Pretoria – The Minister of Trade and Industry, Rob Davies, has congratulated Webhelp SA on the launch of their Johannesburg Contact Centre, which has created 200 jobs.
The contact centre will service the UK cellular phone operator Vodafone, providing customer services to their UK subscribers.
It is the second operation launched by the company - the first facility was launched in Cape Town in March 2014 which created 350 new jobs.
Webhelp SA expects to create a total of 5 000 jobs in South Africa by 2017 and the investment in South Africa is expected to rise to more than R220 million over three years.
Minister Davies said the business process service sector was key to attracting investment and creating new jobs especially in the 18-35 age group, where jobs are most needed.
“It is good to see the partnership between government and business working together to promote South Africa as a preferred location for outsourced business processes. Job creation and growing our economy are important objectives for the South African government,” he said.
Webhelp Chief Executive Craig Gibson said the company took the strategic decision to proceed with the South African investment once the business criteria of a large skills pool of English language speakers was verified together with the quality of the skills available.
Other factors when considering the country as an investment destination included the ability to scale the operations while sustaining high performance, cultural affinity with the UK and the time zone compatibility.
“The BPS [Business Process Services] incentive has made the South African Value Proposition compelling as it allows South African companies bidding for UK contracts to offer a more cost competitive proposal when compared to other offshore destinations such as India and the Philippines,” said Gibson.
The dti’s Business Process Services incentive plays a supporting role in attracting new investment into the sector.
It was introduced in 2007 to make South Africa’s value proposition increasingly attractive when compared to other countries competing for offshore work such as India and the Philippines.
The BPS incentive has been reviewed and the updated incentive for the industry will be launched be launched in October 2014. – SAnews.gov.za
