have leased office space in Bangalore and Hyderabad as a precursor to hiring thousands of professionals.
