Telecommunications service supplier Rewardsco says its R300 million funding into a 3rd enterprise course of outsourcing (BPO) operations centre in Umhlanga, KwaZulu-Natal, will kickstart its transfer to department out into worldwide markets beginning with the United Kingdom, North America and Australia.
This comes after the brand new facility formally opened its doorways on Tuesday (1 November), increasing the corporate’s foremost operational campus to 20 000m2 in three buildings valued at round R700 million.
Speaking to Moneyweb, group business director at Rewardsco Dylan Koen says the Covid-19 pandemic enabled the corporate to give attention to key efficiency areas thereby furthering enlargement alternatives.
“It makes sense to pursue business growth opportunities within the global business services space. We’d be remiss not to capitalise on these because [it] presents new business lines that offer greater volumes than those that are likely to emerge domestically,” he provides.
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Koen says regardless of the risky macro setting in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, Rewardsco doubled in measurement over the course of the pandemic.
He forecasts that the group could have a development trajectory of round 25% every year over the following 5 years.
Job alternatives
“Our complement is 2 000 employees, and we currently have 600 vacancies for the right kind of people. We intend to grow that to 1 200… Once the balance of the new facility is finished, it will bring the total number of employees to 3 200. And that’s just for the daytime shift,” Koen factors out.
He says the brand new worldwide markets are key to enabling extra job creation alternatives with shifts, anticipated to be carried out in the primary quarter of 2023, being cut up into five-and-a-half-hours every.
“We talk about the BPO sector in KZN, and the reality is that we compete nationally because we have significant consortiums and operators in Gauteng and Cape Town. Even the Eastern Cape is growing. What we have in KZN is very mature transport infrastructure and that allows our people to access their nightshift [jobs], in comparison to Gauteng and the Cape which is more dangerous,” he provides.
Koen says the Rewardsco campus, with its three operations centres joined by sky bridges, is a contribution in direction of making the KZN extra aggressive in the BPO sector on a nationwide scale.
“So, in the context of offering services to international customers, KZN has a unique advantage which we want to capitalise on, and we already have a dominant workforce that works in the evening,” he notes.
Koen says the corporate at the moment has partnering alternatives with home prospects and some events from North American companies wanting to outsource companies to South Africa.
Reflecting on the group’s journey to discovering a brand new appropriate location for the enterprise, founder and government chair at Rewardsco Investments Michael Steenfeldt-Kristensen says the imaginative and prescient for the event has adopted the imaginative and prescient for constructing the enterprise.
“We were always ambitious about growing exponentially. But to accommodate this we had to have the right premises. We did not want to compromise and develop sweat shops like others have done,” he provides.
“We have built three buildings that are all P-Grade and 5-star [green building] rated. We have created a beautiful campus for our employees to enjoy here in Umhlanga Ridge,” says Steenfeldt-Kristensen.
The places of work characteristic 5 ranges of ground area with a dispensary, clinic, café and restaurant facility.
Koen says the operational facility will increase the funding in abilities improvement and employees retention whereas additionally providing long-term profession improvement prospects as opposed to simply entry-level jobs.
Global enterprise companies
SA trade physique and commerce affiliation for global enterprise companies (GBS), BPESA says GBS, which fall beneath the BPO sector, aren’t solely fixing the unemployment disaster but in addition bringing digital innovation to the nation.
McKinsey’s Driving Economic Recovery in South Africa’s BPO Industry report notes that between 2018 and March 2022, the worldwide GBS sector in South Africa added a formidable 65 385 jobs to the economic system, with over $1 billion generated in export income.
The report notes that South Africa was voted the second most beneficial location for BPO globally for 3 consecutive years from 2018 to 2020.
“The reason is that the country has developed a reputation as a reliable, cost effective, and high-quality destination for outsourced business services. Even during Covid-19 and lockdown, South Africa migrated to remote working models to remain operational with minimal disruption to clients,” it says.
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Steenfeldt-Kristensen says Rewardsco stays a superb vacation spot for international companies to outsource operations.
“Right now, our business is on an exponential growth curve, and this will continue over the next few years.”
“We are not only expanding our local footprint but also our footprint overseas. So, in five years’ time, we expect to have a very active proprietary business and BPO business,” he provides.
* Nondumiso Lehutso is a Moneyweb intern and was hosted by Rewardsco on the launch occasion in KZN.