Ibex Global Jamaica Limited has hit back at concerns that it is scaling back its operation in Jamaica based on Ibex Global Limited’s financial reports. Instead, the business process outsourcing (BPO) company notes that it spent US$12 million (J$1.86 billion) on its two new campuses in Greater Portmore, St Catherine, which will be onboarding 1,300 new agents in the coming financial year.

Ibex Global published its annual financial report (10-K) last month which showed a reduction in Jamaica’s number of delivery centres from five to four with the number of workstations decreasing from 5,353 to 3,878 workstations. The net property, plant and equipment (PPE) balance also showed a reduction from US$13.37 million to US$8.66 million, as well.

“We wanted to move out of that building and in alignment with Ibex’s strategy overall, in terms of having world-class facilities, making sure that we have the right experience for our employees within our facilities. The strategy was to move out of that building and into our newer facilities. So, over the prior two fiscal years, we invested about US$12 million in building out campus 1 and campus 2. All of our employees have transitioned into our newer facilities and no agent lost their job during the transition,” said Tamara Ricketts-Brown, country manager for Ibex Global Jamaica, in an interview with the Jamaica Observer last Monday as she sought to clear the air.

Ibex Global Jamaica moved out of its prior ageing site at Portmore Pines, St Catherine, and at the waterfront, in downtown Kingston, over the last two financial years to two new buildings in Greater Portmore. The prior Portmore Pines property had plumbing and power outages which necessitated the change.

Ibex Global additionally told Sunday Finance, “We also removed excess capacity left over from the COVID social distancing requirements. No agents lost their jobs in the transition.”

This was in response to the reduction in the number of workstations being cut in the company’s report. The report stated, “The number of workstations at all of our delivery centres is a key volume metric for our business. It is defined as the number of physical workstations at a delivery centre location used for production (excluding, for example, workstations in training rooms or those used by supervisors). A single workstation will typically be used for multiple shifts, and therefore there will typically be more delivery centre agents than utilised workstations.”

With the Jamaican company now operating four centres from Portmore, Ocho Rios, St Ann and Arthur Wint Drive in St Andrew, it is looking to ramp up its staff count to meet the new roster of US clients it has acquired during the year.

IBEX Global Jamaica serves businesses in the shipping, logistics, retail, insurance, utilities, retail, e-commerce and financial services industries.

“So, I think sometimes that’s a misconception with BPO in terms of all we’re doing is very basic processes. We are hiring high-tiered processes for our clients as well, not just basic customer service. We have technical support services, medical-type services, urgent processes that require significant skill. For us, as a nearshore option, we want to continue to move up that value chain and that’s always a part of our strategy,” Ricketts-Brown explained.

Ibex Global formed its Jamaican business in January 2016 as a subsidiary of Ibex Global St Lucia Limited, a St Lucian international business company (IBC). The company started out with 200 employees at the time and has a staff complement ranging from 5,000 to 7,000 employees as different seasons impact demand. The Jamaican company reported that it had 5,700 employees as at June 2023, which was one-fifth of Ibex Global’s 24,000 employee count.

Although Ibex Jamaica’s numbers are not public, the nearshore segment saw an eight per cent contraction in revenue from US$155.80 million to US$143.59 million for the financial year ending June 30. This also came at a time when Ibex Global’s consolidated revenue dipped by the same margin to US$508.57 million with consolidated net profit rising seven per cent to US$33.66 million.

Ibex Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Taylor Greenwald noted in the company’s September 13 earnings call that the migration of its services from onshore markets to higher-margin offshore markets and prevailing macroeconomic headwinds resulted in the slowdown in business.

“Macro-economic conditions, providing headwinds, particularly in the first half of the year and external factors impacting the fintech and telecommunications verticals, partially offset by growth in the retail and e-commerce, health tech and travel, transportation and logistic verticals. The strength of our 18 new client wins across all our key verticals partially offset the above headwinds and positioned us for a return to growth in fiscal year 2025,” Greenwald stated.

Nearshoring is a term meant to describe a business that has operations in geographic proximity to the market where its target client is based. Ibex Global defines these markets as Nicaragua, Honduras and Jamaica. Offshore is defined as markets that are far from the target market of the client. These markets are defined as the Philippines and Pakistan. Onshore would mean the business operates in the same primary market as its client which would be the United States of America for Ibex Global.

The advent of artificial intelligence (AI) has made some people concerned about the future of the BPO space in Jamaica which employs nearly 60,000 individuals. The number of BPO jobs has been steady in the first half of 2024 with several BPOs pushing to recruit more staff. This comes at a time when Jamaica’s lack of Spanish-speaking capacity, tight labour market and weak external exam performances become an item of concern for the future growth of the industry.

Despite this concerns, Ricketts-Brown noted that AI is a game-changer and that Ibex Global is remaining ahead of the curve. Ibex Global launched its Wave iX translate in July 2024 to enable conversations in over 150 languages with the global BPO firm marrying cutting-edge AI solutions and deep analytics in its technology stack and employee engagement.

“AI has had no impact on our clients’ volumes in Jamaica; however, the macroeconomic downturn in the US has put volume and cost pressures on our clients. That said, we view our opportunities in Jamaica to remain strong. In our fiscal 2024, we won several very high-profile and important clients in our Jamaica centres with a strong pipeline in place,” Ibex Global noted.

The Jamaican country manager is looking forward to the new fiscal year’s opportunities as she seeks to continue encouraging people to contribute to the industry. Apart from referencing Ibex university and the different learning tracks, she mentioned that 85 per cent of promotions come from within its operation. “Growth is the trajectory. We have a very strong pipeline as it relates to client base. We have an active client services team that makes sure that our pipeline is strong. Ibex is not scaling back at all. We’re poised for growth and that’s what we’re focused on,” Ricketts-Brown closed.