Roadshows seem like a good call

Johannesburg, 03 Feb 2004

South Africa`s burgeoning call centre, contact centre and business process outsourcing industries will have a chance to showcase what they can do in a series of upcoming roadshows.

Many developed nations have prioritised programmes to either fully outsource, co-source or to offshore non-core business functions, and SA is one of the names that regularly crops up on the corporate offshoring shortlists.

"Several internationally recognised analysts and formal research houses concur that SA could well be in line to create as many as 100 000 new, sustainable jobs by attracting this type of work," says Rod Jones, whose strategic consulting firm is prominent in the local contact centre industry.

"The spin-off to the local IT industry will be immense. That number of new jobs represents anything up to the same number of technology-enabled workstations; 100 000 training opportunities; 100 000 recruitment and placement tasks; 100 000 desks, chairs and headsets.

"It also represents well in excess of a million square metres of real estate. So it is obvious that the extrapolated values are awesome."

According to Jones, this is the reasoning behind him hosting the 2004 Rod Jones Contact Centre Showcase Roadshow events.

"The Contact Centre Showcase Roadshow is neither a conference nor an exhibition; rather, it is an event designed to give vendors and service providers the opportunity to present, promote and even demonstrate their offerings to a broad cross-section of industry professionals."

He says the focus of Call Centre Showcase is to provide users and industry professionals with up-to-the-minute product and service information, and to facilitate a dynamic environment for information sharing and business networking.

"Last year we held the showcase only in Johannesburg and it proved to be an overwhelming success, so it only seems logical that we extend it further this year, which is why we will be holding them in Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban this time," he says.

Jones says the roadshow is scheduled to debut in Cape Town on 17 March, followed by Durban on 24 March and will conclude in Johannesburg on 31 March.