That is a good move by the PS and I hope some fruits will come out of it soon.   I have this feeling (and I stand to be corrected) that the BPO sector is somewhat relying too much on the government for them to do business. I say so because I keep hearing of incentives, tax breaks, and others. As the PS has rightly pointed, this may cause other sectors (agriculture, tourism, manufacturing, financial services, etc) to demand similar treatment, a situation I think is not sustainable.   One way of building the sector without much reliance on the incentives and tax breaks is to have a vibrant domestic BPO sector to build capacity and confidence in readiness for the external business (when it comes after putting our image in order). As we wait for the PS to convince his colleagues on the need to outsource some jobs locally, I suggest that the sector operators mount an aggressive campaign to do the same (to complement the PSs efforts) and also venture into private sector. Someone has suggested that KNBS could make use of local BPOs during the coming census, and I add that KRA could also do the same as they process end of year tax returns. Is the sector ready for these jobs if they were to be given today?   This takes me to the issue of training. In the absence of a national BPO skills competency programme, the options are numerous and the result is varying skills training programmes in the market (many in-house) without a benchmark for what is relevant or not. This gives rise to various competing programmes, mostly foreign, and different operators having their own preferences. How can we build a national database of BPO skills in such a situation? Put another way, given the varying skills needs of the sector, is there need for a national qualification?   Regards,   Jotham       --- On Mon, 6/8/09, bitange@jambo.co.ke <bitange@jambo.co.ke> wrote: From: bitange@jambo.co.ke <bitange@jambo.co.ke> Subject: Re: [kictanet] [Fwd: Re: Day 5 of 10- BPO Discussions, HR Issues] To: jokilimo@yahoo.com Cc: "KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions" <kictanet@lists.kictanet.or.ke> Date: Monday, June 8, 2009, 9:58 AM Listers, I have consulted with my colleagues in those departments that are looking at outsourcing and they are willing to discuss with stakeholders to gain better understanding of the trade.  I will therefore arrange for this meeting towards the end of the month. One thing that may be difficult for us is the Tax Break request for local BPO organizations.  If that is granted, Treasury will be hard put to explain why all other organizations should not get the tax break.  I understand tax break for export of service but locally sourced jobs, we may be asking for too much. Ndemo.

Excellent point!  I think we are making a huge mistake especially in light of the post election violence focusing so heavily on the foreign investors and the international BPO market.

I have been following this discussion and as a local BPO operator focused on the domestic market I can tell you we have a difficult time convincing local companies to outsource and while all this talk is good frankly I think we are missing the point.  If the point is development, then why aren't we focusing on how to develop this industry as quickly and effectively as possible?  In my view the low hanging fruit are the domestic opportunities but we need a lot more work in the form of government incentives to operators AND businesses to promote and support the nascent outsourcing industry.  Yes, I read the post on the judiciary plans to outsource the transcription but I think there is plenty more work that can be outsourced and if the government wasn't so focused on the foreign investor and looked at the government as a consumer of outsourced services and the local private sector we may make more progress.  My hope is that we can focus on creating the environment that makes it conducive to manage and operate domestic BPOs which will be building capacity while we manage and frankly repair our much tarnished image abroad.  Just like a company needs to look at reinvesting retained earnings before it seeks outside financing, we need to look at what we can do locally before we start tapping the international market, especially given the heightened risk factors that Kenya faces since 2007/8.

This means: 1.  Government departments, agencies outsourcing work to local companies and looking at outsourcing not as a way to shed jobs but as a means to better manage scare resources. 2.  Tax breaks for local BPO operators and private companies contracting outsourcing services locally to incentivize operator investment and company adaption of services in this industry.  Tax breaks should be immediate and not dependant on the entry or attraction of foreign investors.  Those of us currently in operation are betting on Kenya. Instead of waiting we are putting our money to work believing in the future of this country...I don't think we are asking for too much when we ask the government to support our development. 3. Less focus on what we do not have and a greater focus on what we have. Skills, entrepreneurs and an optimistic view of our country as well as a domestic market and potential to tap into the larger regional market (EAC & COMESA).

Finally, I am of the contrarian view: we have the skill set, but because we are not willing to start where we are we are asking students and graduates to pay more money to get additional certification before we can get foreign investors interested in our country...Frankly I think we place too much stock in certificates and paper qualifications.  If we ask these graduates to take another training class with the promise of better opportunity they will...instead I suggest we recognize the current intellectual capital that we have and those of us in the industry focus on the job training and going back to the role that government can play, obtain tax credits for this on the job training.  Lets us make sure these graduates have work and build on that instead of creating additional hurdles to employment.

Subject:   Re: [kictanet] Day 5 of 10- BPO Discussions, HR Issues From:   "S.Murigi Muraya" <murigi.muraya@gmail.com> Date:   Mon, June 8, 2009 5:17 pm To:   mkamuru@emanageafrica.com Cc:   "KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions" <kictanet@lists.kictanet.or.ke> Priority:   Normal

...

Let us also factor in on the job training to improve our skill sets. Software engineers become masters of their craft by doing projects and by exchanging (code and concepts) with their peers. A classroom setting possibly contributes to less than 10% of all their success.

There have been a number of comments in these (BPO) discussions comparing us with India, South Africa and Mauritius.

We cannot rely on the whims of those with negative (but often valid) perceptions towards us. We need to give ourselves a chance that is of our own creation.

@ 40 Million (our 2010 population) growing at 2.5% (https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ke.html and others estimate our population growth @ almost 2.7% per annum) we will add 1 Million Kenyans to our population next year. 2030 is sure to see us with a population of at least 60 Million.

With that in mind and given the fact political instability is the current (and unfortunately valid) excuse to avoid Kenya, we would be most ignorant NOT to focus most of our BPO efforts internally. This will build up LOCAL companies and on a REGIONAL basis. This will build up local talent who may otherwise be demoralized for not being Western enough to Foreign BPO companies.

bitange@jambo.co.ke wrote:

...

Walubengo, With respect to capacity building, the Government has done the following Established Multimedia University to focus on IT Skills Development; Contracted the Central Bureau of Statistics through CCK to conduct ICT Skills inventory in Kenya and Set up a task force to look into Skills development as recommended by MaKinsey in the just concluded Value Proposition.  We are in the process of appointing other stakeholders into the committee.

Although we do not have a sector strategy on Capacity building, the Governemnt takes issues of skills development very seriously. This is a matter that NESC emphasizes as key to our competitiveness.  In this regard we look forward to a quick finalization of the skills inventory and the task force recommendation.

Regards

Ndemo.

...

-Day 5 of 10- BPO Discussions, Human Capacity Issues

Morning all,

I trust you had a refreshing weekend.  Today I want to introduce the theme on Human Resource Development for the BPO industry.  The Researchers found that India, S.Africa and Mauritius had a comprehensive inventory of their skill-base that was also available for Validation by prospective employers and investors.  Another observation was ofcourse the sheer numbers of Indian graduates (millions) that made it the largest base of highly skilled pool of graduates with strong mathematical/scientific orientation.   Whereas, Mauritius was producing only 10,000 (university) graduates per year compared to Kenya's 30,000 per year, Mauritius had the advantage of properly documenting their national graduates database and marketing it appropriately to potential clients in Europe/America.  In addition, the Researchers noted that Mauritius had a government funded but Private-Sector oriented ICT Academy that produced graduates specificially for the ICT industry.

In Kenya, the Researchers observed that apart from the lack of a national database on the available skills/graduates, some of the BPO operators were engaged in vicious poaching cycles where Agents trained in-house by one Operater are immediately hired by the Competing Operators. It was noted, that an attempt has been made by the .KE Government to create an Industry-specific University (Multimedia University College of Kenya) to address the HR gap but its success or otherwise will remain to be seen in a few years time.  The Researchers also noted that Kenya's English-speaking labor force had an edge over the Indian one given that the average Kenyan had a "neutral" accent unlike the Indian graduate who tended to have an "ethnic" accent that often distracted the Euro-American

%3

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