Director-general of Invest Hong Kong Mike Rowse (left), with ORC International managing director for Asia, John Dickson, at the opening of the firm's regional call centre.

ORC International's managing director for Asia, John Dickson, said: "Asia is one of our key growth markets and it is important for us to have a strong presence here complementing our services in the US and Europe. We were always sure that our Asia-Pacific expansion would be driven from our Hong Kong base. The opening of this call centre confirms our commitment to this city."

Mr Dickson added that Hong Kong offers an excellent location for a call centre covering the Asia-Pacific region, due to its multilingual workforce, the quality of telecommunications, and its infrastructure and business support.

The Hong Kong Call Centre is a multilingual interviewing facility which offers state-of-the-art Computer Assisted Telephone Interview (CATI) technology. This would lead to economies of scale and superior quality control for international clients, Mr Dickson said.

"We are now able to offer local and international clients a more cost-effective method of business-to-business, survey-based research. Conducting interviews in Putonghua, Cantonese, Japanese and English, this facility reflects our expanding global research capabilities by providing the multilingual support our clients here and around the world are demanding," he added.

Headquartered in Princeton, New Jersey, ORC International applies public opinion polling techniques to strategic issues affecting businesses such as corporate reputation and branding, customer loyalty and retention, market assessment, and employee survey programmes.

Related link:
ORC International www.orcinternational.com/