التكنولوجيا وأخبارها بوابة مصر لأخبار تكنولوجيا المعلومات والإتصالات
: Egypt has established its position as a preferred destination for business process
outsourcing (BPO), according to a recent report published by Oxford Business Group (OBG),
a British consultancy, global publishing, and research firm.
OBG has lauded Egypt’s outstandingvalue propositionsand how this helped in attracting
business outsourcing firms drawing on the country’sunique location between Europe, the
Middle East and Africa; its youthful, educated, tech-savvy and multi-lingual population; and
strong IT infrastructure.
The budding segment has been supported by the government, which offers financial
incentives to outsourcing companies, and has invested in the necessary
telecommunications infrastructure upgrades to support BPO, such as 4G and fiber-optic
cable networks; OBG noted.
The country’s success establishing itself as an outsourcing destination,where industry
leaders are leveraging it for their IT global service delivery; has created thousands of jobs, with the BPO workforce expanding from 169,000 in 2017 to 212,000 in 2019. Indeed, this
figure is projected to reach 240,000 in 2020. These jobs are filled by employees with
specialized skills, as the country produces around 220,000 graduates in BPO-related fields
and 50,000 in ICT-related fields per year. These students are also often multi-lingual, with
the top languages of study being English, with 90,000 graduates per year; French, with
5400 graduates; and German, with 3000 graduates.
The report added that BPO firms are drawn to Egypt not only for its educated labor force
and geographic location, but also for its low costs. The average annual salary for a software developer in Egypt is $7500, down considerably from $20,000 in Romania and Bulgaria, and
$24,000 in Poland.
The country’s location also means it can accommodate work across varying time zones and
allows companies to provide business continuity between operations in the US and Asia.
OBG added that ICT development has accelerated, with public cloud servers and BPO
emerging as core contributors to the sector’s growth in recent years.
The International Data Corporation (IDC) projects that Egypt’s ICT exports – which include
BPO and knowledge process outsourcing – will expand from $3.3bn in 2017 to $4.7bn in 2020. It is also shifting from a specialization in multi-lingual centers to providing high-
value niche services, such as product development and research. As of 2018, Egypt
provided BPO services to some 100 countries in 20 languages.
A supportive start-up ecosystem and government investment have allowed innovative
enterprises to focus on developing services related to artificial intelligence, the internet of things and big data. The rollout of 5G will be another notable step towards this end. The
government and telecom operators are investing in the network upgrades that are essential for the implementation of 5G commercial services. In 2018 the National Telecom
Regulatory Authority launched broadband fiber optics, a necessity for technologies that rely on 5G.
Offshoring firms will be able to use these technologies, increasing Egypt’s competitiveness
on a global scale. “Egypt is effectively positioned to become a major hub of business and technology services to countries and organizations that are undertaking digital
transformation, particularly those in regions such as North America, Europe, and MEA
facing resource constraints,” Jyoti Lalchandani, IDC’s group VP and regional managing
director for the Middle East, Turkey and Africa, wrote in the German Outsourcing
Association’s “Destinations Egypt 2.0: Outsourcing Destination Guide 2019” report. “After
establishing itself as a preferred regional outsourcing hub, Egypt started expanding its
global outsourcing footprint and is now one of the fastest-growing offshore destinations in
the world.”
