Building on the successes of 2010, the company managed to sustain a strong upwards curve in 2011; growing its staff complement to over the 1500 mark, opening a new office in the Johannesburg, CBD and taking home a number of BPO industry awards for the third consecutive year.

For a full review of 2011 and there success to date in 2012, click here

Teleperformance, the global leader in customer experience, employs 128,000 people in over 50 countries and has over 600 people working at its sites in Cape Town and Johannesburg.

Semaar has experienced a meteoric rise through the industry since his first job as a teleresources agent in 1999.  After progressing through various leadership positions, he joined a skills development organisation as an equal partner in 2004 and subsequently opened his own project management and IT consultancy company in 2008.

“I am very excited about this opportunity; Teleperformance is a global leader in the BPO and contact centre space and I have already started to see signs of potential growth in the, financial services, utilities, public and mobile telecommunications sectors, says Semaar. “Expansions of key accounts are also on the cards and I am confident that our operation will grow substantially by the end of 2012.”

Alistair Niederer, CEO of Teleperformance UK & South Africa commented that under Fagri’s leadership, he believes that Teleperformance in South Africa will continue to go from strength to strength and that he will be instrumental in driving the business forward. “I am delighted to welcome Fagri to Teleperformance and wish him a long, happy and successful career here.”

Alongside his own business interests, Semaar has been highly influential in driving foreign investment to South Africa; first as interim CEO of industry body BPeSA Western Cape and then as Chairman, a role he still occupies.

According to Gareth Pritchard, CEO of BPeSA Western Cape, Fagri is the perfect person for the job.  “He has an intricate understanding of both the local and international BPO sector and, as Chairman of BPeSA Western Cape, continues to play a key role in assisting us in attracting foreign direct investment.”

Minister for Economic Development and Tourism in the Western Cape Alan Winde, says the announcement of Semaar as CEO is proof that with hard work and dedication anything is possible.

“In 1999, Semaar grasped an opportunity that came his way, worked extremely hard, and has now become a leading figure in our call centre industry.  His achievement will hopefully encourage other young people to believe that anything is possible if they are willing to work hard.”

Following a highly successful 2011, the BPO industry in South Africa is set for another stellar year in 2012.

Over the past decade we have seen huge growth in the global BPO & Offshoring industry. In response to this, South Africa has formulated a very competitive Offshoring value proposition built around five core areas.

Cost Savings

Typically South Africa is able to offer source destinations a cost saving of around 50 %. This saving has increased even further on the back of the dti national incentive scheme which pays investors up to R112,000 for each job created and maintained over a 3 year period.

In Cape Town an additional incentive is available which pays for the first 6 months of telco services for new investors, further lowering the overall cost basket.

Domain Skills

South Africa’s mature domestic BPO market provides a large pool of world-class, experience and skills in the financial, telecommunications and legal domains. In terms of financial skills our tertiary education system generates large numbers of qualified actuaries, chartered accountants and other specialists each year. This is added to by sector-specific programmes in banking and insurance which assist by providing intermediate levels of skill.

There is a common misconception that the BPO sector in South Africa deals only in large scale entry level customer service work, although this does make up a large portion of the industry, it is in truth still only a part. In the last few years, we have seen some interesting developments in the UK insurance market, with South Africa being used as a high end outsourcing destination for actuaries. A similar trend is occurring in the LPO (Legal Process Outsourcing) sector, where South Africa is developing a reputation as a high end service location for legal based offshoring.

Large pool of English speaking agents

South Africa has a large pool of highly skilled English speaking graduates (345,000 graduates each year) to choose from, and is second only to India and the Philippines in terms of English speaking graduates coming out of a BPO supplier destination.

Robust enabling environment

Rapidly improving telecoms services have also added to our standing as a world class service destination. This change has been driven by the deregulation of the telecoms market, which has seen telecoms costs reduced by around 85% since 2003 and is set to improve even further on the back of further competition created by the various undersea cables.

First world experience

In terms of positioning, South Africa is well placed to service the European market and is able to fill a gap for US and Australian companies offering 24 hour customer support. South Africa also provides cultural affinity with Western markets, a key quality for a customer service destination.

“The BPO industry is a key job creator for the country and we are fully committed to helping BPeSA Western Cape and its partners in driving further investment to our shores,” says Alan Winde Minister of Finance, Economic Development and Tourism for the Western Cape.

As the BPO industry continues to grow in 2012, so too will the competitive landscape. In response to this we need to be proactive and ensure our value proposition remains ahead of the curve. The industry is changing and we have started to see UK based companies pulling their voice operations out of India in favour of quality English speaking locations. This is a great opportunity for South Africa as we are viewed as a high quality voice destination, and as a result, if we can capture just a small percentage of this BPO exodus, we should see substantial industry growth going forward.

2012 is set to be another ground breaking year for the BPO industry, with a number of major developments expected.

Mass uptake of social media

Over the past five years there has been a global shift towards social media engagement; this in turn has resulted in a number of companies incorporating social media into their customer communication strategies. Despite this movement, numerous large scale BPO operators have yet to fully optimise social media as a customer engagement tool.

Following on from this definite industry trend, 2012 should mark the end of  traditional call centre with the contact centre becoming the accepted norm. This will result in voice no longer dominating customer service, but rather forming part of a bigger service offering.

The future of customer service will be integration, with voice, email, instant messaging and social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook and Google + all working together to serve as a holistic communication channel.

Unstable economy will increase outsourcing demand

A second global recession will drive the growth of the BPO sector in 2012 as businesses look at innovative ways to cut costs, without sacrificing on quality.

In a recent survey by industry experts Horses for Sources, 25% of organisations stated that they would be more likely to outsource on the back of the second recession. With outsourcing now seen as a tried and tested model, companies in times of economic woe will look to BPO as a way to reduce operational costs.

With increasing pressure on senior management to improve productivity whilst still cutting costs, BPO enables organisations to focus on improving core competencies, while secondary functions such as customer service are outsourced.

Pressure to keep offshore jobs onshore

On the back of another recession, worldwide unemployment levels have not shown any real signs of improvement placing further pressure on company’s offshoring their customer service. This is particularly evident in the US where a proposed bill is being discussed that would punish American companies for sending their customer call centres overseas. If this becomes law, it will have a huge impact on the Indian and Philippine BPO markets, both of which rely heavily on the US for both voice and back office services.

The proposed legislation is currently being driven by Republican Tim Bishop (D-N.Y.) and the Communications Workers of America (CWA) union and would make companies that outsource their call centre work ineligible for guaranteed federal loans and grants for a period of five years.

Growth of the cloud

Cloud services for the contact centre will continue to grow in 2012 as organisations embrace the benefits and cost flexibility that comes with the technology. Cloud based solutions will also serve to level the technological playing fields as smaller operators will be able to access the latest technologies without the burden of high start-up costs.

India lose voice to rest of the world

We started to see this trend develop in 2011 with a number of UK companies moving their customer service voice operations back from Indian in favour of a quality onshore alternative. In a recessionary environment cutting costs is critical, but losing a customer is not negotiable, hence even in a recession, companies will be willing to spend money to keep their customer base. This will create opportunities for niche destinations like South Africa who are able to offer quality voice based solutions together with cultural affinity and similar time zone positioning.

For a more detailed breakdown on the story click here

“We have already started to see this happen with one of the UK’s largest banks Santander, announcing in July that it had returned call centre operations to the UK following concerns from customers around quality,” says Pritchard.

In a BBC interview, Santander Chief Executive, Ana Botin said the bank’s customers had told them what the most important factor was in terms of satisfaction. In response to this the group decided to bring all of its retail call centres back from India.

The announcement was followed by the Sun Newspaper scandal in August of 2011, where British journalists exposed the apparent sale of information from a former call centre worker in India, which included personal account details of Barclays, Lloyds, TSB, BT, Virgin Media, NTL and Tiscali customers.

“This is an isolated incident, India is a world class BPO destination but their reputation in voice-based BPO services has suffered in recent times, says Pritchard. “All these factors have combined to drive customer service back onshore.”

“From a customer perspective it makes sense having customer service centres in the same location, but obviously that carries certain costs with it. For this reason I believe that UK companies will increasingly start looking for high quality offshore alternatives in 2012 and beyond, ensuring a balance between customer satisfaction and cost in a recessionary environment.

“This bodes well for the BPO sector in South Africa as we are perfectly positioned to service the UK market. Our agents are renowned for their clear easy-to-understand accents, we have a large pool of English graduates to choose from and provide ideal positioning to Europe in terms of time zones.

“We are also able to offer major cost savings (around 50% cheaper than operating onshore in the UK) and most importantly we have cultural affinity with the UK which is critical for voice based customer service work.”

“As a BPO destination we are able to offer considerable savings, whilst still maintaining world class customer service standards. This makes us an ideal alternative for UK companies to invest their operations in. We will assist them wherever we can, as this is a major growth and job creation sector for our province,” says Alan Winde, Western Cape Minister of Finance, Economic Development and Tourism.

In the last decade, South Africa has built up a reputation as a world class customer service destination that is able to deliver results for a number of the UK’s biggest brands including ASDA, Virgin Mobile and TalkTalk.

Yusuf Timol SA High Commission – London, Minister (Economics) believes there are huge opportunities for capturing India based BPO work in 2012 and beyond.

“There are definitely concerns in the UK at present around India as a customer service location; fortunately South Africa is well positioned to fill this void as we are able to provide quality at an affordable price. If there is one area of concern, it is that South Africa as a BPO destination needs greater international brand recognition. This has started to happen in the last few years, with the likes of BPeSA Western Cape embarking on regular trade missions to the UK, but it needs to be an ongoing process. When UK companies are deciding where to offshore English based voice operations, South Africa needs to be first in mind.”

“On the back of this global industry shift, there will potentially be many jobs moving out of India. If South Africa can benefit from this development, a small drop in numbers from India could potentially serve as a massive boost for the South African market,” adds Pritchard.

Leading international law firm, Pinsent Mason’s off-shore outsourcing arrangement started with outsourcing typing and other secretarial work to South Africa in 2005/06.

We previously used paralegals in London for document review work but with increasing volumes of electronically stored information and consequent cost, we needed a different model to provide clients with a value for money option. In late 2008 we approached our South African typing provider with a view to recruiting a document review team and within six months a new team was up and running in Cape Town.

We now have a dedicated core team of four South African lawyers servicing the firm’s review work managing a flexible team of legal reviewers (38 in total on a recent case). A team, from the firm sets up each new project on a shared electronic platform and agrees the detail and quality assurance for the review. To ensure confidentiality and security, the documents under review are only fully accessible in UK offices and can be viewed and worked on jointly but cannot be downloaded or printed abroad.

The benefits of outsourcing include providing a better financial deal for clients, and a greater level of reviewing expertise from a team with English as a first language and a two hour time difference. The potential pitfalls are the same as in any investment abroad, including risks of poor infrastructure support, civil unrest and political or poor infrastructure support, civil unrest and political or regulatory uncertainty.

Quality is built through consistent use of the same provider and collaboration in building the most suitable systems has been a significant contributor to a successful relationship.

1. Listen
2. Prioritise
3. Engage
4. Integrate

White Paper: Integrating Social Media with Customer Service

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Telkom Cape Town Entrepreneurship Week forms part of Global Entrepreneurship Week, the world’s largest celebration of innovators and job creators, with 120 countries participating in more than 30,000 related events and activities. For more information, visit www.unleashingideas.org.

Attend the Conference | 17 – 19 November, City Hall
Registrations are now open for the Conference, which will feature an array of distinguished local and international speakers. Don’t miss out – register today!

Day 1: Inclusive Entrepreneurial Growth | Registration required

The first day of the conference features an expert mix of local and international speakers who will assess the partnerships, policies and programmesneeded to drive rapid entrepreneurial development. The day will also investigate lessons that can be learnt from other cities that have successfully implemented enabling entrepreneurial ecosystems.

Day 2: Social Entrepreneurship & Entrepreneurial Ecosystems | Registration required

The conference’s second day will feature two separate tracks, the first of which will focus on the role and relevance of social entrepreneurs and what the future holds for this group of innovative leaders. The second track will focus on Cape Town Activa, the City’s broader entrepreneurship and small business development strategy, highlighting the roles that various stakeholders, policy makers, private business owners and educational institutions can play in furthering the goals of this initiative.

Day 3: Aspirant & Existing Entrepreneurs | Open Day, Registration required

The conference’s unique third day, the Seda Day of the Entrepreneur, is free to the public and features a series of workshops, seminars, and how-to sessions to equip existing and aspirant entrepreneurs with information and practical knowledge to run a successful business.  As part of the day’s activities, CTEW will be host to the first worldwide screening of the documentary, Ctrl+Alt+Compete, following its international premiere at the Napa Valley Film Festival earlier this month.

Click here for more information about the conference line-up. Don’t delay, register today or apply for sponsored delegate passes here.

Attend the Expo | 17 – 19 November, City Hall

The three-day Entrepreneurship Expo runs in tandem with the conference, and will provide a wealth of support, guidance and networking opportunities for up-and-coming business owners. Various organizations will showcase their services and expertise, including business schools, funding institutions, small business support agencies, incubators and associations. Events, workshops, talks and networking will blend in a hive of entrepreneurial activity.

Click here for more information if you would like to become involved as an exhibitor.
Host your own activities

It’s not too late to become involved as a partner of CTEW or to host your own entrepreneurial event as part of the CTEW celebrations. Email info@ctew.co.za now to apply to register your event – once approved, we will list your event on our website and promote it via our social media channels.

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