Becoming a Global Exporter of Business Services? The Case of Kenya

The Domestic Turn: Business Process Outsourcing and the Growing Automation of Kenyan Organisations

“…For example, Hope (2012) cites the growing share of services in Kenya's GDP as a sign that the BPO sector is growing successfully, without mentioning that BPO currently accounts for a small share of the much larger and generally informal service sector. Trade in services is dominated by tourism and travel, not BPO (Dihel et al, 2012). Yet commentators still highlight BPO as central when talking about Kenya's service sector.…”

“…Policy-makers hope these efforts will position Kenya as a regional ICT and software development hub. While observers continue to discuss the sector in relation to its potential for export-oriented work and international opportunities (Dihel, Fernandes, Gicho, Kashangaki, & Strychacz, 2012;Hope, 2012;Iraki, 2013;Manning, 2013;Wausi, Mgendi, & Ngwenyi, 2013), 3 these shifts suggest that we need to rethink how we approach the Kenyan BPO sector. The domestic turn signals both the difficulties of gaining access to digital work overseas due to the power of existing incumbents and to the increasing availability and use of the internet within Kenya.…”

Trade in services: Opening markets to create opportunities

“…professional associations) to restrict foreign entry-have great potential to both further expand trade and increase welfare (the gains from trade). Dihel et al (2012) provide a case study of Kenya and discuss how new ICT technologies and improvements in ICT infrastructure and mobile internet connectivity have expanded mobile phone and internet access and supported the emergence of globally competitive services suppliers such as KenCall (business process outsourcing-BPO), Ushahidi (open source software platforms to visualize information in real time on mobile devices), and Safaricom (mobile telecoms; mobile payment services-M-Pesa). Kenyan services exports include insurance, accounting, non-bank financial, and BPO services.…”

“…Karingi and Davis (2016) note that the average African citizen needs to obtain a visa in advance of travel for 55 per cent of the countries he or she may want to travel to. Dihel and Goswami (2016) and Dihel et al (2012) document that there are still many regulatory barriers as well as outright discrimination against foreign professional service providers in the East and Southern African context.…”

The Services Trade Dimension of Global Value Chains

“…Over the past few years Kenya has targeted export of professional services to other EAC states, riding on increased demand for these services in a region of 127 million people and a combined GDP of US$73 billion. A survey undertaken by the World Bank and Kenya's Export Promotion Council found that demand for professional services such as banking, insurance, legal services, accounting, architecture, ICT and engineering has been rising in response to the trained professionals available in Kenya (Dihel et al 2012). As shown in Table 2, many of these professional services are exported to other countries in the east African region.…”