On The Frontier (OTF) Group’s forecasts suggest that Rwanda’s Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) cluster will grow by 89.4 percent to $274 million by 2020 from $29 million last year.

The American competitive consulting firm says that outsourcing is a rapidly growing industry with a market size of $250 billion and estimates future growth leading to services of $750 billion by 2002.

It said East African BPO market is expected to grow even faster from $485 million to $1.9 billion with an annual growth of 25 percent for the next five years.

"Therefore, the Rwandan private sector must pounce on the opportunity and drive the growth of the BPO cluster by being innovative, productive and efficient,” James Foster the Senior Manager of OTF said Thursday during a workshop organized by Rwanda Development Board (RDB) at Telecom House.  He added that BPO, which is the process where a company hires another firm to handle its business activities, offers a route to Rwanda’s international competitiveness.

Foster told the several local company proprietors who attended the workshop that embracing BPO can abridge the young private firms’ access to labour through certified vendor skills.

He said that this would break the negative cycle of inexperience that is affecting the private sector, a feature which has undermined their ability to win large government contracts.

The Deputy CEO in Charge of IT at RDB, Patrick Nyirishema, said that infant industries in Rwanda are unable to earn the trust of the government for big contracts because they are incapable of supplying all the services that the contracts usually require.

"The private sector should focus on their long term goals. Instead of performing singularly, Rwandan firms can utilize this opportunity to develop a dynamic BPO association through sharing training courses, marketing costs and collaborate in sales and innovation so that their productivity can be more efficient and trustworthy.”

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