Experts in the Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) sector have asked the people in charge of BPO policy to move faster, saying a lot of time has been taken in analysing it.
The experts made the remarks during SpotlightUG discussion on unleashing the power of Business Process Outsourcing(BPO) in Uganda. The discussion took place on Monday night on NBS television.
BPO) refers to hiring an outside company to perform in-house tasks. This includes everything from customer service to accounting to marketing. Outsourced services are often cheaper and faster than doing things yourself, making them attractive for businesses looking to save money and improve efficiency.
The government recently embarked on an initiative to develop the BPO sector in Uganda as one of the significant areas to be exploited to address the issue of unemployment amongst educated youths.
The BPO policy will serve as the basis for the development of legislation that will enhance the regulatory environment of the BPO sector for the harmonised coordination and promotion of a BPO ecosystem that will attract investment, increase job creation and enable local solutions to compete on the global market.
The policy intends to spur economic development in the country through optimal labour utilisation.
It aims at enhancing efficiency and effectiveness through the introduction of ICT-enabled innovative solutions to support business processes and promote the BPO industry in the country for sustainable development.
In addition, the policy is intended to promote the export of BPO services by private sector operators by leveraging technology.
Ntege Badru, Co-owner and Group Director NFT Consult Limited, said there is a need to have a paradigm shift in how Uganda can understand BPO and build around it using policy, sensitisation among others.
He said the government is committed to BPO and it has made that clear.
“We have political goodwill but we haven't taken advantage of that. We need to get intentional and ask the people in charge of the BPO policy to move faster. We are paralysed because we have analysed BPO for too long. We have had a conversation on BPO policy for two years now. We need this policy like yesterday,” he said.
Ntege said there are many things Uganda can do to create jobs.
“We need to realize that we have to do this ourselves, nobody will: the answer is in the mirror. We can't wake up and say we are going to supply 1000 call center agents to American Airlines when you don't have at least 2000-5000. It's critical that as we sell, we have built the ecosystem on ground.
He noted that Uganda as a country needs to be intentional about how to create 1,000,000 BPO jobs. He noted that this can be done by stopping to celebrate 1000 jobs.
“Besides our ability to speak good English, we have amazing people with the ability to learn fast. We haven't touched the potential we have in our population,” he noted.
Ntege said that the concept of outsourcing is over 40 years old, adding that technology has moved in such a way that it has democratized the world equally.
BPO has become more common in recent years because outsourcing allows businesses to focus on what they do best while letting others handle the details.
This frees employees to work on higher-value tasks, such as developing new products or improving existing ones.
There are several reasons why businesses may opt to outsource a particular process. It could be that the company is seeking to cut costs or may wish to focus on other areas of its business.
