Taking outsourcing to the horizon

Horizon Contact Centres is setting the trends in the BPO and Contact Centre operations, writes Zachary Ochieng.

As Kenya struggles to enter into the global and vibrant Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) and IT Enabled Services (ITES) market, a few companies are determined to make a mark in an environment where poor infrastructure and a constraining economic environment impede investment in the outsourcing and contact centre business. One such company is Horizon Contact Centers, which according to its CEO Sanjay Sikka, is East and Central Africa’s fully on demand International Contact Centre and BPO Company.

A tour of Horizon’s Gateway Park along Mombasa Road reveals a world-class facility within Nairobi, fully enabled to service the global market by deploying the best breed of technology to run its operations 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

“In terms of operations, we are the largest contact centre and BPO company with a capacity to accommodate up to 1200 agents working round the clock. We currently have 150 agents”, says Sanjay. “Our Processes, infrastructure and technology have been designed and built specifically to create a contact centre and BPO environment conducive to efficiency and effectiveness. We also provide our staff with state of the art/ the best tools to achieve their objectives and more importantly, be successful in servicing our clients and partners”.

Horizon, which began its operations a year ago, currently serves Telkom Orange and a UK-based financial sector company whose identity cannot be revealed for various reasons. The company is also targeting more clients from the UK, US and the rest of the world. The company’s services include customer contact BPO, which can be inbound or outbound contact centre services for voice, email, chat and paper mail. This covers various service desk functions like customer service, collections, telesales, marketing and sourcing support. Other services include learning and training outsourcing, Knowledge Process Outsourcing (KPO), IT services, analytics, Finance and Accounting, Procurement and HR & Payroll BPOs.

“Outsourcing being a new business in this country, we also recruit and train sales staff for other organisations”, says Ravi Kohli, Horizon’s Executive Direcotr in charge of Business Development. “The facility has over 40,000 sq ft and the scalability to house over 1,200 agents, making us the largest Outsourcing Contact Centre in the entire region. We have over 5,000 sq/ft dedicated to our training and recruitment departments. This enables us to process large intakes of staff and accommodate them in a modern and well equipped environment ensuring continuous skills development for our best in class workforce.”

Sanjay adds: “At Horizon, our ethos is that the core of our operations is our people. We have created a work friendly and conducive environment that will allow our staff to enjoy an on-site Bistro, Internet café, chill out zones, library study and a doctor’s surgery with a dispensary.

The company’s strength lies in the fact that the Management Team has a combined experience of over 60 years in the Outsourcing/BPO sector. They have collectively amongst themselves implemented, operated and managed Contact Centres and BPOs in the UK, US, South Africa, India and for the last 4 years, Kenya with great success.
In what appears to be a thumbs up to a recent study conducted by the University of Nairobi’s Department of Computing and Informatics in collaboration with the Kenya BPO & Contact Centre Society (KBPOCCS) and the Kenya ICT Board, the Horizon management says Kenya has a high chance of being a favourable outsourcing destination if correct measures are put in place.

“Kenyans have good language skills and neutral accents giving them a distinct strength in the contact centre field. There is a sufficient pool of graduates available to service clients. A multitude of Kenyans study in the US and UK and they have a strong understanding of the US and UK work ethics and values”, avers Ravi. “On a global scale, Kenya is cost competitive even when compared to Egypt, India and South Africa. The labour cost (for basic voice) is competitive in Kenya when compared to other destinations.”

The government is also committed to developing the sector as one of its pillars of growth. This is evident in the financial commitments already made and the drive to develop the world- class telecommunications infrastructure required for a BPO sector to escalate. This is reflected in the presence of strong global brands and service providers already positioning themselves in Kenya.

The government and the private sector have proven their commitment to giving the region a world-class infrastructure with four players having established fibre- optic links (TEAMS, SEACOM, LION and EASSY) . According to Ravi, what the government now needs to do is to offer a 10-year tax holiday to attract investors. This is already happening in some countries. The government also needs to step up efforts in marketing Kenya as an outsourcing destination.

Despite a few teething problems, the future looks bright for the outsourcing sector.