Business Process Outsourcing companies hope to employ 15,000 people in the next 5 years

Business Process Outsourcing companies hope to employ 15,000 people in the next 5 years with the continued investment infrastructure.

BPO organisations are those organisations that provide services for other organisations or businesses such as operating their customer service centres, doing accounting work for them and providing IT services.

They are currently employing about 3,000 people.

Local prominent BPO centres include Packleader Pacific and Mindpearl.

BPO Council Fiji Chairperson Carol Watkins says one of the challenges they are facing right now is infrastructure that needs to be on par with Australia and New Zealand.

She says they are in the early stages of developing two contact centres in Kalabu Tax Free Zone which is being developed by Lyndhurst Group of Companies and another in Navutu, Lautoka that is being funded by the Fiji National Provident Fund.

Watkins says the purpose of these centres will be to provide the infrastructure that will be needed to grow the outsourcing industry and accommodate as much as 1,000 staff at each of the centres.

She says another challenge the industry is facing right now is education where tertiary institutions need to add courses so that they can get staff that are ready to work at the centres.

The Chairperson adds that right now the centres spend a lot of time and money in training the young people and if courses are available then this will reduce the time to train young people joining the centre.

She also adds people were not able to reach out to their contact agents overnight because of lockdowns in countries like India and Philippines however in Fiji there were agents working from home and the office without any downside to quality and they were able to provide services to their clients.

She says this is one of the things that makes them stand out.

Watkins has also highlighted that the future is really bright for the Fijian BPO sector as there were a lot of organisations in Australia and New Zealand that have started taking jobs back to their countries but this is not going to be sustainable because of the high cost of labour in those countries.

She adds that this is a perfect opportunity for Fiji because we are about 4 hours away by flight, are in the same time zone and Australians and New Zealanders are familiar with Fiji.