[ad_1]
By Andualem Sisay Gessesse – When he and his four friends started an ICT company 16 years ago, the country was only demanding a dial-up Internet connection. Today, Africom Technologies PLC is one of the Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) companies in Ethiopia, offering various solutions and services to foreign government institutions and companies. Africom is one of the companies located in the Ethiopian ICT park in the capital Addis Ababa.
“Initially we started the business by creating a small website and providing ICT training,” says Baheru Zeyenu, one of the five founders of Africom. “Currently, our company provides ICT services to foreign companies as part of its business process outsourcing (BPO) service provision operation. Fortunately, by using the dial-up Internet service, we were able to get an ICT outsourcing job from a French company, ”he says.
Mr. Baheru Today there is a great opportunity for the growth of the ICT sector in Ethiopia with the attention that the government is paying to the sector and the large number of young people who are graduating from the sector. “If we manage to improve the country’s ICT infrastructure, there is a pull of trainable talent in the country, which is key to the growth of the sector,” he says, indicating the government’s plan to liberalize the telecommunications sector and privatize in part, state-owned Ethio Telecom, as an opportunity for the rapid growth of the ICT sector in Ethiopia. The Government of Ethiopia has launched an economic strategy driven by digital technology, allowing the country to become a middle-income country by 2025.
Opportunities
Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) destinations like India have gotten expensive. As a result, many companies are now looking to our source for their ICT operations in companies in Africa. Reports suggest that Ethiopia, with more than 65% of the youth population, of which thousands graduate in ICT from more than 40 universities each year, has enormous potential to generate a significant amount of foreign exchange by providing BPO services.
“We have very fertile ground for the growth of BPO services in Ethiopia. At Africom we have taken our steps and currently provide BPO services for companies in Finland and the Netherlands. Sometimes we also get this type of business from India, which is known as one of the main BPO service provider countries, ”says Baheru and emphasizes that such a service can create a lot of jobs in Ethiopia if companies are structured to provide virtual services like Africom.
Nowadays it has been common for companies in the developed world to outsource part of their operations, mainly routine ones such as data entry, call center services and other ICT-related operations to companies in developing countries with good Internet connections. .
As call center working hours are typically 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, when the people providing that service in one country are sleeping, employees in other countries can take over the services without interruption. “But providing call center services requires good language skills to serve the citizens of the world,” says Baheru urging Ethiopia’s young generation to develop their international language skills to participate in BPO services.
“Even in Ethiopia there is a great business opportunity to provide such data entry services for government agencies. Scanning and digitizing the huge volume of files at different government agencies can create thousands of jobs, ”says Baheru, noting that Africom has deployed some 500 young people to digitize land-related files for the cities of Bahir Dar, Mekele and Dire Dawa.
“Can you imagine how many jobs we can create if we digitize the 1,000 cities and towns in Ethiopia? This is just for land-related services, you can think of trade ministry files or courts and things like that … Digitizing those files alone can create tens of thousands of jobs in Ethiopia, ”he says Baheru.
BPO involves digitization (converting paper documents into hard copies), automation, and digital transformation, which is introducing a totally different way of doing business. Instead of going to a ticket office to book a plane ticket, such a system allows a person to book a plane ticket, pay with their cell phone by choosing where to sit on the spot, and print a boarding pass.
Due to the lack of infrastructure, we are often experiencing difficulties for the services that we have been providing to rural areas for projects like the government’s productive safety net program.
Indian experience
Developing an ICT sector like India and fostering BPO businesses requires visionary government and policy makers like India. If the government views the ICT sector as just another business and is busy collecting revenue each year from startups, the sector will not bring the required transformative change in the country’s economy, according to Baheru.
“I had the opportunity to visit Bangalore and Hyderabad and witness their experiences. These two cities have a strong ICT infrastructure with multiple affordable telecom and internet service providers. If your Internet is down and you don’t have another one to switch to immediately, then you’re out of business, ”he says.
For those companies entering the BPO business, the Government of India has allowed them to import all the materials they need duty free. In addition, companies were exempted from paying taxes for ten years to use their profits to employ more workers and expand their businesses, according to Africom’s Baheru.
“Such incentives have helped India to build large BPO companies, which after ten years are generating a lot of foreign exchange and taxes for the country as the revenue of the companies has risen to hundreds of millions of dollars,” he says , advising the Government of Ethiopia. follow in the footsteps of the Indians. “If we do that, a large ICT company can compensate Ethiopia more than any industry, industrial or otherwise.”
He stated that companies in Bangalore and Hyderabad set goals that specify how many more jobs they create and how to expand their business. The Government of India closely monitors the activities of these ICT companies on a carrot and stick model, providing all the support they need to create more jobs and build giant ICT companies.
Since employees working in ICT parks in India are initially exempt from income taxes, the company has encouraged many young people to join ICT companies, according to Baheru, who also suggested Ethiopia should properly enforce the protection. of intellectual property rights when it comes to ICT solutions. and services.
It also suggests that the Government of Ethiopia, through its embassies around the world, should also promote Ethiopia as BPO destinations and also mobilize or design a system that can finance national ICT companies to help startups get off the ground.
