Business process outsourcing giant itel will be expanding its footprint to another Caribbean country — Belize.

Considered the largest home-grown Caribbean business process outsourcing (BPO) operation, itel has begun retrofitting a prime location in Belize City, comprising 40,000 square feet, into a “purpose-built” contact centre. The company has begun retrofitting of the facility, which it anticipates will come to an end in October 2023. Thereafter, some 500 employees will move into the space to begin operations.

Founding chairman and CEO of itel Yoni Epstein is optimistic that the new location could reach its maximum of 800 seats by the end of 2024.

“Belize has proven to be a great extension of itel’s Caribbean and Latin American expansion plans. While our initial pilot has started small with around 100 employees, we are developing a facility to house around 800 employees and seek to make an initial capital expenditure investment of US$2.5 million,” he stated.

Epstein told the Jamaica Observer that itel has been operating in Belize since June last year through a strategic partnership, after first visiting in January 2022. However, the end game, he said, was for itel to have its own site in that country. Having prospected a number of options in the city since February, the BPO provider signed a deal two weeks ago with its new landlord.

The US$2.5-million infrastructure will include design and development of the space, furniture, and IT infrastructure including computers, networking and other electronics.

The expansion into Belize will facilitate itel’s strategic objective of creating more geographic diversity with its BPO centres spread across the Caribbean. The addition of the new facility in the Central American country will propel the company to meeting its clients’ demands.

“Many of our clients we do work for today, it’s either from one or multiple countries we operate in. As we kind of learnt through COVID the importance of the differentiator of geographic diversity, we started to ask what other countries are there in the near shore, whether that be in the Caribbean or Central America, and how we will capitalise on that and diversify ourselves to be a stronger suitor in this region,” Epstein shared.

Among the advantages of Belize he found were the “warmth and charm” of the people and the employees’ proficiency with the English language. itel will also benefit from the country’s Special Export Processing Zone or Commercial Free Zone policy, which comes with, among other benefits, a 20-year tax holiday from income tax, withholding tax, capital gains tax or any new corporate tax.

Epstein pointed out that another pull factor for the company was from a client who requested an operation in that country.

“One of our existing clients who operates with us in Guyana and Honduras said, ‘We want to go into Belize. We’ll give you the option to price it and manage our options there. We know you won’t have a site open immediately, but can you make an offer that will be worthwhile to us?'” the CEO recalled.

Responding positively to the proposal, itel entered into a partnership with a BPO operator in that country, hired 100 employees and initiated the pilot project. Since then the team in Belize “has consistently exceeded client expectations and shown the kind of sustainable success that supports the company’s expansion strategies”.

So successful has been the pilot that Epstein is already considering an additional BPO site in the Central American country to take advantage of Spanish language capabilities resident in the populations living near to borders Belize shares with Mexico and Guatemala.

In the meantime, the company’s sales and recruitment teams are actively seeking to fill the 500 seats needed for the October opening of the site located near major thoroughfares and transport hubs in Belize City, which has a labour force number over 60,0000. Team members from itel’s Jamaica, Honduras and Guyana operations will provide support in the start-up of the new operation.

When asked about further expansion in the region, Epstein explained to the Caribbean Business Report, “Well, we’re still looking at more opportunities in the region. I think there are a couple of countries out there that could add to the mix while we continue to invest in others that we’re already in.

He, however, did not offer any specific details.

Now closing out its 10th year of operating, itel began its regional international growth with expansion into Freeport, Grand Bahama in 2013, a year after its founding. In 2017, through the acquisition of Granada Corporation the company secured footholds in both Mexico and the United States, marking its foray into work-at-home BPO operations.

Another move to grow into the region came in 2020 with the creation of itel St Lucia through a public private partnership with Invest St Lucia. A year later the company expanded its St Lucia operation and entered and celebrated its entry into South and Central America with the acquisition of Emerge BPO, which had sites in Guyana and Honduras.

While itel closed both its operation in The Bahamas and Mexico in June 2022 due to “lack of scalability”, the company is now in the process of finalising another acquisition in South America. That deal should close before June, Epstein disclosed.

Quizzed about how itel will finance further growth, he informed the Caribbean Business Report that there is a consideration to return to the capital market for debt financing.