Cape Town calling: BPO industry is booming

This week, Alderman James Vos, the Mayoral Committee Member for Economic Growth, visited two recently opened call centres that are boosting Cape Town’s Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) industry profile with hundreds more staff. Read more below:

The new Wipro Africa Delivery Centre in Century City is a joint venture with local mobile data platform, Rain South Africa. Wipro is a major global BPO brand with 250 000 staff in 66 countries. The second site visit was to Sigma’s office in Woodstock, which has been operational for just under a year. With its Woodstock team, Sigma employs 3 000 people in five centres around the city. Their other call centres are located in Diep River, Retreat, Mitchells Plain and Athlone.

‘I’m also excited to share that graduates from the Cape Skills and Employment Accelerator form part of the staff employed at these call centres. This initiative is funded primarily by the City and the National Skills Fund that provides training and workplace experience in high growth industries for previously unemployed South African youth and women,’ said Alderman Vos.

More than 70 000 people now work in the industry in Cape Town. That number is set to grow even more in the coming months with UK company, Arvato CRM Solutions, announcing this week that it will be servicing clients from Cape Town, via international e-commerce company, Techsembly.

In 2021, the international BPO market in Cape Town contributed around R14 billion to the metro’s economy.

‘Thanks to the City’s investment into skills development and promoting Cape Town as an ideal call centre hub via our industry partner, CapeBPO, the metro has indeed become a world-renowned and sought-after destination for Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) companies. Realising the potential of Cape Town’s high-growth industries will further boost the local economy and extend job opportunities to even more Capetonians. This has been my goal since stepping into this mayoral committee position a few years ago. Through our programmes and partnerships, we are achieving that goal,’ said Alderman Vos.