Jamaica has grown to be the most important business process outsourcing (BPO) location in the English-speaking Caribbean with more than 87 operators investing in the sector and the prospects for greater investments in 2022.

In preparation for the further boom to come in the sector, the Jamaican Government is continuing to facilitate the ease of doing business, particularly in the BPO sector. This is evident by the growth taking place in the BPO space during the novel coronavirus pandemic.

Transparent BPO plans to expand its footprint in the coming months with a new site in Spanish Town, St Catherine, while Sygnus Capital Limited recently raised $3.1 billion by way of a private placement of bonds for home-grown multinational ItelBPO to complete its strategic acquisitions, fund capital expenditures and other working capital purposes.

The move is also aimed at facilitating Itel’s plans to grow its team members to more than 10,000 by 2025 whilst continuing to invest in the region to achieve growth. Cementing this further expected boom in the space is the creation of incentives and the establishment of a BPO Task Force to facilitate the ease of doing business.

This, along with sustained trends towards outsourcing, will continue to fuel expansion of the sector and increase its contribution to gross domestic product and job creation. The anticipated boom is corroborated by a report carried two weeks ago in the Jamaica Observer that the country is creating waves with superior customer experience (CX) in the BPO sector.

The positive CX experience is such that the island is being sought after by international BPO companies to set up operations locally. Ryan Strategic Advisory, which provides consultancy services in the sector, is trumpeting the island for its admirable record in the area of CX, noting “Jamaica’s positioning is highly favourable, not only from a nearshore perspective but also for demand markets further afield.”

The island is credited with also being in a favourable position, as it regards both third-party companies and their clients actively looking to rebalance their delivery footprint in favour of value-driven destinations like Jamaica.

Jamaica has long been a hub for servicing North American consumers from Montego Bay and Kingston, both of which rapidly expanded their stock of local and global providers.

Jamaica is home to several global BPO heavyweights such as Conduent, Sutherland Global Services (SGS), Teleperformance, Hinduja Global Solutions, Vistaprint and Ibex, which announced earlier this year the opening of a new campus in Portmore, adding to its already significant presence.

Iterum Connections recently opened a new site near Kingston that houses nearly 1,000 work stations. Additionally, British BPO start-up Ventrica has expanded operations to Jamaica, launching a contact centre in Montego Bay, with the aim of hiring around 300 people by the end of next year. Other BPO operators are expected to follow suit, effectively underscoring Jamaica’s position as a global offshore destination of choice.

BPO job growth higher than national average

Employment in the sector has been growing. In fact, despite the 8.3 per cent contraction of the economy in 2020, the Statistical Institute of Jamaica reports that the number of jobs in the sector increased by 15 per cent over the past year with 44,000 people employed as of June 30, 2021 (38,400 in June 2020). This is much higher than the national average, as the July 2021 Labour Force Survey showed that Jamaica’s employed labour force grew by a mere 8.3 per cent.

During this period, the sector reportedly contributed US$780 million to the Jamaican economy. The Government has played its part in supporting the sector, as it seeks to recover from the pandemic.

It approved the sector as an essential service, which allowed employees to travel to work during periods of restrictions on movement. Going forward, the Government said it is committed to the implementation of the National Five-year Global Digital Services Strategy, to expand and transform the BPO industry.

The strategy will facilitate promotion of the sector and enable training of students in new digital skills of a higher-value skill set. The goal is to increase the sector’s employment to 70,000 jobs by 2025, up from the current 44,000.

However, the downside risks to the growth of this sector are another outbreak of the coronavirus and the emergence of digital technologies, especially artificial intelligence (AI) and robotic process automation (RPA) as they have evolved to handle routine repeatable tasks.

To mitigate the risk posed by AIs, JAMPRO is recommending that the Government shifts its strategic focus to grow and revolutionise the GSS and reposition it as the Global Digital Services Sector or GDSS because of its focus on attracting and supporting investment in higher-value services.