Call centre investment for Cape Town

18 November 2009

London-based firm Teleperformance UK, a leading provider of outsourced call centre services, has announced a major investment that will see the creation of over 2 000 new jobs in South Africa by 2012.

The company, a subsidiary of international firm Teleperformance Group, announced on Friday that it would be starting work immediately on two new contact centres in Cape Town.

The first facility, to be located in the city’s central business district, would “grow throughout 2010 to a potential of more than 1 000 seats”, while the second, planned for the city’s southern suburbs, was expected to start operating in 2011 with a capacity extending up to 2 000 seats.

“We have chosen to further expand our facilities in South Africa as in our opinion it has the potential to become one of the fastest growing BPO [business process outsourcing] destinations,” Teleperformance UK CEO Jeff Smith said in a statement on Friday.

“There is a real pool of talent that fits extremely well with our business needs in terms of both skill and culture,” Smith said. “South Africans have a justifiable reputation for their strong empathy with UK callers and for their excellent customer service skills.”

Cape Town Deputy Mayor Ian Neilson, who was in London last week to help facilitate the deal, said that it “signalled investor confidence in Cape Town,” adding that the city would do whatever it could to enable investments that created more jobs for Cape Town’s residents.

Also speaking from London, Mansoor Mohamed, Cape Town’s executive director for economic, social development and tourism, said the city had a strategy of “infrastructure-led economic growth and development”.

The aim of this strategy was to make Cape Town “a globally competitive business and leisure destination, which will attract further investment and grow the economy,” Mohamed said.

Cape Town has excellent capabilities in the call centre industry, including competitive real estate prices and a good choice of human resources.

The city, named “Africa’s leading destination” at the World Travel Awards for two years running, is busy installing a mass public transport system and a municipal broadband fibre-optic network, and is one of the host cities for the 2010 Fifa World Cup™.

SAinfo reporter