PROMOTE INDUSTRIES THAT CAN RAPIDLY CREATE SKILLED LABOUR TO BRIC AND THE WORLD

The trillion Rand investment target that the country seeks to attract should be spread across industries that have the potential to create a large skilled work force, says Andre Schoeman-executive at JSE listed group Jasco.

Following the announcement this week that China, a BRICS member country, will invest more than R100 billion in South Africa, Schoeman says South Africa should promote our services sector to the rest of the world as attractive destinations for new investment.

He says one of the challenges facing the country is that we have a large pool of unskilled and semi-skilled people, making it rather difficult for the labour market to rapidly absorb them into the mainstream economy.

Schoeman says South Africa still has huge capacity to scale-up industries such as Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) for both local and international clients. “We have many advantages that make South Africa an attractive destination for BPO,” says Schoeman. He says our geographic location, exchange rate, time zone and neutral accents add to South Africa’s competitive advantage and makes the country a desirable destination for foreign-based businesses.

“Intelligent contact center systems with integrated scripting allows these semi-skilled operators to function optimally with the least amount of training. Parallel to that, workforce management tools integrated into the platform ensures the service quality being delivered is constantly being evaluated and on par with global best practice on customer experience,” adds Schoeman.

“The key is using modern contact centre technologies for rapid up-skilling of people while maintaining consistent quality,” says Schoeman.

Schoeman says more investments in BPO operations will create value for investors and has significant upside for our youth who make a significant proportion of unemployed people in South Africa.

BPO has potential for growth, will bring foreign exchange and give underprivileged unemployed youth exposure to international clients and the global economy, concludes Schoeman.

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