Leading the way

The contact centre industry in KwaZulu-Natal is estimated to comprise of 65 to 75 contact centres, have 8 000 seats and employ 7 200 agents. The average contact centre size is slightly larger than that in theWestern Cape, although both local regions currently lack large scale investments such as those that have been made in India and the Philippines. The KwaZulu-Natal industry can be considered to have a very strong captive, domestic market orientation when measured by call volumes. While the local industry is a beneficiary of the outsourcing and off shoring trends, these trends are some way from dominating the local industry. A high level of Greenfield investment is evident,with 37.5% of contact centres being established in the previous three years. Financial services are clearly the most important market segment for the industry,with 58.3% of all contact centres in this market segment. Insurance, government and ICT are however also important. Customer services can be considered to be by far the most prevalent function in the industry. 44% of the industry is based in Durban's CBD, with the Umhlanga / Mount Edgecombe and Pinetown /Westville areas forming two notable secondary and tertiary hubs.

Key Strategies
KZNonSOURCE, an eThekwini Municipality initiative is equipped with highly professional and qualified staff focused on developing the Call Centre Industry.

The key strategies of KZNonSOURCE include:

• Creating an environment conducive to the establishment of callcentres,
• Market KZN as the preferred destination of call centres, and
• Offer one stop facilitation service to prospective call centres

Training
Training is one of the areas where eThekwini Municipality companies excel. Local government initiatives by the eThekwini Municipality (Durban) like the Skills Development Academy of KZNonSource are ensuring that there will be skilled resources to meet the growing need for call centre agents.

ICT Sector
KwaZulu-Natal's established and sophisticated ICT and sector comprises more than 1500 companies, growing at a rate of 50% per annum and fourth fastest growing cell phone market in the world, the operators include Vodacom, MTN, Cell C and Virgin Mobile. With approximately 6 million installed fixed-line telephones, South Africa is ranked 23rd in telecommunications development in the world and represents more than 30% of the total lines installed in Africa.

South Africa's transmission network of 156 million circuit- kilometres constitutes the backbone of all telecommunications services. Telkom, the major fixed-line operator in SouthAfrica, is a key player in a US0m optical fibre undersea cable project. Almost 40 nations and several international telecommunications operators have joined Telkom in the SAT-3/WASC/ SAFE initiative, which links African nations with Asia and Europe. The cable is capable of transmitting 80 gigabits per second between two points.

Key players in industrial, power, defence and telecoms electronics include Siemens, Alcatel, Ericsson, Altech, Grintek, Spescom, Tellumat and Marconi.With improved economic and regulatory conditions, and high levels of growth and activity in the African telecommunications market, South African companies are ideally situated to supply the growing demand for fixed and wireless telecoms equipment to the rest of the continent.

Full Name of Company: KZNonSOURCE
Nature of Business: FDI Agency
Services: Marketing, faciltitation


CONTACT DETAILS
Physical Address: The Atrium Building, SmartXchange, 5 Walnut Road, Durban, 4001, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa.
Tel: +27 (0)31 322 9100
Fax: +27 (0)31 304 9903
E-mail: info@kznonsource.co.za
Website: http://www.kznonsource.co.za

VISION
An un-comparable commitment to service: in driving foreign direct investment, job creation and skills development.

MISSION
We bring together: people and values of the founding members into a re-newed commitment to building anaccessible industry association serving the KwaZulu-Natal region.

In fulfilling this commitment we are guided by the following principles:

• We commit: to providing exceptional care through competence, compassion, and spiritual and ethical values.
• We maintain: financial strength while encouraging risk taking and exploration: Creating business solutions to anticipate and meet the changing needs of our environment.
• We believe: alignment and integration of our corporate entities, local and provincial government structures, teams and service providers are required for the success of our network forum.
• We support: an empowered and accountable workforce that embraces change in the pursuit of excellence.
• We reach out: to communities we serve through the development of skills and job creation programs.
• We support: research, education and technology, and have an evolving role in helping our communities to improve their skills level and employability.
• We value: a workforce that is diverse and representative of the communities we serve, and we strive to understand and appreciate our diversity.