BPO: Opportunities and challenges

The International Finance Center (IFC) — the private sector arm of the World Bank Group — has identified the global services sector (otherwise called business process outsourcing) as one of two burgeoning drivers of the Jamaican economy over the next five years.

Just last week, IFC representatives shared the findings of World Bank study, ‘Creating Markets in Jamaica; Repositioning for Private Sector–led Sustainable Growth’, which highlighted that: “Although Jamaica has established itself as a pre-eminent BPO services destination in the Caribbean, it needs to develop higher-value services to stay competitive. The country’s proximity to North American markets, sizeable English-speaking workforce, and cost competitiveness have favoured the development of BPO services.”

But the World Bank is not the only institution to take notice. Earlier this year, Inter-american Development Bank President Mauricio Claver-carone lauded Jamaica’s global services sector as a model for the region to follow.

In this week’s Sunday Finance, the Jamaica Observer business desk explores the prospects for the BPO sector to not just remain competitive, but more so to maintain its leadership position in Latin America and the Caribbean. As players in Jamaica now look to move up the value chain and diversify their offerings to include knowledge process outsourcing and information technology outsourcing, they face challenges such finding proper talent, securing stable, highspeed Internet connectivity, among other issues.