Dear Liko, I appreciate your comments and the issues you have raised, given the difficulties the young industry has faced. Let me share my thoughts. For a long time, I shared some of the same views you have detailed below but after visits to various offshore destinations and after going through my own personal learnings as a small operator, I realised that if the country ever has to become a force to reckon with and stand to be counted as an alternative offshore outsourcing destination, we must have the organised structures like the other countries we are competing with. Unfortunately buildings do not come up in a day so there must be planning towards ensuring that it happens within the required period. I say this because a small operator aspires to expand, I do not think anyone wants to remain at 20 seats. The small operators have had a really rough time getting proper contracts, hence the difficulties you have outlined below. Part of the reason for this is that they are going through middle men since direct clients need to see certain things in the country to be interested at all. In order for small operators to reach a point where they too start getting good contracts, Kenya as a country needs to be a main attraction for the big players. This would help the small operators have an easier sell. Yes, for small operators,there is still office space available hence no priority for the parks but the scenario is different for the large players. For Kenya to be a main attraction,several things must be put in place.Infrastructure is key- ie.communication/transport/office parks- large ones to accomodate big players who want to move in with 2000 seats and expand them to 5000 when they want to,without waiting for the building to be put up. I am glad to see private sector initiatives coming up in anticipation of the sector's growth although the ones I have seen (other than Sameer) would only take on about 500-1000 seats each.Many are however too expensive. The smaller BPOs (who are the majority) would ride on the elevation of Kenya as a country, getting on the map with big players coming and setting shop. Naturally, the big players have great demands and we cannot fault them on that. That is not to say the small BPOs should be ignored. My stand is that the small players should be given other incentives, like capacity building. Too much time and money is lost on training agents. Sections of the proposed parks should be allocated to a large group of small BPOs so they all have proper infrastructure at affordable rent(at least for a certain period till they expand to 100 seats.)They could even be different companies but under one roof serving one large company and undergoing same high quality training to ensure that they operate at the same standard to serve the one client eg. 10 small BPOs with 100 seats each serving one client of 1000 seats. (Zain, Safaricom,Telkom,GoK do you hear me?. I know there may be a comment that I should be looking at the domestic industry. Marketing is key and we do need to see much more of that. As industry association, we have been limited given the young stage we are at but we see this changing a great deal soon. I cannot speak for government and I agree with Liko that more can be done in marketing. However,let us not lose sight that when one aggressively does any marketing, the product should be ready for purchase. The cables only recently came in. We are yet to start serious human resource capacity building so as to have thousands of ready agents, supervisors and managers who have undertaken industry specific training. We need this yesterday, so when those contracts (local or international)come along,companies do not poach from each other and cripple each others' operations. We need to see enough buildings coming up as serious marketing kicks off, which we hope Government will aggressively start in January 2010. And I really do not think we should be restricting our thoughts to "parks" but to an entirely new zone with several buildings, schools,hospitals,malls- a new mini city. We have to think big if we want to achieve great things. I believe we are talking long term goals here, the short term that would help the smaller BPOs is what I suggested- capacity building and marketing the country. Whose initiative was it? Government. Gilda Odera Is this an industry initiative- not really. Credit goes to Government. The key thing is that the park must not just be a park. It must be a whole new city coming up with schools, hospitals, malls, housing and much much more. Meanwhile, the struggle continues...........but not for too long we hope! Gilda Quoting Agosta Liko <agostal@gmail.com>:
My views ....
As a small BPO operator { www.verviant.com }for the last 3 years, I think this is not the best use for any public funds for now {where now is 4-6 years} ... here are my reasons
a. Lack of working capital is one of the biggest reasons BPO's in this country have failed, we{operators} used to complain about internet prices but truth is if you look at providers... the ability to just pay workers is the single biggest challenge
To this, the single biggest beef about the BPO sector in the working Kenyans mind is that we dont pay on time {ever}
As a provider, I know clients may delay payments, middle men may ran away etc etc ... but this stuff kills you and in a society that is primarily driven by Asset based lending .... you are stuck
as a provider, there are times when billables out there are pretty hefty but clients has not paid ... to an employee or consultant, its another story
b. We have really sucked at marketing... either as Kenya or as providers ... now, the bigger providers may have made breakthrus in this area but then we have collectivelly failed to market Kenya ... Our industry organisations have also failed to make a 1-1 connection between providers and clients ... this in my view could be the single biggest driver of success in the sector ....
My thinking is instead of going off to 60 KM's outside Nairobi and building a park that may not fill in the next 5 years, why dont we solve the 2 problems above and then take it from there.
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I am not for the idea of making employees travel another 60KM's to work.
The 6 lane highways may come, South Africa may be doing it... but how many seats do we have right now compared to Malaysia, Egypt, Philipines, South Africa and Brazil
In my original post, I asked whether this was a government idea or an industry idea .. I would love to learn more ... maybe I just dont have the right info
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Dr Ndemo, Gilda ... you all are leaders in this sector, what am asking for is just some honest reflection or conversation about how we can make things work. We all know of very many failed BPOs ... is this the silver bullet ?
Providers on the list, BPO Employees ... any views ?
On Thu, Dec 3, 2009 at 4:27 PM, Catherine Adeya <elizaslider@yahoo.com>wrote:
Very true...in the South Africa case, they are building a very major BPO Part in Port Elizabeth. They started in January and are on track to complete by March....within time and within budget. It is excellent.
Nyaki
------------------------------ *From:* "bitange@jambo.co.ke" <bitange@jambo.co.ke> *To:* elizaslider@yahoo.com
*Cc:* KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions <kictanet@lists.kictanet.or.ke> *Sent:* Thu, December 3, 2009 12:35:28 PM *Subject:* Re: [kictanet] Question on ICT/BPO Park
Mr. Liko, All such parks are outside of Town. Check Malaysia, Egypt, Philipines, South Africa and Brazil. Malili is 60 KMs out of Nairobi on Mombasa Road.
Ndemo. Sent from my BlackBerry®
-----Original Message----- From: Agosta Liko <agostal@gmail.com> Date: Thu, 3 Dec 2009 03:27:24 To: <bitange@jambo.co.ke> Cc: KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions<kictanet@lists.kictanet.or.ke> Subject: [kictanet] Question on ICT/BPO Park
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