Bloemfontein hopes to become a business process outsourcing and offshoring (BPO&O) hub, following a R50-million strategic partnership between Mangaung Local Municipality (MLM) and technology leaders from South Africa and abroad.

Ealier in the decade, South Africa's Department of Trade & Industry (DTI) embarked on a business process outsourcing initiative aimed primarily at attracting off-shored call centre business to South Africa. As a result the large metropolitan centres were able to attract numerous large offshore call centres to South Africa.
In recent years, recognising that the BPO initiative needed to be broadened to ensure a greater spread of services and economic benefit across the country, the DTI launched its second economy BPO&O initiative, which incentivises BPO&O activity in less traditional locations.
Second economy BPO, as distinct from first generation BPO, is dependent on tapping into offshore AND local business process outsourcing services and includes an emphasis on leveraging the use of ICT as an enabler to achieve local economic development through effective service delivery.
A key element of second generation BPO concentrates on ensuring long-term sustainability for these services.
Fujitsu Services, UniNet Communications, Cisco and Microsoft are service partners that are investing in the MLM BPO&O Hub to deliver the "Re Hodisa Moruo Project", unveiled today.

Full story: http://www.it-online.co.za/content/view/694922/142/