Offshore Business Process Outsourcing for Developing Countries: A South African Perspective

Abstract

Offshoring of IT-enabled services to developing countries will continue to dominate the offshoring sector. Companies are constantly on the lookout for locations where they can provide services at a low cost. This has made developing countries to take advantage of this opportunity to create value propositions for companies in developed countries leading to economic development. This paper describes the South Africa's BPO industry in order to explore the current opportunities and potential challenges the industry offers. The role of government support, quality infrastructure, prevalence of HIV/AIDS and inflexibility in labor laws are found to feature significantly within the South African context. The paper contributes to literature on outsourcing in developing countries which has elaborated how African Countries can serve as attractive location for offshoring BPO. This study concludes by providing implications for policy and practice.

Analysis of Impact Sourcing by Infusing Social Innovation in Outsourcing for Nepal

“…are outsourced (Lacity et al 2012) and they are referred as BPO. So, BPO is defined as allocation of simple business processes which are relatively easy to execute to external service providers (Alkali et al 2016). They have also mentioned that BPOs are further classified to 3 different service provisions a) front office processing (customer service or technical support), b) middle office processing (banking and insurance) and c) back office processing (finance and accounting).…”

“…Apparently, some countries are doing better than others to attract offshoring outsourcing and they are evaluated based on certain factors such as labour costs, skills, environment (which includes government policies, ethics, accessibility), quality of infrastructure, risk profile (by looking at political unrest, disruptive events etc.) and market potential (Alkali et al 2016). According to the latest report released, 2016 A.T. Kearney Global Services Location index, India remains the top country for outsourcing, as they have a strong skill base and financial attractions.…”