Thumbs up Peres! I support your point because even if we put together the best Outsourcing Frameworks (Legal, Regulatory, QA.) in the world, our 'bad reputation' (alongside most other African countries) will obscure the frameworks. We need an effective public relations entity that can help counter the perception and market Kenya's uniqueness (?). Northern Ireland did it! Egypt is doing it! Our EAC partner, Rwanda is also doing it. In simple words, as the bad stories (how corrupt(?) our Government officials are, Mungiki massacre,.) trickle to the international limelight, can we also 'flood' the FACTS ( news of how educated Kenyans are, good/affordable hotels, the upcoming undersea cable,...) about Kenya . Am sure right now the fact that Delta Airlines did not land here as expected, a few potential outsourcing clients have developed cold feet; the wrong (Kenya is insecure!) message is out there. Some may actually not know that there are 10s of flights leaving/coming to Kenya to/from most destinations of the world! We for sure know that Kenya is a good country and that is why many people from other countries choose to settle here after experiencing this goodness even for a short period. The question is, just who will tell the world the good side about Kenya? Our media perhaps can help. I was thrilled to see the Nation Newspaper headlines amongst those being reviewed on SKY-News; I wished the headline on that day (it was; 'Ministers' Joyride for 5-minute UN speech'!) was different though. Our missions abroad (embassies and high commissions) can also help. South Africa and Philippines are utilizing the latter effectively. For example, you can more easily lose your life to armed criminals in the streets of Johannesburg than in Nairobi but investors have been convinced (through focused publicity) to outsource there (Johannesburg). Cheers, Muthoni Masinde -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Peres Were Sent: 04 June 2009 11:06 To: [email protected] Cc: KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions Subject: Re: [kictanet] Day 2 of 10:-BPO discussions,Legal and Regulatory Frameworks External perception is absolutely critical in the race to obtain international BPO contracts. No one wants to outsource to a country which they 'percieve' as unstable, or which they percieve as underdeveloped. The truth is that most executives in our source markets for BPO work, in particular USA, percieve Africa as one country with a myriad of ills: Somalia -Pirates Congo - Wars Darfur- kicking out the Aid organizations, starvation Kenya ? Post Elections Violence Nigeria ? 419 Scams Zimbabwe ? Cholera and Inflation Etc., etc. The best way to counter these perceptions is to have in-coming trade delegations from our source markets, so they can see for themselves what Kenya has to offer. W need to work on changing these negative perceptions of Kenya/Africa, BUT at the same time build up our internal capacity. We cannot do one without the other. Local outsourcing market needs to be developed in tandem with the international. Peres Quoting Barrack Otieno <[email protected]>:
Colleagues your comments are right, however we seemed to be more inclined at external perceptions as opposed to building up internal capacity, must it take foreigners to show us our potential?
On Thu, Jun 4, 2009 at 9:01 AM, munyiva ngea <[email protected]> wrote:
Good morning,
I agree with Peter about perception take Mauritius for example the Board of Investment and the BPO Vendors strive to change the perception of the country as a mere tourist attraction to an ICT Hub. They invite prospective investors or clients to the country take them to their lavish well equipped offices, which are probably located in Ebene Cyber City the landing point of the Submarine cable so the clients are assured of available internet infrastructure.After the site visit the clients are then whisked away to have a fantastic weekend on the beaches or on a boat. Simply put they show clients they can do much more than provide BPO services they can offer quality of life.
To answer Question 3 i think without the government and local vendors taking decisive steps to attract and retain investors and clients to the country. Basically we need to give officials who are marketing the country the funds to be able to invite the prospective investors and clients to the country to show them we sufficient infrastructure and Human resources.
In order to build confidence in the country's capabilities we have to have to EVIDENCE of these capabilities take India for example with its National Skills Registry which is an industry initiative to ensure that individuals employed by organizations have their background and antecedents verified (http://news.indiamart.com/news-analysis/national-skills-regi-13182.html) prospective clients need only to browse through the site to be assured that the country has the Human resource capacity needed. What about Kenya apart from various websites which allow individuals to upload their CVs where can a prospective client get information on the available agents, software developers and so on?? this information is not available on various institutional websites (universities, colleges) so how do we expect a client to actually believe that we are capable if we are unable to show it (Perception again!!)
-- Best regards Munyiva Ngea
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