FortySouth

Clearly, Kenya is laying its claim to a share of the global outsourcing market. And people are taking note.

As noted in the search insights below, interest in the concept went through the roof in 2008; contrast that to 2005 when India completely dominated.

But despite the enormous interest, the projected growth of the sector in the midst of a global economic downturn and the foreseen coming death of Indian outsourcing, why is progress in Kenya’s Business Process Outsourcing sector slow on the uptake?

Two reasons: prohibitive bandwidth costs and the “fear of exposure” among some BPO firms. More >>

Om Malik posits:

“Building new cables is the equivalent to adding new roads, new shipping lanes, or flights. The undersea fibers of today are what sea trading routes were in the past—an indicator of future economic activity and a subsequent boom”

That during the 90′s a “grotesque number of” undersea fibre optic cables were laid connecting the US, Japan Europe and parts of Asia Pacific. Those three regions then went through an economic boom due to telecom deregulation and increased spending on ICT initiatives.
Right now I believe we are seeing the counterpoint in Africa. A number undersea fibre projects are in progress, many more competitors in the service provider arena are entering the market challenging erstwhile telco giants to repackage their business models and service offerings.
What is quite notable in Africa is the unprecedented growth in the number of mobile subscribers over the last decade and I tend to agree with Om’s assessment that the bulk 13 terrabits per second-odd capacity that the fibre options will bring to fore, will be used by mobile broadband services since “PC penetration is (still) abysmally low” in the continent.
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