An ambitious goal for the call centre industry to create 100000 jobs by next year is unlikely to be met because the government has not done enough to turn that dream into reality.
Too little action and too much bureaucracy is suppressing the industry and letting rival countries win international call centre contracts, says a report by research house Frost & Sullivan.
Although the industry was enjoying some growth, it would probably reach 60000 jobs within seven years rather than achieve the government’s goal, said analyst Spiwe Chireka.
“The planned growth is unlikely to be realised under the current circumstances,” she said, as the government’s stated support for the industry did not translate into efficient action.
Its efforts were also slow, which frustrated investors into taking their operations elsewhere. Set-up and running costs were also higher due to higher wages in SA than in rival countries. “Ghana, Nigeria and Kenya are making headway into the offshore contact centre space,” Chireka said.
“Kenya has made large investments in its telecommunications infrastructure and is looking to have a world-class network by 2015.
“With this increasing competition, SA’s dominance as an offshore destination for contact centres in Africa may be under threat.”
SA touts its attractions as good language capabilities, favourable time zones, advanced financial services and strong government support, but investors were not necessarily looking for those any more.
Language and time zones had become irrelevant as most offshore destinations operated 24-hour centres and had large English speaking populations.
There were two critical factors to resolve, she said. First, SA must invest in skills training to keep the industry fuelled and stop the high attrition rate caused by job-hopping.
Second, independent research should be conducted into the cost of telecoms services, which are regularly condemned for being among the highest in the world.
If the costs were out of kilter, operators must be urged to reduce their fees or justify their costs to potential investors, Chireka said.
In the past few years the number of call centres had grown significantly from 450 in 2004 to more than 1300 last year, and the number of foreign jobs served from SA was between 24000 and 25000.
The jobs outsourced most frequently by US and UK companies were information technology (IT) and contact centre services.
However, SA’s IT and contact centre skills were limited, which is a major hindrance to its success, Chireka said.
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