Why Africa is an ideal Offshore Location for Outsourcing?

The most popular outsourcing locations have been garnered by the Asian and African countries, undoubtedly. Whether it is the customer service, IT sector, or manufacturing domain, Africa and Asia has been the centre for outsourcing. While there has been a multitude of destinations in the developing countries, such as Mexico, Russia, the Philippines, Argentina that are great for outsourcing, these offshore destinations have witnessed overcrowding in the past few years. Moreover, the problem persisting with diminishing quality in these regions caused due to the higher need for finances and the inability of retaining and hiring new talent in the regions is another factor causing low business outsourcing.

This is where African countries enter into the domain of being one most preferred offshore locations for outsourcing peripheral tasks. The African continent has overcome the challenges of other foreign locations and emerged as a huge success in the outsourcing vertical. 

Businesses are evolving at a fast pace and they are more than ever focused on the quality of work rather than the location of outsourcing business. There is an increasing need for businesses to add value by a skilled workforce, higher productivity, efficient work, timely performance, and cost-effective budget. African countries do not have any dearth of these factors and have gained a revered status in business outsourcing with the objective to deliver client projects both continuously and sustainably. 

What does the African continent have to offer as an ideal offshore outsourcing destination? 

Businesses planning to outsource their non-core business operations to offshore clients have the African countries at the receiving end with the best landscape of business to offer. There are various reasons why African countries are the ideal destination for outsourcing peripherals such as customer service, accounting or technology such as:

• The African continent will have its population cover one-third of the world population by the year 2100 with a pool of qualified and skilled workforce to offer expert services.
• Most of the African population are adept at speaking English.
• The majority of the African continent has a young population, skilled at different activities and in need of employment.
• The African continent is growing to be technologically advanced with a strong emphasis on technical training and education. 
• Africa is a business-friendly continent and offers favourable tax incentives, business laws and specific businesses. The currency of African nations is relatively weak than the western countries and allows for robust labour investment market opportunities. 
• African countries have a thriving start-up landscape in different fields with an immensely vibrant and innovative ecosystem.
• Africa has an evolving business landscape with flexibility and efficiency through consistent innovation. 

Business Outsourcing to African countries can prove to be a great business collaboration opportunity for western organizations and help them in the following:

1. Reduction in Cost

The prime benefit of outsourcing is the cost savings that come from the many cost-effective yet high-quality services it offers. There is a wage gap between the western and African countries, which brings cost savings to businesses that outsource their peripheral tasks. 

2. Trained Staff

Training your company staff to handle the core and non-core activities can lead to cost surges and long supervision hours add to the existing high cost, stress and inefficiency. However, outsourcing non-core tasks to African countries where the level of competence is high and people already have the required expertise, managing business verticals becomes easier leading to high productivity.

3. Handling larger Volumes

As businesses grow, they get a large volume of work which in turn demands a large workforce, space and high capital. It is also associated with slowing down the focus on core business activities and shifting attention to non-core activities, thus losing the vision and mission of the business. However, outsourcing the work to African countries where people have experience in handling such tasks, do not mind performing monotonous activities and are aligned with the company vision, the workflow gets streamlined and the business is enabled to focus more on building their brand, investing in research and development work, while the supporting tasks are performed by outsourcing companies. 

Africa countries as an outsourcing destination are providing much-needed value that businesses across the globe demand. African countries offer the ideal blend of skilled workforce at low cost, technology advancement, need for employment opportunities and budget effectiveness.