This office is now likely to be sited in India, fast becoming the destination for new, multi-channel, call centres.

Call centres have become a major industry in the Northeast of England over the past few years. But the needs of the customer are changing - and call centres are too.

British Airways is the most recent convert. It has just opened a huge customer service centre in Bombay.

Staff here are bi- or multi-lingual and deal with queries from all over the world - on the phone or by letter or email.

If a customer writes in to a company in London, the letter is sent via computer to India.

Here the letter is assessed and the reply is sent back. As far as the customer knows, the reply has been sent from London.

IT Boom

Further south in Bangalore, the booming IT industry makes it a perfect place for international companies to set up these new centres.

Cambridge Technology Partners, a company develops call centre software, believes India is at the forefront of this fast-growing industry for two key reasons.

Firstly, it is cheaper to set up a call centre in India because of the diversity of the diverse skills available.

Secondly, the workforce is plenty and ready to do the type of work, sometimes even college graduates.

In a global economy there is no reason why call centres servicing British customers shouldn't be based in India.

The problem for western companies though is that they are going to find it increasingly difficult to compete.