>"The notion that Google needs to scam some African directory service for profit just seems ridiculous."
Google's management has a fiduciary responsibility to the shareholders to maximize profits. Running an eight person call center with wages competitive for the local market in Kenya is pretty cheap - but apparently not cheap enough, thus the operation was moved to India.
This wasn't rouge warriors led by one bad supervisor - the level of authority was sufficient to move operational production from the local manager to another continent. People up the food chain looked at what was happening and decided to scale it.
How much authority does a junior manager need to outsource telesales to India? And how many people have oversight over the suggested telephone scripts?
Possibly Googler's could shed some light on internal processes for things like that but my guess would be (i)not much if a business case for "engaging with Kenyan businesses" has already been agreed on by regional managers and (ii) one or two
I wouldn't expect the people that had oversight over the telephone scripts to still have a job by the end of next week, mind you.
> Google's management has a fiduciary responsibility to the shareholders to maximize profits.
You need to stop using that word, you don't know what it means. "Fiduciary" has nothing to do with "maximizing profits", corporate executives and directors have no such responsibility. You are perpetuating a dangerous, damaging, and extremely ignorant myth pushed by robber-barons as an excuse for their immoral and unethical behavior.
Google's management has a fiduciary responsibility to the shareholders to maximize profits. Running an eight person call center with wages competitive for the local market in Kenya is pretty cheap - but apparently not cheap enough, thus the operation was moved to India.
This wasn't rouge warriors led by one bad supervisor - the level of authority was sufficient to move operational production from the local manager to another continent. People up the food chain looked at what was happening and decided to scale it.