A lack of appropriate training is one of the major problems affecting Kenya's BPO sector. Major companies demand professionalism and experience in business; the Indian firm hopes to transfer these via its training program - India is one of the leading outsourcing destinations, though the focus is slowly shifting to Africa.

The scholarship program will be rolled out in phases; it will provide skills in operations management, people management, customer-relationship management and strategic business essentials, said Mahesh Punia, CEO of LiveBean Consulting, who launched the program on Friday, August 22nd.  Training will be offered in conjunction with Tennessee-based Call-Centre School; it is expected to attract several applicants from the BPO sector. The scholarship will be administered by the Kenya BPO Society, while Kenya's ICT Board is also expected to play a major role in the program.

In a brief to members, James Ochola, an executive officer at the BPO society, said that LiveBean had experience in business combinations comprising of mergers and acquisitions as well as strategic alliances for specific units such as contact centers. By reputation, LiveBean is a leader in its sector - it has a track record of revamping customer service functions for leading organizations and setting up highly successful customer-contact centres in India, Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, Sri Lanka and Europe. Nonetheless, it will be important to do due diligence in examining the value of the training credentials. While the scholarship fund is a good idea, the BPO society and the ICT board need jointly to scrutinize the source of the funds and determine whether there are any strings attached - the societies and the ICT board and its officials must read the fine print and establish whether the scholarship ties society members or scholars to the awarding body in any unhelpful way.

Going by information on their website,  LiveBean - which was founded in July 2007 - appears to possess very experienced professionals, though their training credentials do not say much about post-scholarship success of its trainee BPO professionals. With such a young company, there remains the danger that Kenya might be used as a proving ground; our BPO professionals might fall short of the quality standards maintained by established companies such as Call Center Industry Advisory Council (CIAC). Obviously, there is nothing wrong with a new company setting up a training base in Kenya in the hope of expanding its markets, but the sector will win the international legitimacy battle by also engaging the more established trainers, and ensuring that its trainees are up to normal international standards.

While the course will cover the basics in finance, contract negotiations and management, customer relationship, and outsourcing, it will also describe the process of managing the relationship between client and service provider. Kenyan trainees from various BPO companies will gain skills such as practicing the recommended techniques for transferring callers or putting them on hold, and recognize best practices when relying upon voice mail communications.

However, a lack of training is only one of the challenges facing the BPO sector: lack of project planning and management continue to be a huge challenge for the sector. Most people were inspired to start or pump more money into BPOs by announcment of a bandwidth subsidy from the World Bank. The subsidy, to be administered by the ICT board, is yet to be released, and most BPO's have closed shop. As Paul Kukubo, CEO of Kenya's ICT board says, "I have learnt that many people doing business today should not have started in the first place, many need to take a step back and reflect on the fundamentals such as business plans and contingency plans; if the bandwidth subsidy does not come, what do we do?"

If the challenges are addressed, Kenya hopes to catch up with top outsourcing destinations such as South Africa and Egypt. According to Peter Ryan, a call center analyst for Datamonitor - which provides a barometer for BPO activity in Africa - South Africa already leads Africa's BPO sector, performing call-centre services and all types of back-office operations; Egypt is second with significant outsourcing work.

South Africa and Egypt have used a four-pronged approach to attract BPO companies: tax breaks; competitive telecommunications rates; training funds; and marketing aid. For instance, telecom rates are as low as shs3.50 per minute to Western Europe and North America. Bandwidth of 2Mega bits per second circuits costs KES 254,000 ($3,800) per month internationally, while in Kenya the same bandwidth costs KES 670,000 (US$ 10,000). Faced with these statistics, Mauritius is challenging South Africa and Egypt and aggressively pursuing the aim of becoming joining them as a major BPO destination on the continent. It presently has 23 operators in its Ebène Cyber Tower with a second tower under construction. Other countries in the Southern Africa region are also making a huge push to attract investment in the BPO sector, offering solid packages - Botswana, for example, offers a guaranteed corporate tax of 15 percent until June 2020.

The opportunity hasn't yet passed Kenya by, but coordinated action from the Government and its investment partners, as well as more innovative partnerships, such as this latest one, are necessary to make full use of it.

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