The government plans to aggressively market to the world its specialist call centre industry to draw new investment and create thousands of jobs for local youth, says minister of trade, industry & competition Ebrahim Patel.
“We are now thinking of more actively marketing these business services whenever we have these state visits by the president [Cyril Ramaphosa] to other countries,” Patel said.
“Recently, when the president went to New York for the meeting of the UN General Assembly, we engaged a number of businesses there and some of them were call centre businesses in the US.”
Patel said during the Covid lockdown, his department created regulations to pandemic-proof local call centres so they could continue operating.
“We made a special arrangement. We published a special set of regulations during Covid that allow enhanced measures by call centres for social distancing, sanitation, cleaning of equipment and so on.”
People in countries such as the UK, US and Germany who call service providers in banking, IT or health services receive support from call centres in South Africa, Patel said.
His department had a R3bn programme that covered more than 30,000 workers in the sector.
“This programme is about creating industrial capacity to utilise that shift to services. The call centres are huge, like massive clothing factories, but instead of people producing clothing behind the machine, they sit behind a machine and produce solutions for customers or business clients globally.”
Mercedes-Benz and BMW are examples of companies that have significant digital hubs in South Africa that provide such job opportunities, the minister said.
The call centre industry has a value-add proposition in specialised services such as web design, payroll management and IT support, with possible application globally, he added
So beneficial is the growth of this sector in South Africa, said Patel, that its jobs might be resilient against the encroachment of AI and machine learning.
It’s a sector that creates employment opportunities for youth because it’s actually seen as an entry-level opportunity, so it’s their first job opportunity. However, it’s not a stepping stone. It’s a career that provides … a very clear career pathway in the sector.
— Reshni Singh, CEO, Business Process Enabling South Africa
Instead, AI could enhance customer support in South Africa.
“We want to be able to provide a service here where someone says, ‘I hit a motor vehicle. I live in Birmingham and I’ve bumped [into] someone, and they say they are going to sue me. What are my rights?’
“You can use machine learning to get a first draft and have a trained lawyer who understands UK law who can review and adjust the machine learning knowledge and customise and be the interface.”
Business Process Enabling South Africa (BPESA) CEO Reshni Singh told Business Times the sector is being recognised as a sustainable source of employment with broad career prospects and an ability to absorb a young, skills-hungry workforce.
“The sector is focused on any IT-enabled service that can be outsourced and offshored. And it’s predominantly what we call voice-BPO [business process outsourcing], that’s customer service activity. However, we have found that recently we have been attracting a lot of interest in other services, such as professional services, IT services, knowledge services, education and those types of services,” she said.
Singh said 50% of the local sector’s work comes from UK clients, while 40% is from the US. The remaining 10% emanates from Australia, Europe and the rest of Africa.
“It’s a sector that creates employment opportunities for youth because it’s actually seen as an entry-level opportunity, so it’s their first job opportunity. However, it’s not a stepping stone. It’s a career that provides ... a very clear career pathway in the sector.”
The sector, which the government declared to be an essential service during Covid, experienced increased demand during the pandemic. It provided vital support to health care, retail, customer services and e-commerce during the lockdown, said Singh.
“We actually grew as an industry during lockdown and, post-Covid, we are starting to see that we are moving up the value chain in terms of the complex roles that call centres are starting to play as well,” she added.
Cape Town mayoral committee member for economic growth James Vos said the city and country have become the hub of the BPO industry globally.
“Over the years, South Africa has now become a globally favoured hub. When you look at Cape Town, you see that 72,000 people now work in call centres, speaking to domestic and international clients.”
The sector needs private sector buy-in, business confidence, energy, stable conditions and ease of doing business to encourage investors to take up the opportunity, he added.
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.