Kencall hopes to take advantage of Kenya's first undersea fibre-optic cable to challenge the outsourcing elite
The Mombasa Road in Nairobi is a noisy and congested highway, where the blaring horns and the hum of idling engines vie with the din of construction work. It's a relief, then, to take a sharp turn up a dusty and potholed track to the offices of Kencall, Kenya's first international call centre, where the only sounds are the low murmur of agent conversation and the quiet whirr of the air conditioning.
It is in this former avocado processing plant that Nicholas Nesbitt, Kencall CEO, is planning to take on the giants of the call centre market. Having studied and worked for many years in the US, Nesbitt returned to Kenya five years ago with ambitious plans to create a viable offshoring alternative to Bangalore in his hometown of Nairobi.
"Kenya's got everything India's got, just on a smaller scale. We've got plenty of educated people with a strong work ethic and with clear anglo accents that are palatable to UK and US customers," he says. The Kenyan government is investing millions to improve the country's telecommunications infrastructure, he adds, reducing the reliance of companies like Kencall on high-cost satellite links for their phone systems.
In June, Kenya's first undersea fibre-optic cable was launched, following a $100 million investment by the government. In time, this cable—the East African Marine System, or TEAMS—will link Kenya's domestic telecomms backbone to the rest of the world, bringing bandwidth capacity up and costs down.
It's all part of the government's Vision 2030 economic development plan, which aims to use information technology to make Kenya a middle-income country by that year, explains Dr Bitange Ndemo, permanent secretary at the Kenyan Ministry of Information and Communications. "High bandwidth connectivity is vital if we are to demonstrate to the world's companies that Kenyans have the skills and talent to take on all sorts of business process work on their behalf." The country's universities produce around 50,000 graduates a year, he points out, but only around 5,000 of these are typically able to find work.
But image could be one stumbling block. Nesbitt claims that Kencall's biggest challenge is the perception among outsourcing decision-makers in the US and UK that Kenya isn't a place for "serious, sophisticated business". In fact, the greater risk is political. Following Kenya's disputed election at the end of 2007, violence broke out that left hundreds dead and hundreds of thousands displaced. Since then, a coalition government, cobbled together at the insistence of former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, has limped uncomfortably along, hampered by internecine struggles, continued corruption and widespread inefficiency.
Geopolitical uncertainty is never good news for outsourcing hopefuls, but Nesbitt remains optimistic. His company, he says, weathered the post-election violence of early 2008 well, accommodating staff on cots in a local mosque and organising games and movies for off-duty staff at the company's premises. In this way, Kencall kept attendance rates up at 95 per cent during the worst of the troubles. Kencall's offices are in a guarded compound and staff transportation is provided as a standard employee benefit, attractive in a city where late-night car-jacking is a persistent problem.
It would be hard, too, to fault Kencall's young and enthusiastic workforce on its talent and commitment. The average age of employees at Kencall is 25 and most are university-educated. "There are good opportunities here to make a career for yourself and few Kenyan companies do as much as Kencall to promote employees internally," says Pauline Kamande, Kencall's head of training, who joined five years ago as a first-level agent. "I also think that, as Kenyans, we have a natural ability to deal politely with even the most difficult customers," she adds.
To date, Kencall has persuaded several international firms to let it handle calls, including mobile operator Orange, the Wall Street Journal, US internet service provider Earthlink and UK voice-to-text provider Spinvox (although Kencall was one of a number of international call centres controversially accused of converting those voicemails by hand). Much of this work is project-based-assignments that run for a limited period, rather than ongoing contracts. In June, for example, none of Kencall's work came from the UK; but back in March, UK companies accounted for 20 per cent of Kencall's business.
That unpredictable pattern could continue at Kencall for the foreseeable future. If the fragile coalition government continues to hold, the next general election is due in 2012. Overseas business will be looking for a peaceful transition at that time as the best impetus to start outsourcing to Kenya. Until then, Nesbitt is determined to keep pressing ahead, in the face of odds that might overwhelm other chief executives. "We're professional, capable people with international experience. We 'get' what international businesses are looking for. Kenya lets Kencall down, because of the way our politicians act and the way our country is judged internationally. But don't write us off just yet."
Posted 11 August 2009 : Director.co.uk
