IT outsourcing (ITO) and business process outsourcing (BPO) are competitive fields internationally, especially when countries compete for market share with wellestablished locales such as India and the Philippines. However, Egypt stands out in this realm with its young, tech-savvy and multilingual population; low costs; government support; proximity to key markets in Europe, the Middle East and Africa; and a location that allows it to accommodate work across a variety of time zones to provide business continuity between operations in the US and Asia. In addition to contact centres, Egypt provides IT consulting, application development and maintenance, engineering services, robotics, process automation, analytics, finance support and human resource management.
While the country initially specialised in multilingual BPO centres, it is increasingly shifting to high-value niche services that require specialised experience in managing complex operations and technology. One such focus is smart city management: for example, Vodafone offices in Egypt design and operate smart cities in Europe. Company representatives cite Egypt’s skilled human resources and competitive costs as strengths in the administration of smart cities abroad. Vodafone’s robotic process automation is also done in Egypt for the rest of the world. The introduction of 5G will likely accelerate this outsourcing diversification trend, creating new opportunities for enterprises to develop services related to AI, IoT devices and big data both within the country and further afield.
Egypt can set itself apart by leveraging these more specialised, value-added services to attract a wider client base. This will improve Egypt’s competitiveness on a global scale, especially as clients expand from only needing contact centre support to also requiring more technical expertise. While Egypt has a large talent pool from which companies can hire – graduating 50,000 students with IT-related degrees and 370,000 with business service skills annually, according to ITIDA – private and public sector efforts to provide specialised training for new and emerging segments will allow Egypt’s outsourcing sector to reach its full potential.
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