---

Airlines, doctors and telemarketing

Success in the new business outsourcing sector requires more worker training, Mauritian BPO expert says

As the textile and sugar industries suffer under increasingly competitive global markets, Mauritius wants to launch its workforce into an emerging new business service sector: back-office operations for international companies.

Better known as BPO (business process outsourcing), this is the emerging practice in which companies farm out a variety of duties such as back-office and call center operations. Such work could include transcription of medical records, making airline reservations, processing invoices, telemarketing or customer support.

The Mauritian government has already made positive efforts to attract foreign technology-related businesses by liberalizing tax rules and building the 12-storey Cyber Tower in the Cyber City technology park in Ebene for IT related business. But success in the BPO sector will depend on how well the Mauritian workforce is trained in international business practices, and how well it can adapt to the work and cultural requirements of other countries, according to Vassen Dorasami, training center manager at Ininity BPO, a Mauritian BPO company.

Dorasami is examining the BPO market, especially the human development factor and the potential for attracting U.S. companies to Mauritius, while on a professional fellowship program to Michigan State University.

He is taking graduate courses in policy making, human resource management and economics, with a focus on providing manpower for the BPO outsourcing field. His studies and professional affiliations are sponsored by the U.S.-government funded Hubert H. Humphrey Fellowship Program, which brings accomplished professionals from Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Middle East and Caribbean to the United States for a mid-career year of research study.

"At the end of the next 10 months, my goal is to have 2-3 big U.S. companies that can outsource in Mauritius with confidence, and to find institutions that can help develop our manpower requirements in the BPO sector," Dorasami said.

"We have done many things to create an attractive investment climate for foreign companies, which is good, we have a reliable telecommunication infrastructure, we have a conducive regulatory framework in place but what's lacking is the appropriate training of our workers," he said in an interview with Weekend. "If we don't do anything, our international rankings (as a friendly place for BPOs) will be affected, mainly by poor scores in human development in this sector."

The National Empowerment Foundation (NEF), under the Ministry of Finance, is contributing significantly to the development of training in the sector, he said, but a comprehensive training strategy is missing. "BPO operations are so diverse that each company would tailor its training needs separately, but a generic preliminary training design would bring the necessary mindset and initial skills required and create a conducive environment to attract young school leavers and graduates" he said.

Mauritius aspires to be a BPO leader

Mauritius has jumped on the BPO bandwagon, seeing an opportunity to attract new business with its bilingual population, its flexible labor policies and its strategic location along a fiber-optic cable that links Malaysia to the U.S. along through South Africa and India.

Declaring that it wants to make Mauritius a "cyber island," the government has embraced BPO as part of a plan to develop IT (information technology) as the fifth pillar of the Mauritian economy along with textiles, sugar, financial services and tourism. It has partnered with India, which is offering its expertise in the technology field. As part of his research, Dorasami is also seeking appropriate funding organizations in the U.S. to help develop training in the BPO sector.

BPO is growing fast internationally, enjoying an increase in demand even during a global recession. As companies in the United States and Europe look to cut costs, they are increasingly moving their back-room operations off-site and often overseas. India, Philippines, China, South Africa and Malaysia have already developed sophisticated BPO services and have attracted international clients.

Mauritius has recently become a leading emerging outsourcing destination. It was ranked 25th in the world on the A.T. Kearney Global Services Location index - both in 2008 and 2009 - and among the highest in Africa in the Digital Opportunity Index ranking (DOI).

The IT sector has grown 25 percent each year over the past five years, with IT-BPO services contributing 4 percent to the GDP (gross domestic product) in just four years.

There are now more than 350 companies employing 15,000 workers in BPO, IT-enabled services, software development, multimedia, call centers, consultancy and training and web development.

BPO companies include Accenture, an IT services and consulting firm, Ceridian Centrefile, a U.K.-based human resources services company, Cendris, a Dutch company that offers information management and marketing advice, Infinity BPO (initially from France) Microsoft, France Telecom and Oracle.

Under an agreement with the Government of Mauritius, Cisco Systems, a California based supplier of networking equipment for the Internet, has partnered with the University of Mauritius to offer training for potential IT professionals as a regional academy. Recently Google has embarked on similar initiatives.

To further encourage investments, an international outsourcing forum is planned for October at the Hilton Resort to give companies an opportunity evaluate Mauritius as an off shoring/outsourcing destination.

Most of the companies now in the BPO sector are European, with a small number of American firms. "The United States is a leader in outsourcing, and India has gotten a better share of the investment," Dorasami said. "Mauritius has mainly focused on French market so far, but there is a huge potential to tap in America."

Dorasami said as part of his research at Michigan State he is trying to analyze what American companies are looking for when they outsource, and what Mauritius must do to be competitive to attract this business. He sees opportunities in banking, insurance, human resource processing, data processing.

A few years ago, foreign BPO and IT firms were discouraged to enter the Mauritian market because of high telecommunications costs. But the government has since significantly reduced these costs. "The problem now is manpower, more specifically skilled manpower," Dorasami said. "We have to change the mindset of people to convince them to work under different conditions, on different schedules and adapt their work habits to different business cultures."

Since Mauritius is at least 8-9 hours ahead of the United States, BPO workers would work mostly at night, when it is daytime in America. This would require a new organization of family, work, commuting and training, he said.

"We organize team-building exercises, and sometimes invite the parents of younger workers to attend the training sessions," Dorasami said. "However, there's a perception that the work is like in India" with excessively long hours and that young workers spend the day entirely on the telephone.

Another issue is language. Mauritians pride themselves in living in a bilingual country, but skills in spoken English tend to be weak. Working for American companies that require voice exchanges with American consumers would mean that Mauritians would have to be trained in the American accent, and in the many unique aspects of American culture.

The Training Gap

Training, however, is the overriding challenge. To develop a successful BPO sector, Mauritius will need to offer a well-trained workforce that has been educated to an international standard for such work. Dorasami would like to see Mauritius work with International Certification Organizations so that training of Mauritian workers would be certified to a high level of international standards. Kenya, India, South Africa and China already have international certification courses. "I would like to bring these international certification trainings to my country," he said.

Dorasami said he is networking with people on the huge campus of Michigan State University (46,000 students), in Chicago, in Washington D.C. and with his dealings with American businesses to introduce people to Mauritius. "People here just don't know it," he said. "I need to carry a map with me. When explaining our strategic location and our economic development, this misunderstanding immediately fades out and people are amazed at what we have accomplished so far. Yet it is still a major challenge to promote Mauritius in this sector."

But before knocking at the doors of U.S. companies, there's still some more work to do.

"We have everything except a good training program with international standards," Dorasami said, adding that his objective is to bring international certification to Mauritius and attract U.S. BPO companies to the island.

Dorasami can be contacted at: v.dorasami@yahoo.com

a m e r i c a n   s c e n e

WEEK-END --- dimanche 13 septembre 2009