Ghana to host regional business process outsourcing summit

Accra, Aug. 19, GNA - Ghana's bid to become the Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) hub for English Speaking West Africa would receive a boost when delegates from around the world converge in Accra for the Ghana Outsourcing Leadership Summit 2010.

The IT Enabled Services Secretariat (ITES) would host the two-day summit in Accra from September 20-21.

A statement issued in Accra on Thursday and signed by Mr. Gideon Kwame Boye Quarcoo, Deputy Minister of Communications, said the regional summit and exhibition was designed to provide a learning and participatory space for leaders in business and the public sector to identify strategies and opportunities designed to transform their work processes through outsourcing.

The summit is the first to be organised in Ghana and throughout West Africa.

It is centered on identifying and meeting regional CEOs, CIOs and Business leaders' objectives in transforming and optimising their business operations through outsourcing.

The summit is under the theme: 93Optimising Business Processes Through Outsourcing."

The selected topics to be covered include global trends, existing best practices, and current engagement models.

The rest are; outsourcing benefits and emerging industry standards and capabilities.

The summit would bring together telecom operators, banks and other financial institutions, oil and mining companies, airlines and international travel companies, emergency services, the armed forces, hospital administrators, utilities as well as ministries, departments and agencies of national and local government.

Visitors and delegates would include CEO's, COO's, CFO's and business leaders as well as senior government sector officers from Ghana and throughout West Africa.

Specialist BPO software developers and resellers, telecoms operators, call-centre operators, consultants and trainers as well as other BPO service providers would exhibit outsourcing solutions at an exhibition running alongside the summit.

BPO worldwide has grown from a 129 billion-dollar market in 2005 to an expected 191 billion-dollar by the end of 2010.

At the moment, the industry is centred mainly in India, Eastern Europe, Latin America, North Africa, Mauritius and the Philippines.

Ghana's vision is to develop BPO from a standing start to a 750 million-dollar industry employing 37,000 blue collar workers in the next five years.

Companies and organisations the world over have been looking for ways in which to reduce operational costs and increase productivity by contracting out some of their most repetitive daily tasks to specialised companies.

The advancement of technology and cheaper communications means that these tasks can frequently be undertaken anywhere in the world.

The most favoured destinations are where costs are substantially lower, where there is a plentiful supply of trainable staff and where the necessary infrastructure to support his comparatively new industry is in place.

With English the international language of business, the industry has been predominantly centred in India, the Philippines, Ireland and South Africa.

With advancing technology lowering the competitive barriers and demand for outsourcing surging to an unprecedented level in 2010, other sub-Saharan African nations are fast becoming viable outsourcing destination options, particularly for American and British organisations.

Rwanda, Kenya, Nigeria and Ghana are all competing strongly for this lucrative business.

Recognising the massive potential for jobs and international currency inflows, the Ghana government, with the support of the World Bank, is fostering the development of the business process outsourcing (BPO) industry in the country.

The summit is Ghana's first major regional conference intended to bring understanding and awareness of the benefits that BPO can bring to business and government alike.