Lesley Stones
10 July 2009
Johannesburg — MUMBAI-based Aegis has bought out the privately owned call centre operator CCN as part of its grand plan to create 5000 new jobs and invest R500m in SA over the next three years.
Aegis believes it can succeed where others have failed, by winning international contracts because of its size and global reputation. Most call centres and business process outsourcing operators in SA were far too small to win foreign deals, which was why the government's ambitious plan to create 100000 jobs in the sector had flopped, said chief marketing officer Sandip Sen.
Aegis was a new name in SA but very recognisable in the global market, he said, with a turnover of $ 500m and a staff of 35000.
Financial details of the deal to acquire CCN and its 1000 staff have not been disclosed, but the fee is part of the R500m earmarked for SA. Founding shareholders of CCN have sold out of the business.
Sen said acquisition of CCN might be followed by additional acquisitions. A second step would be to win contracts from large companies in SA that ran in-house call centres. The third aim was to grow by winning foreign contracts, and talks with several UK and US companies might turn into concrete deals. As it grew, it might open centres in Durban, Cape Town and Port Elizabeth and handle calls on customer acquisition, service and retention, product inquiries, account billing, technical support and debt collecting.
Senior vice-president Kobus van der Westhuizen said Aegis planned to employ 500 more agents by the end of the year after signing a deal this week to run a UK company's call centre. Money was being spent to buy a building in Johannesburg and install telecoms and computing equipment to support that contract, he said.
CCN has operated for seven years and has a turnover of R150m. But, like some of its rivals, it struggled to win foreign deals as large international firms were risk averse and would not trust a company with limited staff and limited experience in handling their interactions with customers.
Sen said the target of creating 5000 jobs in three years was conservative. Yet ambitious growth plans have been touted before, with the Trade and Industry Department missing its own target of creating 100000 jobs in the sector by 2005, or 2007 at the latest .
The department's business process outsourcing director, Pumela Salela, said yesterday the aim had been to create 25000 direct jobs, which would have created 75000 indirect jobs to reach the target of 100000. So far it has achieved just 17552.
That failure was because large foreign companies would only trust SA to run their call centres if a major global player such as Aegis invested in SA, Sen said. "SA has the ability to attract huge international business but because its call centres are small they aren 't able to attract large companies. It needs our size and experience to attract them."
The shortfall in job creation was one reason the department had worked with Aegis to support its move into SA, said Salela.
The department does not offer tax breaks to foreign business process outsourcing investors, but for every position a company creates it can claim R37000 to R60000.
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