The energy crisis should have little to no effect on the business process outsourcing (BPO) industry and its ability to attract new clients, says Calling the Cape executive director Sipho Zungu.
Last Friday, central Cape Town experienced a blackout that lasted for six hours due to two Eskom powerlines malfunctioning at the same time. One was due to maintenance issues and the second was due to a bush fire.
The city has been experiencing daily load-shedding of up to two hours for the past three weeks, but Friday's loss of electricity was the most serious yet.
However, the contact centre industry says it has experienced little disruption in its activities. A senior staff member at one large international operation says these types of situations are part of the business planning and that it includes having generators on site and uninterruptible power supply systems installed.
Zungu says Calling the Cape, through its affiliation with other national organisations, has been briefed by Eskom on the situation. He firmly believes the electricity supplier has the situation in hand and the contact centre industry can continue to attract international clients.
No deal-breaker
"India has been having power outages for many years and it does not even come close to generating the amount of electricity that SA does, and this has not hampered them in attracting new business and becoming a world leader in the BPO sector," he says.
Calling the Cape will later this week circulate a research note by US outsourcing research company Everest Research Institute. It states SA's per capita electricity production is about 40% of that of the US, and nine times that of established offshore destinations such as India and the Philippines.
Everest Research Institute, whose data comes from the CIA Fact Book and the Economist Intelligence Unit, says countries such as India and the Philippines continue to have power outages. However, the BPO players in these countries have backup arrangements (captive power generation, which means generators) to ensure uninterrupted operations.
The note also says South African players will need to adopt similar measures to overcome this issue.
"It is not a deal-breaker, as other countries have successfully worked around this issue," notes Everest Research Institute's commentary.
Over the past seven years, the contact centre industry has become a major Western Cape employer, having created more than 25 000 jobs. However, it was only late last year that companies such as US BPO giant Teletech have begun to set up shop.
"I don't believe the energy crisis will deter foreign investors," Zungu says.
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