With South Africa voted the ‘Most Preferred CX Offshore Destination’ for the past two years, international investors have set their sights on the country and ways to utilise its global business services (GBS) and business process outsourcing (BPO) sectors to support their customer servicing needs. The successful South Africa GBS Investor Conference, hosted in Umhlanga from 8 to 10 November, provided just this opportunity, with a dynamic speaker line-up ensuring attendees got the most out of the event.
“It was so wonderful to welcome some of the industry’s most influential personalities to the conference where they got to unpack some of the most relevant topics impacting the GBS sector today,” said Reshni Singh, CEO of BPESA. “In addition to inspiring talks and workshops, attendees were treated to site visits to get first-hand insight into the potential the country offers, with the final evening a real celebration of the country’s world-class talent at the BPESA Alchemy Awards Banquet.”
During the three-day engagement, this national conference offered several opportunities for domestic stakeholders and international investors to convene, learn, co-create, and discover the many benefits South Africa offers as an attractive, scaleable offshore location. Attended by a broad array of industry stakeholders, attendees were connected with sector specialists through thought-provoking panel discussions, knowledge-sharing workshops, masterclasses, BPO site visits and networking sessions.
An influential speaker programme
Getting the event started was Mark Angus, CEO of Genesis GBS, a leading global GBS specialist research house speaking on the topic Punching above her weight and retaining Gold. He outlined South Africa’s position as a GBS leader, unpacking the value benefits and key offerings for offshoring. Andre Snyders, the Africa Industry Analyst for Standard Bank discussed Unpacking the global economic flux, and the impact of global economic trends on the country and continent leaving delegates with a positive sense of the future.
Day two of the event opened up with a dynamic and inspiring presenter The Unlearning Lady, Zanele Ngala, Founder of Unlearning who talked about building a culture of learning, unlearning and relearning. Stephen Loynd, Founder of TrendzOwl offered thought-provoking insights within his topic of Crystal Ball Gazing as he unpacked the next great digital channel – The Metaverse.
Dr Jacques Ludick, Founder and CEO of CortexLogic; and Dr Jay van Zyl, Computational Social Scientist, Technologist and Founder of ecosystem.ai were joined by Ryan Falkenberg Co-Founder of CLEVVA who unpacked Digital Transformation, looking at where human behavioural sciences meet digital technology. The topical subject of Block Chain and where it meets GBS was handled by James Preston, Entrepreneur & innovator representing Zeitgeist and John Singh, Chairman of Blockchain Special Interest Group, IITPSA.
Avesh Singh, Head of the Global Capability Centre for TransUnion in Africa Anne Bibb of Remote Evolution and Robin Hoekstra, CEO of Outworx BPO discussed what remote working means for the customer experience (CX) sector in Work is an activity, no longer a place.
Rita Soni, Principal Analyst, Impact Sourcing & Sustainability Research of Everest Group, Rene Rademeyer, Client Services Manager, Harambee: SA Youth.mobi, Coral Albertse Program Manager and Solution Architect, Paladin Consulting: BPESA Future Skills Platform and Nathaniel Jacobs, Head of Operations of Shadow Careers then kicked off the final day by looking at the important topics of ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance) and DEIB (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging) and how these culminate into positive social impact in South Africa via the GBS sector through the broad adoption of impact sourcing.
The Digital Skills in the country and bridging the digital divide panel was facilitated by BPESA’s Digital & Special Projects Lead, Neville Cousins along with Prof Adrian Schofield who is a Fellow and Professional Member of IITPSA, Evan Jones, Group Strategy Director of Harambee and Sian Peters – Compliance, Finance & Business Operations and Eileen Clauss – Development Director, both from GK Software, joined by their skills provider Chris McCully – Campus Director Durban, WeThinkCode.
BPESA KZN Executive Yogan Naidoo and three local KZN-based BPO operators, RewardsCo represented by Group Commercial Director, Dylan Koen, Paul Swainson, Group COO of Synergy and Robin Hoekstra, CEO, Outworx brought to life the fantastic growth the KZN region has been experiencing under the title of Homegrown excellence. Delegates saw the conference close out with renowned author, Paul Steenkamp, via his talk Character insights for a regenerative future which outlined the five leadership powers to drive supergrowth.
Special thanks were extended to National Partners: dtic, InvestSA, Harambee; Host Partners: KZN Department of Economic Development, Tourism and Environmental Affairs (KZN EDTEA), Trade and Investment KZN (TIKZN), Invest Durban and eThekwini Municipality; Gold Partner: GGDA; Silver Partners: WNS, Synergy, and Outworx. BPO Partner: TransUnion; Human Engagement Partner: RewardsCo; and Professional Shared Services Partner: Blake Group.
For more information, visit:
Website: https://www.bpesa.org.za/gbs-event-2022.html
Facebook: BPESA BPO
Twitter: @BPO2SA
LinkedIn: BPESA
YouTube: BPESA NATIONAL
Event hashtags: #BPESA #StrongerTogether #Investment #Development #GBS #BPO #Conference #Durban #KZN #Networking #Growth #InvestSA #ProudlySouthAfrican #SouthAfricaValueProposition #Awards
To find out more on how to get involved or for sponsorship opportunities, contact [email protected].
For any international visitors looking to expand their global delivery capability, contact [email protected]
