Thanks Kwach and Marcel for the gallant representations for the ICT industry in the country. We all support every voice advocating for local jobs being retained locally before we can look elsewhere. This will be the opportunity to build our capacity and industry including human resource work ethics/experience. Only then can we succeed in the external Outsourcing. Keep it up. Dan Njiriri --- Kwach <kwach@archway-productions.com> wrote:

Fellow Contributors,

Firstly I am impressed by the contributions that have been made in this discussion forum and I must commend Marcel for kicking off this timely discussion in the first place. Kenya is a beautiful country with a determined and hard working people. If there is one thing we Kenyans ask is an equal opportunity and we shall excel. If you talk to any economist they will tell you that the future is in the service industry more so for a country like Kenya that is neither gifted in mineral riches nor expansive arable land (Kenya is primarily 70% desert however with the remaining 30% we are able to become one of the global leaders in floriculture and tea production). The sad thing is that the world markets have changed and become increasingly competitive. Service industries worldwide more so in the IT Outsourcing space compete very aggressively for the market opportunities that present themselves. And those opportunities that have already been bagged are protected jealously.

Unfortunately when it comes to the IT industry the trend that is emerging is not pretty. Blue chip companies, government departments and parastatals have for a while adopted a strategy that has not been conducive in nurturing this industry. The sad thing is where they seem to have a silent conspiracy in only seeking international players for the major IT projects. Talk of Chinese Government IT Loans/Grants complete with planeloads of Chinese Engineers and technicians who swarm in and out without passing on any skills leaving us with pretty much mis-directed/unused investment once the project is implemented aren't misplaced. Almost all of these institutions continue running non-core back office activities that should be outsourced. The "smarter" ones that should outsource are sure take their business offshore. Yes this is true. It is an open secret that if you were to pick up a phone in EABL, the pride of Kenyan Manufacturing, and dialed IT help desk you would end up talking to a person sitting in Bangalore India. It's not that I have anything against the good people of Bangalore, my issue is that by farming out this work to Bangalore and not giving local companies a chance to undertake the work locally we are actually exporting jobs. We are taking jobs that were previously there and shipping them to India. The very least Mr. Gerald Mahinda should have done was to engage local entities to carry out this work and require them to partner with international firms to so as to ensure that the necessary skills are brought to this market. A very good example of this is the proposed IPO for Safaricom, some of the world's leading investment banks partnered entered into consortiums led by local entities to carry out the investment advisory work. It took a concerted government policy to ensure that this happened; otherwise local Investment Banks would have had no chance in the world to win that work.

The Kenya BPO & Contact Centre Society (KBPOCCS) says very little about growing local BPO outsource work. Is this not on your agenda? It seems that we are focussing (hastily) more on closing international outsource work even before you build and deepen your local capabilities and capacity, not forgetting experience. Do you also think that it is feasible/advisable to only depend on work from off-shore, when we know of the many other challenges that we face e.g. bandwidth availability and even when available, the quality of this bandwidth?

Fortunately not all is lost, one major player (Safaricom) announced plans sometime mid-last year thereabouts to outsource part of their customer care. Has the KPPOCCS motivated for this work to be awarded to a local service provider OR are we going to see this work being awarded to an off-shore operation? Did they ever award this work? Safaricom made a clear indication that it is interested in engaging local entities to carry out this work. However given that this process has gone quiet I pray they have not sold us down the river and awarded the business to some Indian or Philipino or even South African company. My point is the international clients we are trying to woe into farming out their work to Kenya will check us out thoroughly and if they see that the big players in this market are not giving their business to their fellow Kenyans why should they?

Similarly, Barclays Bank is another major player where the CEO is on record for declaring he was looking to establishing a large Contact Center in Kenya which could serve other Barclays operations across the globe (I think he said something like up to a 10,000 Seat contact center would be established! Can you imagine that? No one knows whether he was misquoted). He lamented the poor telecommunications infrastructure and our unpreparedness (probably skills, technology, work ethic, culture etc -wise) for such work. I think that the best strategy to adopt is for KPPOCCS in conjunction with the Kenya ICT Board and the Ministry of ICT to lobby hard for these kinds of declared outsource opportunities and bring them to fruition. Neglecting local outsource opportunities is like giving these potential outsourcers a "carte blanche" option to look externally for service providers. This way, many potential jobs are lost not forgetting the foreign exchange that is exported with the jobs!

I read in the newspapers yesterday that the "World Bank has released funds to support Kenyan Call Centres". The entire article was based on mostly subsidising the cost of international bandwidth. In effect the money being lent to us for this is all being remitted out to bandwidth providers who in a way put a premium to the bandwidth that they supply us. Isn't this money better utilised now to actually help "incubate" the budding BPO/Contact Center businesses by strengthening their skill capabilities, technology capacities, etc.with seed capital. It is clear that only the few established players and those yet to establish but with deep pockets to set up big, will reap the benefits of this bandwidth subsidy.

These are the reasons that I will throw the gauntlet to the Honorable Minister Samuel Poghisio, Bwana PS Dr. Ndemo, CEO of ICTBoard Mr. Paul Kukubo etc, please be vigilant, do not rest. Fight for this fledgling industry, there are many low lying fruits such as Call centers for organizations such as Safaricom, Kenya Police, GoK etc which you can lobby and encourage to be outsourced to local entities that will give the local industry the critical mass that will enable it grow and compete very well in the international arena.

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