Building South Africa as the most preferred sales outsourcing destination

Dheeraj Prasad: Good morning. Good afternoon. Good evening to all the viewers on my show B2B sales insights. And I have Clinton Cohen, who is the CEO of iContact BPO. And my show today, as you all know, we've been traversing through the different global destinations for outsourcing. And we're going to bring you to South Africa, where we have Clinton. Good morning to you, Clinton. How are you doing today?

Clinton Cohen: Good afternoon, Dheeraj. Thanks for having me on the show. I'm doing great. Thank you.

Dheeraj Prasad: Excellent. Great to hear that. So Clinton, you know, we've been really talking about the ability of South Africa as a destination to really serve as global clients. And I was just reading one of the survey reports. I believe this was from the Ryan Strategic Advisory BPO Omnibus Survey, which just talked about the way that the South Africa BPO industry has been seen as one of the most favored offshore destinations, you know, for global clients. I talk more in terms of how have you been living this journey? And how do you see the future going forward?

Clinton Cohen: Dheeraj, what a wonderful feat. Ryan Strategic Advisory Omnibus Survey was, South Africa is an outsource destination, as well as being outranked among the top three in the world, you know, against India against the Philippines. And we've always been, you know, significantly or favorably placed second, top second for the past few years. And finally, South Africa's got a chance to shine by leading the charge winning the number one position as the most favorable outsource destination for CX perspective. And what we've seen and what we've felt from a South African perspective is we've really seen the global shift. Now, look towards South Africa as an outsourcing destination. And it is tremendous to have one net feat first and foremost but to be in that significant conversation line with prospective global buyers.

Dheeraj Prasad: That is absolutely right. And that's what is really creating the difference in terms of becoming something that is a lot more global. For customer service and customer experience. Abilities that have been sort of showcased from South Africa. Clinton, I was also very intrigued by the work that iContact BPO has been doing on socially responsible outsourcing. To talk more about what that really means to you. And some of the underlying programs that have been currently being worked upon.

Clinton Cohen: This is, you know, obviously something that we extremely passionate about, and, you know, socially responsible outsourcing, you know, not only to prospective buyers, and we'll get into the iContact Lane in a minute. But, you know, today, more and more corporates, prospective buyers, anyone really globally has that corporate social responsibility about what they're giving back to either the employees to their communities, to organizations, or charity organizations. And what we've managed, and what we're passionate about, in doing in terms of socially responsible outsourcing, is the talent market in South Africa, you've obviously got the formal sector and the informal sector, and there's a large part of our South African population who doesn't have direct access to the formal job sector. And what this allows us and what this gives us is the ability to not only take the formal jobs sector to those previously disadvantaged or inaccessible areas in the country but also to be able to source talent. It's been a tremendous journey, being able to do a few roadshows set up, you know, recruitment drives in those informal areas. And what we've seen come out of that, and I call it, you know, the diamonds in the rough. They're those talents that are situated in that informal sector. There are extremely talented and it's about going in and finding them and sourcing them and pulling them into the formal job sector and creating that opportunity. I think secondly, but funds those drives in and you know, kind of that initiative that we do is also able to give previously disadvantaged youth, whether through disabilities or whether through, as we've been speaking about the informal market that hasn't had access to the major metros, but being able to create employment for this highly talented youth individuals, it creates an amazing sense of excitement. And allows us to really deploy our leadership and nurture this talent into the four into the formal job sector. And what we've seen a direct impact of that is through creating formal employment, creating, above market-related wages and salaries, to now these talented humans who can then take the spec, and then above living wage incomes back into their communities. And we see it not only enriches their lives, but it enriches the communities too, with having this career, path driven, financial stimulated job satisfaction. I hope that's been clear. If anything, I'm absolutely happy to dive into it.

Dheeraj Prasad: Yeah, it's very clear to intern and I think is also that the contribution that they make and give back to the community in terms of creating that ecosystem of overall economic independence is something which helps us in the community as well, in terms of better livelihood, which they give back to the society.

Clinton Cohen: Absolutely and that was what I was meaning by. It’s not only directly impacting them but their communities too.

Dheeraj Prasad: Absolutely. So how does this program run? What are some of the areas that you focus on? You know, primarily in terms of what kind of skill sets that you look out for? And how long is the program?

Clinton Cohen: Dheeraj, from our perspective, I think the first part is being able to do those recruitment drives in those informal sectors. And from that, really, you know, kind of basic assessments in terms of language capabilities, written capabilities, comprehension capabilities, in order to ensure that they're going to meet the global standard that's required, we run strict filters. And that's why, you know, really selecting the cream of that crop that comes out of this sector. We then run together with some of our organizations, such as the impact sourcing Institute of South Africa, whether they be formal learnerships In qualifications that usually last a year period or whether they're informal courses and skills development and training. Those could vary between, you know, three to six months, versus the formal learner ships that then come through from a year curriculum where the learner, the student actually walk away with a national qualification standard, whether it be matriculants or Post University. So it really depends on what programs are fitting for the right talents and where directly their program is. I think the important aspect around that is how we then support them through that work experience and that leadership and nurturing in terms of how they progress in how we support them in that journey. And I think a large part of it is not only for the informal sector, humans that can't get to the major metros, but again, also with a large focus. And I think South Africa, as our country really supports, is able to create employment for disabled youth. You know, what were the varying degrees of what disability is, you know, not really so important about going into that today, but the aspect around creating formal or informal qualifications that both these last learning career learning lessons for the individuals coming through our programs.

Dheeraj Prasad: Absolutely. And during these times when a lot of the work has gone distributed, work from home so it works very well, where they can stay still in their own respective homes and they are delivering world-class service, right from there to global clients, is that the model which they work on? Do they come back to a physical space from where they work?

Clinton Cohen: Dheeraj, we've got two different types of models and fortunately, when COVID hit in March 2020, South Africa and our GBS global business service sector really rallied hard together with the government and we had a direct line into presidency into government. And the government really realized in the early stages, April May 2020, how critical the BPO, the global business service sector, is, in terms of its support, not only domestically, but most importantly, internationally and our global clients. By having those conversations with real transparency and real passion and drive. The support we gained through the government was that we were deemed as a sector as essential service workers and deemed as the permits and the appropriate licenses to be able to continue working from our office slots. In the initial stages, our teams were really oriented to extreme hard lockdowns. We had to pivot our businesses really quickly. And within a kind of 10 to 15 working days, we had migrated all our operations into that work from home strategy. As we got deemed those essential services and central service permits to be able to work from our office, we had the international global father of our business return to the Office while still maintaining our domestic capability and capacities working from home. And those work from home strategies over this past year, have been both on have been tried, tested, you know, gone through the many million hours of challenges, but today seem to find a really good space to be able to offer both a work from home strategy as well as from inner thought location services. So it's really been an interesting journey the past quarter, 12-18 months, as we are still continuing on this COVID journey. But what we found with our learners is the importance of bringing them into a facilitated classroom style. We do allow them the capability to have work from home strategy, but we found the impact and the time to competence and the time to just speed up that learning journey in a safe, secure manner. With COVID, compliance in our offices seem to work far better than being disconnected or remote in work from home solution. So very much with regards to the impact sourcing initiatives in these learnerships. We seem to find there's more benefit having them in those classrooms styled in facilitated in premise rather than having the remote, but we are able to cater for both. And we've seen success in both just shorter in the office space location.

Dheeraj Prasad: Yeah, absolutely. And I think that's where a lot of innovation is happening, work at home agents, where it's the talent is all in the cloud, and you can actually get them on demand as a part of that where they are sort of working from their homes and technology is in many ways, also enabling that part of the innovation that is Clinton to talk about the whole iContact BPO story. What are some of the key innovations that you are driving to take to what we started off by saying that South Africa is the most preferred outsourcing offshoring destination right now for global clients?

Clinton Cohen: Dheeraj it's a great question. And you know, we love talking about innovation and innovation colleague of mine mentioned to me a couple of days ago, you know, it's not always the Elon Musk theory about creating these world revolutionary changes and innovation can be as simple as being able to have technology drive, to be able to recruit people from all over the world to be able to work for our organization and offer their global business service. Such tech being one of them is definitely an innovation and a driving factor that not only disrupted the market in such a dramatic way over these past 12 months, but created new paths, new thinking new structures, in terms of delivery, a large part of our innovation, and particularly when we come back into that impact sourcing in the formal and informal learnerships that created, and from our organization, as we, as leadership, whether it be from a C-suite level or right through to any management level, is the continuous encouragement to everyone who participates in our organization, to be able to bring the ideas forward, bring their thoughts forward, there's nothing that could be too extreme, because some of those best ideas and best practices that drive these collective innovation deliveries come in from amazing talent, amazing people who it begins with that idea and delivers in fantastic strategic and implementation of those ideas as results that we deliver in entier client platforms.

Dheeraj Prasad: Absolutely. And you also talked about, you know, how both learning, as well as work, has transitioned. And it has become more hybrid where people can seamlessly work from a physical space within the office premises itself and also seamlessly at home. How have you looked at some of the technology sides of things to drive that seamless experience? And also, from the point of view that some of the interactions could just be more security focus? And how do you enable all of that for global clients?

Clinton Cohen: The absolute first and foremost was how do we enable our work from home environments, our teams to work remotely. And in terms of that, security was a critical benchmarking measure in order to get it not only working functionally but securely, as well. And, you know, through robust iterations, through our Information Technology Officers, as well as the information security teams, how creating us secure connections from our remote teams back into our office premises, ensuring that the client protection of data is secure. And, you know, I know we've we're not unique in our own experience of that. And, you know, I want to say all that all the VPN providers, you know, went through those iterations. But it's such an important aspect to creating those security measures and three vulnerabilities that ensure to our clients that first and foremost, the connectivity is secure, but that the data around what the service offerings have been being secure in nature, and giving our clients that strength, and, you know, comfort that they're pieces of work offering, I think today, what we've seen and, you know, kind of what I've seen over the past couple of months, iContact totally, you know, has our ISO certification in terms of 27,000 in one information security management systems. And I've seen a lot more organizations realizing the importance of this. Yeah, it was always there historically, but I think COVID really just highlighted how these processes need to be bedded down locked down in abled insecure in order to have that global access and security.

Dheeraj Prasad: Absolutely. Clinton, this has been fantastic in terms of getting some of the insights from one of the leading BPO companies in South Africa and the way that you sort of taking, you know, some of the Global Customer Experience, you know, being delivered out of the South Africa shores. So this is fantastic to hear. My last question to you is, primarily in terms of, you know, the value that iContact BPO already delivered to its clients, what is that one or two unique value propositions that you offer to your clients, which is different from some of the other possible destinations globally?

Clinton Cohen: Dheeraj, I think we could do a whole show on this, you know, we're really passionate about it and, you know, some of the forward-thinking and value propositions that we have as iContact, is that we will meet our clients where they are we don't deem to say, any kind who wants to onboard with us, he has our onboarding pack. And this is how you should work with us. We're flexible. We’re agile. We’ll deploy the right solutions at the right times to meet our clients where they're at. Many of our clients reach us at totally different stages in their customer experience last cycles. And it's with that open-mindedness. And with that agility that we have at iContact, we meet them where they're at in order to deploy the right solution and delivery design that, you know, will meet them. And again, those journeys are continuous journeys. There's never a one size fits all approach. But we're passionate about engaging with our clients and understanding their needs. I think, you know, South Africa as a destination has a tremendous amount to offer, particularly into the global markets, not only into the North American or into the Australian markets, where English is our native-speaking language delivers so well, as well as the UK deliver so well into those global markets. But there is still this tremendous delivery, not only through voice or non-voice, but that English comprehension is a testament to that service delivery that anyone can deliver both onshore were able to deliver offshore too, I think, secondly, when we talk about some of the value propositions that South Africa has to offer an iContact is, you know, it's first world infrastructure, whether it be the telecommunications and dark fiber connectivities coming into with multiple routes, that connectivity allowing that seamless transition, I think what that really highlighted to a large part of I'm gonna call them possibly skeptical global buyers who had never possibly outsourced before COVID. All of a sudden, COVID highlighted to everybody that all of a sudden, our teams are now working remotely. Maybe outsourcing or offshoring isn't as scary as we thought because that control has dissipated. So again, first of all, the infrastructure, English being our native speaking language. And I think last, but not least, this is always the cost component or the pricing factor where South Africa is able to offer the same similar, if not better services, in the outsourcing market 30-40-50% cheaper than some of the onshore delivery locations. And for any business today who are going through those high-level strategic conversations around return on investments or cost cuttings or enabling their business in a different way. I think that's really where South Africa iContact is really positioned at the forefront of those conversations, in terms of how can we help? How can we provide that same, if not better, service quality, the delivery location from our South African market?

Dheeraj Prasad: Great, absolutely. You know, the key takeaway that, you know, I'm taking in for our viewers, primarily is that Africa is a great talent destination. As you mentioned in your talk earlier, Clinton, you know, how you as a company, and you as a leader, look at talent as rough diamonds, and how do you through socially responsible businesses like yours, how you are actually getting those rough, diamonds to shine, make them become more value-driven and add value to themselves and to the community at large. And they are delivering world-class services or a world-class infrastructure for South Africa. So I think the opportunity is huge. And it’s also aligned with United Nations sustained development goals, the SDG goals 2030 in terms of making organizations more socially responsible, and I think that is something which is very, very unique in terms of what you and South Africa overall are doing to the global outsourcing industry. Thank you so much.

Clinton Cohen: Thank you. Thanks for having me today and allowing me to connect with you and the global community at large. And obviously always really passionate about what we do here at iContact, and as well raising our South African flags high with an immense amount of pride.

Dheeraj Prasad: Absolutely. Thank you so much, Clinton and look forward to speaking to you soon.

Clinton Cohen: Thanks, Dheeraj. All the best, have a great afternoon.

Dheeraj Prasad: Thank you.