Africa: The global green field outsource location

Dr Mohan Kaul, director general, Commonwealth Business Council

The key highlight of the summit will be an independent research report on outsourcing prospects for represented Africa nations and will be released on the eve of the Africa Outsourcing Summit 2008. This joint research effort by CBC and CyberMedia will benchmark African countries on important parameters that measure the capability and capacity of the outsourcing industry in those countries.

This summit and study comes at a time when the global outsource industry is touching £500bn, and even leaders like India and China are looking for partners offshore, just to match the capacity needs. The timing is really appropriate as African nations are emerging as favourable outsource destinations - a paradigm shift in traditional perceptions.

The African growth is considered green field, and thus the best to build in the best practices in ICT governance and cyber-security at the foundations of this industry; a really timely contribution that this summit can make in knowledge partnerships, strategy and inculcation of best practices at this foundation stage.

Dr Mohan Kaul, director general, Commonwealth Business Council, has made Africa outsourcing its main focus and is driving the agenda forward with this summit: "We see Africa growing in strength, capacity and capability in the global business of outsourcing. We believe it will complement countries already within the outsourcing sector, such as India, China and the Philippines and will bring its own diversity into the mix to make the sector even more attractive."

Pradeep Gupta, chairman, CyberMedia Group said, "We will have leading outsourcing gurus and practitioners conducting the strategy and technology sessions thereby helping the participants to identify the most appropriate strategy and establish their own road maps."