Gov’t intends to aggressively market Business Process Outsourcing sector – Finance Minister

Senior Minister in the Office of the President with responsibility for finance, Dr. Ashni Singh said the Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) industry has the potential to create more jobs than any other sector in the country.

He was at the time engaging the leadership of Teleperformance Guyana, during a tour of the company’s Camp and Robb Streets, Georgetown location on Monday.

Dr. Singh said the government intends to market the BPO sector aggressively to the international business community.

“I was particularly pleased to hear and see an excellent presentation prepared by the company in Guyana, by the leadership of the company in Guyana, and that presentation did, in my mind, an extremely effective job of outlining why Guyana is a good destination for BPO business, and what Guyana’s competitive advantages are in this industry.”

Teleperformance’s Country Manager, Luis Barreto said Guyana is the Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) industry’s best kept secret.

Barreto said this is what the company tells clients when marketing Guyana’s operations.

“From a time zone perspective, we’re exactly where we want to be, because we follow the same time zone in the United States. A lot of the business that’s coming from India and the Philippines to our region is because of that,” Barreto said.

He explained that though BPO companies may find issues in other countries like long travel times, different time zones and lack of cultural affinity, all of the benefits are in Guyana.

Meanwhile, Minister Anthony said when the government took office, it moved to liberalise the telecommunications sector. The minister explained that this was done to reduce the cost of bandwidth, by creating more competition in the industry. This is critical for business process outsourcing companies as they seek to branch out into further parts of Guyana.

Dr. Singh urged the company to branch out into other parts of Guyana where there are large employment pools, like Regions Two and Three, and other parts of Regions Four, Five, Six and Ten.

“Based on my conversation with the leadership of the company in Guyana, it appears that there are some very exciting opportunities for further expansion, and we will remain in close contact as those opportunities materialise.”

Barreto said it is part of Teleperformance’s strategy to branch out. Responding to the Minister’s suggestion, he said an important consideration for the company is connectivity. He reasoned that one way the company could reach farther areas is by allowing employees living there to work from home, even in the absence of a physical office presence.

He explained that the company already has employees who live and work on the East and West Coast of Demerara, and Linden.

Chief Executive Officer of the Guyana Office for Investment (GO-Invest), Dr. Peter Ramsaroop was also part of the tour.