Egypt poised to be next global BPO hub

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Egypt is set to compete with India in the global outsourcing market (Getty Images).

An outsourcing study by research firm Yankee Group has identified Egypt as “most likely to succeed in the Middle East and give India a run for its money.”

Already estimated to be a $300 billion market in 2009, Egypt was assessed as having the strongest position because of its young population, multilingual workforce, large talent pool and strong government support.

The Egyptian government has projected that local outsourcing companies will have revenue of more than $1 billion by 2010, and a new outsourcing business park called Maadi Investment Park will be launched in Cairo to support the country’s BPO aims.

The report compares several Middle Eastern countries as potential outsourcing markets, with Dubai being labeled as a ‘loser’ because of high real estate prices, limited public transport and high cost of bandwidth.

In comparison, Abu Dhabi was termed a ‘winner’ as the government reached out to global players to tap their expertise and the success of Injazat Data Systems is reflective of that.

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia was labeled a ‘long shot’, with the report stating that: “Although the KSA economy is the largest in the Middle East, Saudi Arabia lacks a domestic workforce with strong IT skills”.

Commenting on whether companies in the United States would be hesitant to outsource to the Middle East, Tony Marson, senior enterprise research analyst at Yankee Group, commented that “while a lot of American companies are skeptical about the Middle East and may find it difficult to outsource here initially, I think companies need to use outsourcing to make sure they keep going and not fall over like their banks.”

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