Roundtable: Business process outsourcing offers post Covid growth potential

As the country looks for growth engines in the wake of the Covid 19 cataclysm we often talk of infrastructure as the major lever we have to pull. But another industry is flying quietly under the radar and could offer some more hope in a country desperately searching for small economic miracles. Busines process outsourcing. The name doesn’t conjure the same sexy images of Roosevelt’s New Deal but in a recent McKinsey report the consulting firm noted that South Africa has been voted the second most attractive Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) location in the world for three years in a row, based on its reputation as a reliable, cost effective, and high-quality destination for outsourced business services. Michael Avery speaks to Ambassador Sadick Jaffer, of Invest SA, the government department responsible for investment promotion; part of the Department of Trade Industry and Competition (the dtic); Tanya Cohen, coordinator for the Public Private Growth Initiative (PPGI); & Andy Searle, CEO of BPESA, the industry body for the Global Business Services Sector in South Africa; about an industry that is growing at 26% per annum during a depression.