South African IT services company Galdon Data is experiencing an increased demand for call-centre solutions and services in Cape Town, it said on Wednesday.
The company said it strongly believes that the call-centre industry is set for major growth over the next few years, as South Africa becomes the preferred call-centre hub in Africa.
London-based market-analysis firm Datamonitor expects the number of call-centre agent positions in South Africa, which is favoured by British companies for its cultural affinity with Europe, to more than triple by 2010.
According to Calling the Cape, a body that promotes call-centre development in the Western Cape province, call centres are crucial for economic development in the province. Nationally, the number of jobs is expected to grow to 100Â 000 by 2009.
Galdon Data CEO Garry Ackerman said this growth is mainly as a result of the cheap labour, good language skills and time zones that chime with Western Europe.
“There has been a sharp rise in offshore investors, local companies developing customers’ contact facilities for the first time and new outsourcing businesses, many of them black-owned,” he said.
Although South Africa is set to overtake India as the preferred call-centre hub, Ackerman said investors might be deterred by the high telecom tariffs.
However, the recent launch of the second network provider, Neotel, is seen as a major step in helping to bring the costs down. — I-Net Bridge