By Derek Tommey

The Cape's call centre industry is making a highly promising start to the New Year, with many local companies seeking extra staff.

The Dialogue Group alone wants to hire 50 people immediately, says Marc Spendlove, the group's director of international marketing.

The government has high hopes that the call centre industry will greatly boost employment. It talks about creating 100 000 new jobs this way and has made a special effort to attract foreign companies to use South African facilities. It is planning to spend R200-million over the next three years in helping the industry to grow.

'Foreign firms are increasingly looking at SA'

Spendlove said that the department of trade and industry and Call the Cape, a body tasked with developing the call centre business here, had done excellent work overseas.

They had worked hard to encourage foreign companies to move their call centre business here and appear to be having considerable success.

Spendlove said if current negotiations with a number of large companies prove successful, as he confidently expects, his company will be hiring a further 400 people in the next three months.

The Dialogue Group's Cape Town operations have mushroomed in the past two years, growing from 60 "seats" to over 600 seats and which, with the planned additions, will grow to over 1 000 in the next few months.

Foreign companies are increasingly looking at South Africa, and especially the Cape, for sites for their call centre operations.

They are seeking an "intelligent" alternative to India, said Spendlove.

Representatives of major multinational companies, who attended a conference on the attractions of using South African call centres two months ago, commented favourably on what they had seen.

One representative, whose company had a major call centre in India, said she was looking for an alternative location. She had no plans to move from India, but wanted a backup operation which could take over if the Indian centre had communication problems, as occasionally happened.

In this respect South Africa looked promising.

Another delegate said Cape Town's appeal had been unexpectedly heightened by the planned deregulation of the telecom sector, which would help the industry compete on price as well as on its high levels of service.

One of the attractions of the local call centre industry for employees is that its rapid expansion means there are excellent prospects for promotion.

Some who joined the industry only 18 months to two years ago are now in fairly senior positions.

Currently, starting salaries are between R4 000 and R5 000 a month, depending on the applicant's abilities. But those who are engaged in selling also receive commission.

A team leader receives around R7 000 a month, an account manager between R10 000 and R20 000 a month while an area sector manager receives up to R35 000 a month.

On the downside, people in the industry often have to work night shifts in order to be able to service the North American market.

• This article was originally published on page 12 of Cape Argus on January 12, 2005