South Africa`s offshore contact centre industry is beginning to organise and grow, but an international business analyst has warned against complacency.
Peter Ryan, a Canadian-based Datamonitor analyst, told the inaugural meeting of the South African Contact Centre Community (Sacccom) in Bryanston on Friday last week that although the local industry enjoys several advantages, it could soon face competition from others with similar strengths.
Ryan`s conclusions are based on a recent Datamonitor survey of 250 companies that have outsourced work to offshore contact centres.
[VIDEO]In terms of the survey, SA scores fairly high as an attractive outsourcing destination because it offers an established call centre industry, multi urban centres, good telecommunication infrastructure, and its agents have a high degree of cultural affinity and multilingualism.
"I have been extremely impressed with what I have seen in South African contact centres. There is a great pool of agents and executives to develop and promote the industry," comments Ryan.
Although Datamonitor predicts that the upward trend of contact centres will continue in SA because of high quality service and promotion, Ryan warns other sub-Saharan African countries could emerge as serious competitors.
In addition to Egypt, Morocco and Tunisia, Ryan says Kenya and Senegal have emerged as potential players in the offshore contact centre market, but perhaps the most important entrant for the South African market is Botswana.
"SA needs to keep an eye on Botswana because it has a strong and educated labour force, strong English fluency, aggressive promotional strategies, excellent incentives, and a strong focus on IT and telco investment," says Ryan.
While it has most of the important elements for promoting the contact centre industry and few inhibitors, Ryan says SA`s success depends on government and the private sector continuing to work together in tandem with industry associations like Sacccom to consolidate and speak with one voice.
"It is crucial that there be continual dialogue between the contact centre industry and government to maintain sensitivity to the industry`s changing needs. Failure to do so largely resulted in the collapse of offshore contact centres in Ireland," says Ryan.
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