[kictanet] Day 5 of 10- BPO Discussions, HR Issues

Thu Jun 11 13:07:08 EAT 2009

Qtn 8: What strategies should the country adopt to ensure a continuous
supply of relevant and timely BPO-Specific skills?

I have had an opportunity to do a quick match of skills and vertical
requirements of the BPO sector. It is at its simplest form and designed to
make us question as wheher  we already have the training in place for BPO
save for the induction and cultural aspects training that should be largely
done inhouse?

Let me start off by saying that I have done this from the education
perspective mainly and found that we do already have core skill
dissemination in place and now need to match that with the various verticals
within the BPO sector itself, here I have just guessed and I hope BPO sector
players and related experts will not take offense.

Common requirements that will be handled in house - Customer care skills and
voice/accent training, basic ICT skills for data entry, culture trainign (
for offshoring customer care)  etc.

*Level 1* - Call Centre type of skills for travel, technical support,
customer care, basic financial services, .

Training centres/skills sets required are already in place as many leave
high school and go to colleges for travel courses, Computer science
diplomas, book keeping and will ofcourse need the ' common requriements'
above to qualify for working at the call centre type BPO's. No offense but I
think this is where we are in Kenya and will be for a few more months (
years?) Do we need to make these colleges robust?

*Level two (i)* - medical and legal transcriptions

Transcription skills - these may also be handled in house or at an
established BPO training centre but will need pre-entry skills? here we may
need to identify bridging course - pre-med/pre-legal that are necessary to
respond to the queries in this level of BPO. Naturally those heading each
deparment within the BPO will be themselves of medical/legal backround
pertaining to the field.

A little analogy here is the X-ray technician who takes your Xray but does
not 'interpret' it. (that is the radiologists area?) so what are the two
different skill sets required. we would expect in the BPO set up may
technicians less radiologists if we are to follow through with the analogy?

so we need information from the BPO players for this level then education
curriculum developers for the tertiary level will determine the diploma
level requriements to qualify. again, we may find that the KMTC already
caters for this level? So will it be a question of expanding the Kenya
medical Training centre and adding a relevant ICT course there as an option
to those who want to stem off into BPO

Level Two (ii) - Finance/logistics/accounting

Once again we have the learning institutions that are already in place to
certify these skills. And within areas like logistics and book keeping some
of these are 'learnt on the job' so once again perhaps the in house training
can take care of the prep required to qualify for work within the BPO
sector. The BPO sector will use the same skills acuired during the diploma
course but change the work process required.

Level three

Software developement and animations

I am beginning to sound like a broken record ( scratched CD?)  we have the
colleges already in place teaching these skills. they may be few or only
centred in the urban areas but they are there. Again if we branch into eg
Architectural design then we start to look at enhancing CAD training into
these colledges and we start to expand offering to the students who in turn
qualify for the BPO sector.

Iet me hasten to add the issues of quality in training, certification,
practical application/internship, incubation have not in anyway been covered
in the above. These are obviuosly critical but not for this particular
discussion.

I am sure there are more tangents off the HR issue that can stem from this
submission, I am hoping it will lead us to see that we have a really well
developed education structure our key issues being more directional,
strategy led leadership gaps in order to make what we have work for us.

Ms Basly

On Wed, Jun 10, 2009 at 7:47 PM, Sam Aguyo <saguyo at yahoo.com> wrote:

> Hello,
>
> I mentioned earlier that we should not be reactive to issues that are long
> term like education.  Recently, an institution changed its name to one
> that is indicative am left wondering what will happen when the trend changes
> in future that  will render such non consequential, will we change the
> name again?.  Jog up your mind, we have technicians who were trained on
> fixed telephony, when cellular came, are they still relevant?
>
>
>
> When we talk of HR it is long term therefore narrowing it down (read BPO
> training) in our institutions would be very short term, am wondering whether
> we really need to call it BPO training that lasts four years at the
> university/college graduate with a certificate look for a job in the market!
>
>
>
> Am a consumer of services, when I call a provider for service, my primary
> concern is whether my problem has been solved by the person I spoke with,
> not the accent.  I will be so dissatisfied if the fellow speaks very well
> but no problem sorted out.  For this fellow to sort out my problem, she/he
> needs to understand in detail – technology, culture and the business
> environment of the institution he is representing.
>
>
>
> What is critical for us is to come out with basic principles like the
> accountants have – asset and liabilities, credit and debit, we can copy the
> same. This can be taught to the young souls at different levels so that they
> grow with it.  Meaning if one is a practising accountant, there is no
> problem keeping books for a one man outfit, a multinational, an NGO or a
> church.  In the same way outsourcing for a Japanese, Korean, Kenyan or
> Tanzanian companies
>
>
>
> In short term, we need to carry out an audit of the requirements of the
> sector, the likely markets, there needs against the sort of personnel we
> have.  If there is a shortfall, such institutions as MMU and what the BPO
> society has can be used to train.  While in the long run, we need to work
> on our curriculum to develop graduates who are multi dimensional.
>
>
> Sam
>
>
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