Jamaica Aims to Double BPO Sector by 2020

Jamaica’s BPO sector has experienced significant growth over the past few years, carving out niches in healthcare, telecoms, retail, finance and accounting, and tech support. The country is hoping to evolve beyond its core, voice focus into higher-level knowledge process outsourcing (KPO). Its incubator program, which aims to make setting up a business in Jamaica as easy as possible, has attracted attention from a number of players, and there are now two incubators running, one with 200 seats and another with 300 coming on stream shortly.

In the 13th episode of our Nearshore Cafe podcast series, we welcome Diane Edwards, president of the Jamaican trade and investment promotion agency JAMPRO, and  Claude Duncan, JAMPRO’s VP of investment promotion. They discuss the current state of the sector in Jamaica, the challenges it faces, and where they see the industry going in the future.
The pair highlighted Jamaica’s track record as a strong destination for voice, while also pointing out its diversification into non-voice and higher level KPO. They also cite a number of new investments, growing employment in BPO, and several government and private sector initiatives aimed at growing the sector, including impact sourcing.

They admit that name recognition is still an issue, however. Duncan emphasized the need to “get the name of Jamaica out there” since the nation’s profile as a tourist destination tends to overshadow its reputation as a BPO destination.
Despite this, there is growing interest in the Caribbean island’s BPO services.
“We see a very bright future for this sector … and we intend to double the size of the sector by 2020,” said Edwards.

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