Nigeria as a Potential Destination for Outsourcing

The outsourcing industry the world over, is an industry worth $500 billion annually. It is an industry where India is leading, followed by China, Malaysia, Thailand and Brazil and no African country coming anywhere near these countries. Nigeria is also able to corner only about $2 billion annually in the global outsourcing industry but can do more if approached properly. What are the things Nigeria should do in order to do better than this.

Atul Kshetry, MD, IDM was my guest recently and he shed more light on how Nigeria can grow its relevance in the industry.

On how big the outsourcing industry is in India, Atul stated that, although there are no specific statistics to back it up what is outsourced and what is not, he estimates the figures in billions of dollars.

Reacting to the question as to the number of youths that outsourcing has taken out if the streets of India, Atul puts it in the region of about 14 million, both directly and indirectly, but about 7 million directly.

He traced the origin of outsourcing to the year 2000 when World Network Services, a subsidiary of British Airways, started outsourcing ticketing on its behalf in India and since then, there has been no looking back in India as regards outsourcing.

On what he thinks Nigeria should do to improve its outsourcing industry, Atul started by putting the records straight on what outsourcing really means and entails.

He said that there is the misconception that outsourcing is all about knowing how to use the computer and technology generally. He stated that this is not the case as the knowledge of how to use the computer is, in fact, a small component of what outsourcing entails.

Outsourcing, he maintained, involves the acquisition of skills and then putting those skills up for hiring in the industry.

The first thing Nigeria should do, therefore, is to acquire various skills such as secretarial services, designing, etc. You can now put your computer knowledge to use in carrying out your tasks.

Atul stated that the it costs a lot more to hire a secretary in America where the cost might go as high as $4,000 per month, but this are being outsourced to people outside America for about $600.

He gave vivid examples of how many mother's taking care of their children at home in India have secretarial duties outsourced to them from Europe and Anerica and earning in foreign currency to improve their lives.

They take care of their children and devout four to five hours to the outsourced job. This is how outsourcing works and Nigeria should follow suit, but he insists, they must first develop the skills.

CFA is the Founder, www.CFAtech.ng & Co-producer/Presenter, Tech Trends on Channels Television