Business process outsourcing (BPO) company Merchants this month launched its Australian Offshore Business Process Services (BPS) campaign, which will be undertaken from Cape Town.
Merchants has partnered with iSelect, an online Australian insurance, utilities and personal finance comparison website, which will manage its contact centre in South Africa.
Since 2012, South Africa’s offshore BPS market has experienced significant growth year-on-year and boasts having created around 30 000 offshore jobs, with the UK being the leading buyer of South African BPS, followed by Australia and the US, where demand for BPS is rapidly growing.
This work has been spread across South Africa’s offshore delivery centres of Cape Town, Johannesburg and Durban.
“Merchants, in partnership with the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), has helped global brands grow their customer loyalty and improve their operating costs,” Trade and Industry Minister Dr Rob Davies said in a statement last week.
He added that the investment and commitment of iSelect and Merchants is a further example of the working partnership with government, whereby the strategic objectives of the sector are met in terms of foreign direct investment, youth job creation and export revenue generation.
Davies added that government’s primary objective is to support economic growth, job creation and empowerment and has recognised the potential of the BPO and BPS sector in realising these objectives.
“The DTI has reaffirmed its intentions to act as an enabler for foreign investment by creating a favourable environment for potential investors to do business with South Africa,” he said.