Johannesburg, 15 Dec 2010
Kenya`s stated goal is to become an ICT and business process outsourcing hub of choice by 2030. Should South Africa consider it a threat to its own ambitions in this regard? Spescom DataVoice believes we should - and that the answer to this challenge may be to look to honing our one true competitive advantage - namely the skills and performance of our people, and our management of these skills.
In 2007, reports predicted that by 2010, the BPO industry in South Africa would have created 100 000 new jobs. Only a fraction of these have been realised. In contrast, the BPO industry in India employs about 1 million people (source: National Association of Software and Service Companies, Nasscom).
Nonetheless, the country`s skills in certain sectors are being recognised.
According to the World Economic Forum`s Global Competitiveness Report
2009-2010, South Africa ranks fifth in financial market sophistication and sixth in terms of Soundness of Banks, positioning the South African BPO and call centre sector for global outsourcing projects in the banking and insurance sectors.
Says Kgabo Badimo, MD of Spescom DataVoice: "At present, with existing world-class contact centre infrastructure, significant skills in various key sectors and a telecoms arena that is deregulating, we still have some advantage as a BPO destination of choice on the African continent. However, that is changing.
"Connectivity throughout Africa is exploding thanks to the commissioning of the various undersea cables, and more African governments are realising the opportunity this connectivity will present to their current and future workforces. As they gear themselves to become BPO and ICT offshore destinations, South Africa needs to enhance its own offerings.
"In a contact centre, it`s the people that make the difference, that drive competitive advantage," he notes, "and optimisation of this workforce has not yet been thoroughly explored. Many contact centres in South Africa still use spreadsheets to manage staff, measure performance, forecast call volumes and meet staffing demands. Workforce management and workforce optimisation solutions can deliver considerably more benefits, increasing competitiveness by enhancing service quality and productivity, and lowering costs."
And those costs are high. Contact centre agents are not unskilled - some have degrees and command appropriate salaries. However, its knowledgeable agents that are educated and skilled that will improve the customer experience and people make up at least 60% of the cost of running a contact centre. "This highlights the need to employ quality and workforce management solutions," says Badimo. "Ghana, Tanzania, Kenya and Nigeria are all jostling for this space and some predictions say they will catch up with South Africa in five to seven years at their present rate of development of this sector. South Africa needs to gain an edge and this can be done through training."
Workforce optimisation can enhance the outputs of contact centres through agent selection profiling, agent and coach assessment, interactive online learning and customer satisfaction research. Some of these solutions can be deployed as a stand-alone performance optimisation suite or integrated with voice and screen recording platforms, combining recorded telephone calls and screen interactions to assess and manage performance.
"It`s a tool that makes quality assurance management simpler, faster and extremely dynamic," says Badimo, "and when combined with workforce management - which includes forecasting, planning and follow up - will boost efficiency and improve the profitability of contact centres."
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