Fusion Outsourcing Services has been allocated a R28 million grant by the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), of which 90% will go to infrastructure development, says Fusion MD Johann Kunz.
Trade and industry minister Mandisi Mpahlwa made the announcement of the grant on Wednesday, following his department's budget vote speech to Parliament.
In his speech, Mpahlwa said the roll-out of the DTI's business process outsourcing (BPO) incentive scheme is already showing substantial success, with nine approved projects, and that these will generate 9 132 jobs and a R658 million investment.
"A major global BPO&O operator - TeleTech - has been successfully recruited to set up shop in SA. This signals that SA is beginning to stake its place in this high-growth global sector," Mpahlwa said.
Fusion Outsourcing Services is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the UK-based BGL Group, formerly the Budget Group of Companies, and handles contact centre operations for its overseas parent company.
Competitive grant
"We need grants like this to make us more competitive, and allow us to compete in a global market with the likes of India and the Philippines in providing contact centre solutions," says Kunz.
He says the grant comes to about 20% of Fusion's total investment of R145 million since it set up operations two years ago and this effectively narrows the investment gap that SA faces with competing countries.
"For some companies, this competitive difference is essential to their business case. However, other factors were also important to us, such as the common time zone with our target market and the cultural affinity our staff have with our clients," Kunz says.
The grant terms state that, in accordance with the DTI's Industrial Policy framework, the grant is based on Fusion Outsourcing increasing its agent headcount to 600 over a three-year period. Currently, 360 people are employed by the company.
"The remaining 10% of the grant will be allocated for staff training and development," Kunz revealed. "The skills and product training will make our staff more skilled, and, together with the infrastructure investments, we will be able to take on more work."
Job opportunities created by Fusion Outsourcing are not for the current South African market, but to support the UK market, and thus adding new workers to the South African economy.
Foreign exchange attraction
"This is in line with the BPO strategy which focuses on creating 100 000 jobs and bringing $2 billion of foreign exchange into SA," Ray Ngcobo, the DTI's head of strategic competitiveness, says.
The DTI's grant forms part of the department's BPO Government Assistance and Support Programme, which targets South African businesses primed to take advantage of opportunities in the outsourcing field. The BPO project forms an important arm of the DTI's aim, going forward to 2011, of improving SA's current account deficit, and maintaining the country's economic growth.
Ngcobo says the original aim was for the grant to be given to companies that receive 90% of their business from offshore contracts, however, a waiver to this stipulation was being considered if they locate in a tier two municipal area that would be outside the main business centres of Gauteng, the Western Cape and Durban.
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