Dear Carol,

On behalf  of the Kenya BPO and Contact Center Society I wish to make a few
remarks on the current status of the BPO Industry.

It is indeed correct to state that most of the BPO operators who started
operations last year and before have come to a suspension, others have
closed shop.
With the high cost of bandwidth, very few of the operators have been able to
sustain such high cost of operation. Indeed even those who are lucky to get
some trial contracts are unable to service them sufficiently, ending up in
not signing up the contracts.
Many have relied on this promise of the bandwidth subsidy. Others who
started their operations this year are now also running out of funds.
It is imperative that this issue be addressed urgently and the Society has
been in constant touch with the ICT Board following up this matter.
Unfortunately, the Industry players have become tired of our response of "
We are waiting for  feedback from the ICT Board".
Two weeks ago, Industry players were sent a form by the ICT Board to fill
and send back. The form is meant to jump start the process. I would prefer
the Board to give more information on this though as I may not be in the
position to explain this further.

One important point raised by Carol though is that  these centres need not
suspend or shut down if they can be provided with work from Government to
keep them busy while international marketing takes place. Bandwidth subsidy
alone will not keep these centres operating, they need work, constant work.
It is important to state that for Kenya to really become an active
outsourcing destination, much needs to be done. Many centres need to be
running. Support needs to be there for indigenous local companies given that
many international companies are the ones coming in to benefit from the
bandwidth subsidies. We need to position our domestic centers to be active
and take on some of the work when the ICT Board manages to attract
international contracts to Kenya or else we will be developing the business
for International companies who are not necessarily here for too long as
they always shop for alternative destinations. But if we develop our own, we
can be sure of long term sustainability as is the case in India.
The two go hand in hand, bandwidth and contracts. Without these two, even
making the proposed technology park a success may become a tall order. I
would have been happier seeing a good chunk of that money going into
marketing Kenya and winning contracts, the rest follows. Kenyans are very
enterprising and I have heard of so many private companies wanting to set up
technology parks. Maybe if Government had left that to private sector to do
and concentrate on marketing and human resource capacity building the
synergies would spiral faster.


Kind regards,

Gilda Odera
Chair, Kenya BPO and Contact Centre Society