This booming SA sector needs forward-thinking AI strategy, says industry body - TimesLIVE
The South African business process outsourcing (BPO) sector must become more strategic about its adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) if it hopes to capitalise on its strategic advantages in the global market.
This is according to BPO sector leaders who spoke at the Thrive Global Business Services (GBS) and BPO Conference in Cape Town on Wednesday. The event was organised by Business Process Enabling SA (BPESA), a not-for-profit company that serves as the booming industry’s body and trade association.
Reshni Singh, CEO of BPESA, said the industry needed to reconsider how it defined value, arguing that the traditional measures of labour costs and hours worked are no longer enough to guarantee future competitiveness.
“South Africa has built a globally recognised GBS sector, but to truly thrive, we must move beyond our traditional strengths, embrace higher-value services and develop future-ready skills,” said Singh.
The South African BPO sector had its star turn earlier this decade, when it grew its market beyond the UK to markets such as Australia and later the US. Last year the sector added 26,346 jobs serving international clients, its best result since 2018.
The sector places young appointees in call centres fielding customer care calls from customers of client companies around the world in sectors including financial services, retail and healthcare, with the time-zone differences between SA and these developed economies providing the added strategic advantage of flexibility.
The urgency to better gear the BPO sector for job creation comes amid dire employment figures from Statistics SA, which announced that South Africa’s unemployment ticked up to 33.7% in the third quarter of the year from 33.6% in the second quarter.
Singh said the SA BPO sector’s strategic strengths include a skilled, English-proficient, multilingual workforce, favourable time-zone alignment with major international markets, established infrastructure, and a mature GBS ecosystem.
She said AI’s disruptive impact has made it increasingly crucial to combine technological innovation with distinctly human skills such as empathy, judgement and complex problem-solving.
“The industry’s next phase of growth must focus on equipping employees to work alongside AI, rather than positioning technology and human talent as competing forces.”
BPESA chair Crispin Sonn called for a human-centred approach to technological change, cautioning that the impact of AI will ultimately be determined by the decisions made by businesses, policymakers and society.
“AI could be an existential threat or an opportunity to advance the quality of life for more. The power to decide its application and its limitations resides with this generation,” said Sonn.
Cape Town’s BPO industry now employs more than 100,000 people, including approximately 70,000 in international-facing roles.
The sector created 11,496 new jobs during the 2025/26 financial year, while 44,803 net new international-facing jobs have been created over the city’s current five-year municipal term.
