Botswana tipped for offshoring boom

IT analyst firm Datamonitor is tipping Botswana as a big new destination for offshore outsourcers.

Peter Ryan, a Datamonitor analyst specialising in offshoring says that the southern African nation has a number of key advantages that make it an attractive option for companies looking to outsource parts of their business.

'Within the African continent, it can provide relatively strong, high level care and volume with regards to the customer service experience, and a political environment that has been inherently stable since the mid 1960s,' he said.

The country has one of the best educated workforces in southern Africa, Ryan says.

'The Botswanan government has been very proactive in developing a very high-end labour force. 25 per cent of the country's annual budget goes towards education and of that a significant amount goes to sending young graduates to get overseas experience,' he said.

'There has also been a very high-end investment in terms of telecommunications infrastructure and their transport network. They have set up locations such as business parks in the major centres.'

However, Datamonitor cautions that even with the relatively high investment in telecommunications, high telephone costs put Botswana's potential at risk.

'Local telecommunications providers must immediately begin to address high call charges,' Ryan said.