Big Western companies are all into offshore outsourcing very specific aspects of their activities abroad and Africa might become a new area of emerging interest. The business logic of the deals is obvious. Western companies that have trouble keeping their heads above water due to high overhead costs are making savings and improving their profitability buying into a trend that is by now well established and virtually as low risk as any business outsourcing practice elsewhere.
The trend of Offshore Outsourcing has taken off some 15 years ago and gained momentum on the spur of the cost savings success stories and in many cases reputable quality of the work delivered by these fairy tale like 'night workers' in obscure overseas locations.
Africa might become a hotly contested next destination. Simon Thuo, a stock broker on the Nairobi Stock Exchange, is in the final stages of drawing up his business plan to start up a data entry and call centre in Nairobi, in an effort to get a foot in the door. A born negotiator, Thuo is in his everyday life involved in stockbroking, a profession that he's sticking to until his BPO plans have panned out sufficiently. Thuo's negotiations as a stock broker are likely not all that different from his work for his BPO business, which he has called Symon&Oscar. His everyday business is very much dominated by what's going on in the stock market in Kenya and making sure that the process is as transparent as possible. The world of stock broking is small and news travels fast. Yet to discern rumor from fact is an art in the Kenyan setting. Thuo says that his best negotiating quality as a stock broker is confidentiality and delivering on promises, also two key aspects in BPO negotiations. "Leaking client information and lack of trustworthiness is the biggest mistake BPO businessmen make", he says.
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The article is sponsored by A-1 Technology Inc, dealing in offshore outsourcing and offshore software development.
