Massive BPO growth in recent time

Today, Jamaica has grown to be the most important outsourcing location in the English-speaking Caribbean with more than 60 companies and over 43,000 employees active on the island with the second city of Montego Bay being the epicentre of this growth.

In addition, the country’s global digital services sector now has annual revenue of over US$700 million. Nearshore Americas reports that approximately 40 call centres currently operate from the city’s Special Economic Zones providing mainly customer services, collections, and technical support to international companies. 

Conrad Robinson, JAMPRO’s Manager of the Western Regional Office, is passionate about Montego Bay because of its potential.

“I see this city as the next frontier of development in Jamaica. Right now we still are primarily a hospitality type of city; tourism is definitely the top industry. But BPO is a close second and over the last five years, we have been growing. When you look at areas such as housing developments or investment attraction, there is no doubt we have been leading development in Jamaica,” he explained.

As the world’s reliance on BPO and Knowledge Process Outsourcing (KPO) increases during the COVID-19 pandemic, Nearshore Americas has taken a deep look into Montego Bay’s ability to respond to this demand. The online news outlet looked at how is the city elevating its levels of internet connectivity and adapting to the pandemic.

Negative impact brought on by the pandemic

The pandemic brought the opportunity and the need to implement digital strategies to not only guarantee business continuity but to open the space for growth. Jamaica was one of those countries that effectively responded to these challenges.

The Jamaican authorities quickly changed certain regulations to allow BPO companies to move equipment and employees to remote working conditions. Montego Bay has a high-capacity internet infrastructure distributed over completely fibre-deployed terrestrial and subsea networks

The massive transition from office to work from home-generated significant challenges from cybersecurity to data privacy to productivity issues and human resources management matters. However, one of the main concerns of business leaders focused on how to maintain their teams connected and with access to the right tools. 

C&W Business, like other providers in the city, engaged the BPO sector to prioritize the communities where most of their workforce resides, for expansion and upgrade of services. Montego Bay is not only well connected in terms of internet access; the city’s strategic location elevates its value proposition as a Nearshore market. 

Upskilling workforce imperative to growth

Jamaica is emerging as a location for software outsourcing. The island has the potential to be a regional leader in the tech services sector. Most of this success comes from a strong focus on training and upskilling. 

Yoni Epstein, Founder and CEO of Itel points to a mix of training and city growth, which is allowing both the city and the industry to mature as the talent keeps developing. “There are several programs, many of them in partnership with the government or just driven by industry, to facilitate the rapid training and upskilling of employees. This allows us to keep the influx of talent,” added Epstein. 

The upskilling of workers in Jamaica in the BPO industry has been a critical issue for some time in order to respond to the increasing technological demands of the marketplace. But there has also been an effort to facilitate software programming courses as well as moving up the value chain to more Knowledge Process Outsourcing such as medical and other types of technology.

Recently, the government of Jamaica teamed up with Amber Group to train its citizens in software development. Projects such as Grand Ridge Med City are putting Montego Bay on its way to developing services beyond BPO and tourism.

The focus on education is allowing the city to adapt to an even more digital future relying on developing the next generation of skills, closing the gap between talent supply and demand.