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<\/p>\n <\/p>\n BACKGROUND<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n S<\/span>tatistics<\/strong> from International Trade centre indicate that by 2050, 80% of the workforce worldwide will be working in services. The growing competitive business environment has positioned BPO as a key source of competitive advantage. India and China have dominated this industry but as the cost of outsourcing gets higher, companies are looking for other possible destinations. The million-dollar question is, can Africa be the next destination? What are the potentials, prospects and challenges of achieving this tall dream? What success stories already exist in Africa? What are the factors behind the success of the leading world BPO destinations? What are the strategies that will take Africa there?<\/span><\/p>\n <\/div><\/span><\/p>\n Imagine your\u00a0<\/span><\/strong>Ad<\/span><\/strong>\u00a0placed\u00a0here<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n <\/div><\/span><\/p>\n This module discusses the gradual global expansion of Business Process Outsourcing<\/strong> (BPO)<\/strong>. It identified the leading BPO destinations which are geographically located in Asian countries notably India and China. The presentation further highlighted the factors behind the success of the leading World BPO destinations being availability of skilled manpower, enabling business environment created by government in terms of tax holidays and incentives for BPO investors, bilingual factor, IT skill and development as well as fast integrated logistics infrastructure.<\/span><\/p>\n In appraising the African potential in benefiting from inherent economic advantages BPO can offer the continent, the paper identified South Africa and Egypt being the leading BPO destinations in Africa today. These countries were leading because of the availability of the prerequisite enabling environment indices already listed above. Although Kenya in the East is equally bracing up to meet up with South Africa and Egypt, while Ghana, Senegal and Nigeria are assiduously working towards evolving BPO markets in the West African Sub-region. For instance, in Ghana \u2026 an indigenous company is currently operating. Also in Nigeria \u2026 are operating Call Centre outfits.<\/span><\/p>\n BPO is a new economic opportunity for the emerging African economy. However, government in Africa needs to partner private sectors under a Public Private Partnership (PPP) arrangement, for s virile BPO sub-sector to evolve in African countries. Apart from helping African economy to grow and be in tune with the international business ethics, establishment of BPO will help reducing high unemployment rate in Africa countries. However, authorities in African countries will need to remove entry barriers for investors in BPO, develop fast and integrated infrastructure in transport logistics and telecommunication. Africa has all it takes to evolve virile competitive BPO outlets, as a result of availability of cheap labour, skill manpower, huge market for Western products as well as cultural affiliation with the Western World. But government in these countries needs to create the enabling environment for prospective BPO investors to operate in Africa.<\/span><\/p>\n INTRODUCTION<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n The rapid competitiveness in the global economy nowadays, as a result of dynamic business innovations are responsible for multinational corporate bodies, at international level, transferring some of their non-core and core business <\/span>process to an external provider.<\/span><\/p>\n The above business approach is consequently conceptualized as Business Process Outsourcing (BPO)<\/strong>.\u00a0<\/strong>This approach (BPO) is unique because it offers companies a way of achieving transformational outcomes much more quickly. For instance, in BPO the outside provider does not only take on the responsibility to manage the function or business process, but he also re-engineers the way the process has been done traditionally.<\/span><\/p>\n Nowadays, BPO is fast emerging as a powerful and flexible tool that business leaders can use to achieve a wide range of tactical and strategic aims. BPO leverages process that drives efficiencies in business in terms of organizational excellence, responsiveness, branding, financial, efficiency and customer relationship. The most prominent business process that is being outsourced today is Call Centres. For instance, call Centres and Help Desks of many multi-national companies globally are being outsourced to low waged, English speaking countries such as Philippines and India.<\/span><\/p>\n BPO being an IT-based process has positioned India, the IT giant in Asia, to attract outsourcing business from American IT\/Technology companies. E.g. IT, Help Desk. These are Help Desks that are configured with the state of the art software and hardware manned by IT experts, who also attend promptly to customer request.<\/span><\/p>\n The Operation Component of BPO<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n Its operations include the following:<\/span><\/p>\n Worldwide BPO Destinations <\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n Choosing a country for Offshore BPO work presents a strategic challenge to the client on one hand and an opportunity to the country on the other.<\/span><\/p>\n The economic benefits to host nation are compelling and therefore governments are becoming involved, offering incentives to providers that bring business to the country, speeding visa and immigration procedures, granting waivers in labor laws etc.<\/span><\/p>\n Most BPO consulting firms rate countries on three factors<\/span><\/p>\n AT Kearney, a global consulting firm Key has rated 11 countries on the three parameters and its findings rate India best in two of the three categories, cost and people. Weakness includes poor infrastructure, cultural differences, lack of global exposure, poor soft skills, bureaucratic red tape, complex and inefficient legal system and little business process expertise.<\/span><\/p>\n It says that Canada, Australia and Ireland, apart from their linguistic strength in English speaking, score best in people and environment. They boast of superior infrastructure and lower political and economic risk is undermined by costs, which are understandably higher. Canada has high employee retention rate, business process experience and proximity to the US making it the best near-shore option for US clients like BP Amoco, Allmerica and Compaq.<\/span><\/p>\n The historical influence of the United States on the Philippines has produced a workforce with close cultural affinities and American style English speakers aware of US standards of customer service. The Philippines, however, has a smaller pool of skilled resources and slightly higher labor costs compared to India.<\/span><\/p>\n Hungary and Czech Republic offer cultural similarities, language and technical skills along with lower hurdles to data privacy regulations (being part of EU) for multinationals that operate in Europe.<\/span><\/p>\n China\u2019s strength includes large cheap labor pool suited to large-scale transaction-based business processes. Its drawback is high level of political risk.<\/span><\/p>\n It is becoming clear that the choice of country location carries much higher weightage than choice of service provider for large BPO deals and process of selection is rigorous.<\/span><\/p>\n Risk mitigation is an important consideration and work is being distributed to ensure business continuity and recovery in case of natural or man-made disaster. Both BPO providers and clients are using multiple country models with specific provisions for hot site, nearshore distribution of work. For example, in case of a natural disaster in Delhi, a comparable workforce in Manila could perform the same business process without interruption. By the same token companies find it useful to identify subcategories of countries that are most apt to meeting their specific needs.<\/span><\/p>\n The Ranking of Global BPO Destinations<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n The leading global outsourcing destinations, quoting the Economic Intelligence Unit<\/em><\/strong> are:<\/span><\/p>\n Ironically, USA and UK are placed in 20th<\/sup> and 29th<\/sup> respectively. The serious emphasis on why India came first is as a result of language (English) proficiency; and China 2nd<\/sup> due to her domiciled cheap and surplus labour supply, as well as world-class, integrated infrastructure.<\/span><\/p>\n The Index for Determining BPO Destination<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n The benchmark used by the Economic Intelligence Units<\/em><\/strong> for ranking the BPO destinations is:<\/span><\/p>\n The BPO Market in Africa<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n Some countries in Africa have recently started buying into the BPO market, doing everything possible to become competitive destinations. This is as a result of identified huge potential in the African economy, considering the market size, which relies largely on Western Countries\u2019 finished products, which are virtually not being produced on the continent. Geographically, the bulk of African BPO activity is presently concentrated in two regions of the continent namely the Southern and Northern Region.<\/span><\/p>\n Although, there are pockets of BPI activities in the West African sub-region, especially in Ghana and Senegal. \u00a0South Africa is however currently leading the Africa BPO, performing call center services, and all forms of back-office operations. In the Northern region, Egypt is taking the lead in BPO, while Morocco and Tunisia are striving to evolve a reliable BPO sub-sector.<\/span><\/p>\n The Egypt Experience<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n In Africa, Egypt has been able to establish a virile network of BPO. Prominent among them is Xceed Contact Centre. It has on its payroll a total workforce of 850 employees.<\/span><\/p>\n The company has been able to excel in Egypt because of the following factors:<\/span><\/p>\n The South Africa Experience<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n In South Africa there is callingthecape<\/em> BPO in Cape Town. The South African government has been able to evolve an enabling environment for BPO investors in South Africa by providing business incentives aforementioned. The geographical location and cultural background of the South African workforce also contributed positively to the growth of BPO in the country.<\/span><\/p>\n Other countries in Africa that are striving to evolve BPO sub-sector include Mauritius and Botswana. Notably, Mauritius has 23 operators in its Ebene Cyber Tower, with a second tower underway. Nonetheless, Africa has a huge potential in BPO development, not only because of the size of the continent economy or its cultural relationship with the West but because of the rising costs in the traditional BPO countries.<\/span><\/p>\n Nigerian Initiative<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n In January of 2007, outsourcing policy guidelines was launched by the Federal Government.<\/span><\/p>\n The key thrusts of the policy are:<\/span><\/p>\n The Policy Objectives<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n The overall policy objective is the promotion of an enabling institutional, legal, regulatory, technological, and infrastructural environment for the sustainable development of the outsourcing sector in Nigeria.\u00a0 Some of the specific objectives are:<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n GOOD NEWS FROM INDIA<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n India is also no longer leading the pack of most-favoured outsourcing destinations. Instances of foreign firms pulling back the outsourced work are growing.<\/span><\/p>\n In recent months companies such as Capital One, Dell Computer, Lehman Brothers and AXA have repatriated their back-office operations from India.<\/span><\/p>\n Conseco, an American insurance firm, is the latest to join the roster of firms moving back their outsourcing operations. According to reports in foreign media, the list is expected to grow.<\/span><\/p>\n Conseco had outsourced as many as 800 jobs to India three years ago. The company then believed that India would provide better customer services. But that feeling is changing now.<\/span><\/p>\n These days more than 150 workers at its headquarters and 100 at a Chicago-based subsidiary field calls from independent agents and customers. These jobs were earlier handled by an outfit near New Delhi.<\/span><\/p>\n KNOWLEDGE PROCESS OUTSOURCING<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/moovafrica.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/Dr.-Obiora-Madu-Profile-Photo-1-271x300.jpg\")
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