Alderman James Vos, the Mayoral Committee Member for Economic Growth, participated in engagements with investors and other business leaders in London to highlight corporate opportunities in Cape Town.
The meetings were part of a high-level trade mission with Wesgro, Cape Town and the province’s investment promotion agency, and Mireille Wenger, the Western Cape Minister of Finance and Economic Opportunities.
One of the engagements included a panel with Alderman Vos and Alastair Brass, the Founder and CEO of Amplify5, a UK company that helps businesses offshore their operations to Cape Town.
Last month, Alderman Vos joined Brass for the opening of Amplify5’s new Cape Town office. The company currently employs about 650 people across its two Cape Town offices and is building a property portfolio to expand its office space to 4 000 seats with potential hubs across the metro.
‘Amplify5’s expansion in Cape Town is an affirmation of our strength in the Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) market. In fact, the UK is the largest global source market for the BPO industry in Cape Town with 75% of the international-facing agents servicing UK companies. The City has invested heavily in driving the skills base and infrastructure needed to support this industry and thereafter going out to promote Cape Town’s strength to investors as we are doing now,’ said Alderman Vos.
South Africa remains one of the top global sites for offshore call centres with executive respondents in North America naming it as their most favoured offshore CX (customer experience) delivery point in the 2023 Ryan Strategic Advisory Front Office BPO Omnibus Survey. Cape Town in particular has seen such a surge in demand among corporations in the industry that CapeBPO, the City’s Special Purpose Vehicle in BPO sector, says every person who completes a skills programme now gets placed in a job.
A recent City-funded programme trained 1 000 young Capetonians for a career in the industry. Among the group were unemployed youth and Grade 11 and 12 school-goers from areas including Athlone, Nyanga, Khayelitsha, Gugulethu, and Mitchells Plain. The objective of the project was to provide access to a community-based call centre where learners could gain first-hand exposure to the industry and its opportunities.
‘Helping Capetonians to find and realise job opportunities is one of my highest priorities. I am excited to show businesses in key source markets why Cape Town is a leading African hub for investment and thus helping to develop more prospects for our communities,’ said Alderman Vos.
