Founded 2002 | ||
IDT Global Israel is a multi-lingual contact services company headquartered in Jerusalem, Israel.
Until July 1, 2008, it was a fully owned subsidiary of IDT Corp.; on that date, 80% of the company was sold to its Israeli CEO, Eli Ninio, with 20% remaining in the hands of Howard Jonas' IDT Corp..
Among the company's customers are Netgear, McAfee, 888.com, and the Israeli political party Shas. Most of the company's projects are not in Hebrew - Israel's primary official language - but rather in various European languages, including English, German, French, Dutch, Spanish and others. Until 2007, American companies were the company's main customers; these included AOL and Knowledge Networks. Since 2008, the company has focused almost exclusively on the European and Israeli markets.
The company's main location is in a Har Hotzvim office building which is shared with the Israeli branch of NDS Group. A smaller office is located in the Tel Aviv neighborhood Ramat HaHayal.
Philosophy
When the company was founded in 2004, it was not intended to be profitable. The company was, at that time, focused on the American market in particular, employing almost only new immigrants (olim chadashim) to Israel from North America. Similar companies in India, however, were much cheaper and more profitable due to the lower labor costs there. Howard Jonas, founder of IDT Corp., founded the Israeli branch of his company due to a desire to provide Western immigrants to Israel with an easy entry into the Israeli workforce: they could work in an Israeli company and earn a decent salary, without needing to speak Hebrew fluently. During the company's initial years, most of the activity was at night: shifts from 23:00 until 7:00 were rule rather than exception.
With the deteriorating situation of AOL, the AOL project was gradually downsized and eventually closed and the vast majority of its employees dismissed. Other American projects also closed or downsized, and as the company shrunk, it refocused on the Israeli and European markets. The nighttime operations gradually came to a near-halt, with most projects working during daytime hours.