3 months ago
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Job growth in the outsourcing sector appears to have peaked for now, and its operators are now looking to scale up the quality of services in order to grow earnings.
The sector – known as business processing outsourcing, or BPO, for basic call centre services, but otherwise referred to as the global services sector, or GSS, when more technical services are offered – employs some 52,000 and earns more than US$1 billion per year.
Anand Biradar, president of the Global Services Association of Jamaica, GSAJ, told the Financial Gleaner on Monday that there had been no movement in the numbers employed to the sector over the past six months, even while “some companies have been making strides”.
Speaking at a GSAJ conference and awards function in Kingston on Monday, Biradar said service delivery must improve across the country, in order for the sector to move forward.
“It would be a fair statement to make that in the GSS industry Jamaica stands tall among all nearshore countries. We have dominated the growth trajectory over the past eight years,” Biradar said, while again noting that the outsourcing sector served several of the Fortune 500 companies in the United States.
However, he noted that said since the COVID-19 pandemic ended, offshore countries such as India have done better than those in the nearshore space.
Jamaica has to provide quality service experiences at all levels in order to attract premium level clients in the global services sector.
“To charge the high premiums we have to deliver the highest possible service imaginable, not just in the walls of the BPO but across this the country, whether it’s a shopping experience, dining or any business to consumer experience that happens across the country with our very own Jamaicans,” Biradar said.
“The ultimate service experience around the world is all pervasive. It’s not just in words, it’s in body language, it’s in mindset,” he added.
He noted that while Jamaica had a number of excellent hotels, there were large properties where the service experience was “at best four out of 10”.
Jamaica could be earning more from the sector which employs thousands of mostly young women and has contributed to unemployment reaching a record low of 4.2 per cent, Biradar added.
“Knowing the talent we have here, I believe we are leaving money on the table,” he said.
English (US) ·