Call Centre Outsourcing: Comparative Assessment of Ghana’s Readiness as a Provider

Abstract

Many multinational companies are moving their back offices to developing countries where costs (especially labour) is low. The government of Ghana has therefore taken the initiative, through the Ghana Investment Promotions Centre (GIPC) and the Ghana Free Zones Board (GFZB), to develop the business process outsourcing (BPO) business including call centres. This paper assesses the readiness of Ghana as a competitive call centre outsourcing provider on the global market. Data is largely from primary sources and through questionnaire administration. Data relating to 23 call centre outsourcing provider-companies in Ghana, India, USA and UK were analysed. Most of the factors relating to Ghana were weighed against those of India, the most renowned call centre service provider-nation in the world. Outcome of the analysis together with economic indicators were then used to evaluate the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT) of the Ghanaian call centre industry. The results show that in spite of favourable factors such as lower cost of labour, English language proficiency, and political stability, Ghana seems less capable of offering strong competition in the call centre outsourcing market if its telecommunication infrastructure, especially voice over internet protocol (VoIP); contracting strategies; and human skills are not upgraded.

Keywords: Call centre, Ghana, India, outsourcing, SWOT matrix