A forum has been set up to bring together Nigerian Chief Executive Officers and NASSCOM (National Software and Services Companies of India) to discuss the growth of BPO in the country, and to empower Nigerian IT CEOs in collaboration with their international counterparts to tap into the huge potential for IT-BPO growth in Nigeria.
Nigeria is one of the “Next Eleven” countries, identified as having high potential to become one of the largest economies in the world in the 21st Century along with the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China). She is the 8th most populous country in the world and has one of the fastest GDP growth rates (estimated 5% in 2009).
With multinational organisations searching for global solutions, there is a space in the market for West Africa to develop shared service and BPO centres. However, similar to the Asia to Asia market these are likely to support other African countries and will therefore need to focus more on standardisation, consistency of service, process improvement and transformation as their drivers, rather than just wage arbitrage! Given the economic advantages of being a BPO and shared services hub, it is a question of when, rather than if, Nigeria becomes more active in BPO – and this will need strong commitment from the Nigerian government to succeed.
Posted: 11:05 pm September 5th, 2010
What is have read here makes sense as each developing market if done properly will be the support for the surrounding markets.
Posted: 10:55 pm September 22nd, 2010
I will exercise a note of caution, the journey of a thousand years starts with the first steps – getting the fundamental infrastructure, enabling environment and incentives in place. This requires CEOs of companies and public sector organisations in Nigeria and neighbouring countries to rethink their core business model and strategy and explore the competitive advantages from creating or utilising BPO and shared services offshoots that would then grow into regional hubs in West Africa, not the other way round!
The forum needs to involve all key stakeholders including the various chambers of commerce and industry. Hope this helps.