[kictanet] Day 2 of 10:-BPO discussions, Legal and Regulatory Frameworks

[Luvisia Bakuli]

On Tue, 2009-06-02 at 22:04 -0700, Walubengo J wrote:

Great discussions and a bit overwhelming, being eight hours behind and
waking up to many messages. I appreciate all contributions to the
discussion. It is refreshing and brings back memories of similar fora 20
years ago! It's been a while, so bear with me as take these tentative
steps. 


> Q3: With submarine cables landing next week and given the above legal/regulatory frameworks, how comes Kenya is NOT experiencing the anticipated boom in the BPO sector? What should we do to get local and foreign investors to show more confidence in the BPO industry?
> 

Perhaps we need to find out what it is the clients who want to outsource
are looking for. Infrastructure in necessary but not sufficient.
Individual businesses have to adopt operations procedures that take
advantage of the available resources. I can relate to the example given
about Barclays bank. 

Kenya needs to compete on more fronts than cost. Those who are looking
to outsource to save on cost of doing business processes in-house have
plenty of locations to go to. Kenya need to compete on more than cost
savings.

High-end outsourcers are looking for business partners, I think.
Partners who can help them redesign their products/services, introduce
new products/services, reach new markets, etc. 

A conducive legal/regulatory environment is important; but it needs to
be supported by appropriate infrastructure, human resources, business
culture, and an enabling political climate. 

I think that availability of a well educated human resource pool is key
to attracting BPOs. Whether one is looking for customer relationship
management, technical support, back-office work like transcriptions, etc
one needs to have a pool of well rounded employees -  

For higher end outsourcing that leads to business partnerships, we are
now in the realm of looking for employees with requisite knowledge in
Sciences, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics. The regulatory
issues in this area might include intellectual property rights, data
access rights, etc.

Perhaps here is where we need to have deliberate policy and support of
these disciplines starting from high school, teacher training colleges,
to university. 

Finally, I think we should also focus on attracting Kenyans in the
Diaspora to set up businesses in Kenya. A majority of India's BPOs were
started by Indians who had relocated from the Diaspora. This does not
cast aspersions on local entrepreneurs, but it is a fact that companies
out here are more comfortable giving business to a former employee than
to a stranger, no matter the qualifications. 

Enough on this question. 


> Q4: Could there be gaps in our Legal, Regulatory and Institutional frameworks that need to be addresssed?
> 
> Put in black and white- Why hasn't Safaricom, Orange, Zain and several local Banks who have all opened their own very large Call-Centers NOT shown confidence in the BPO sector by outsourcing their operations to local BPO operators?  What of the Government itself? Why cant it outsource non-core functions to the local BPO operators before trying attract foreign investors to do the same?
> 

You are right that we might be able to attract BPO offshore if we show
that we have companies that are offering these services to local
businesses. It would be be an uphill task to attract, a call center in
Nairobi for say, Heineken, when our own EABL is using a call centre in
Mauritius (this is fictitious for illustration purposes). 

But the decision to have an in-house call center or outsource is purely
a strategic business decision for the benefit of shareholders. It is
incumbent upon BPOs in Kenya to demonstrate to Zain,  Safaricom, etc
that that they can provide more value to the company than an in-house
call center. Financial institutions on the other hand are very cagey
when it comes to releasing customer data. Even here in the US, they are
the least likely to use outside call centers. The discussion on
regulatory frameworks on data protection might help ease some of the
fears. 


> The floor is open, we have only today to get comments/answers to these issues.
> 
> walu.
> 
> 

Thanks Walu and Nyaki for a lively moderation.  

Best regards to all, 

Luvisia (DBL)


>       
> 
> _______________________________________________
> kictanet mailing list
> kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke
> http://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/listinfo/kictanet
> 
> This message was sent to: Luvisia.Bakuli at gmail.com
> Unsubscribe or change your options at http://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/options/kictanet/luvisia.bakuli%40gmail.com