Avasant Brings International Investors to Haiti BPO Investor Forum

PORT-AU-PRINCE, HAITI, January 11, 2018

The Center for Facilitation of Investments in Haiti (CFI), in collaboration with the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and Avasant, successfully concluded the BPO Investor Forum on November 30, 2017 at Hotel Marriot in Port-Au-Prince, Haiti. Avasant was a key partner in the organization of the event, providing critical advisory inputs and networking support to draw prominent investors, BPO service providers, and buyers from United States, Canada, and the Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) region to the event.

The Haiti BPO Investor Forum was organized to capitalize and take cognizance of the growing interest on Haiti as a BPO destination within the global BPO service provider and investor community. Haiti is fast emerging as the most promising Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) destination in the Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) region. A unique combination of abundant multilingual skills, talent pool, geographical proximity, and cost-effectiveness indicates Haiti as the next generation nearshore destination for global BPO firms. Haiti is also a perfect nearshore supplement to established LAC locations owing to a range of unique linguistic and geographic benefits making it ideally suited as a spoke to established nearshore hubs.

The BPO Investor Forum highlighted the opportunities available in Haiti’s BPO sector to the international investor community. The event also facilitated discussions between the prospective investors, domestic BPO service providers, and representatives from the Government of Haiti and ICT Association of Haiti (AHTIC).

One of the highlights of the event was the launch of the Haiti Digital Services Program (DSP). Conceptualized and developed by Avasant, the Haiti DSP is a dedicated online platform developed to provide end-to-end support to the BPO sector in Haiti. It brings together all the key elements of BPO service delivery in Haiti – human resources, training, incentives and physical infrastructure – to a single location. A key feature of the platform is the Haiti BPO Skills Registry, a comprehensive database of pre-screened youths employable in the BPO sector. The key objective of the registry is to assist services providers to have ready access to a large skill pool and achieve easy scalability. The skill registry assesses and classifies applicants on a range of criteria including educational qualifications, linguistic skills, IT skills, etc., to create skill-specific applicant profiles. Such levels of skill assessment will help prospective employers to get process-specific, high quality resources on short notice. The registry is also expected to provide a range of BPO-specific online training, assessment, and certification programs in the future. Further, the platform also brings together critical sector information ranging from real estate, sector incentives, domestic partnership opportunities, etc., thus assisting in a faster investment decision-making process.

Anupam Govil providing perspectives on the global BPO and outsourcing industry to over 1000+ Haitian youth participants at the BPO Job Fair

Anupam Govil (Partner, Avasant) initiated the forum by highlighting the untapped potential of Haiti’s BPO sector. He shared with participants the key differentiators supporting Haiti’s BPO/CC ecosystem and described the readiness of the BPO sector in Haiti to provide a range of services such as digital services, technical support services, transaction processing, collection services, etc. Mr. Govil also commended the strong and sustained support offered by the Government of Haiti for development of the BPO sector in the country and outlined that Haiti is developing its BPO ecosystem to be best in class in the region, which has the potential to create up to 10,000 direct jobs over the medium term.

Also included at the event were two informative panel discussions on ‘Success Strategies for a growing BPO firm’ and ‘Future for the BPO Industry in Haiti’. Jon Browning, CEO, Strategic Sourcing Advisors and one of the panelists, described how buyers and service providers are increasingly moving beyond mature outsourcing destinations like Philippines and India to nearshore destinations in Latin America & Caribbean (LAC) region. He added that Haiti can take advantage of this trend owing to its ability to scale, and suggested that the country could be an optimal service delivery location for mid-sized BPO providers looking for a nearshore extension of their operations.

 Avasant also facilitated an investor matchmaking session at the Investor Forum, which enabled over 30 business-to-business meetings between local and foreign BPO’s and buyers on a number of topics ranging from service delivery partnership agreements, developing BPO specific real estate, training options, etc.

The event saw some of the major local conglomerates in Haiti committing to diversify into the BPO sector. The promise of Haiti as a BPO destination can be attested to by the several agreements between participants to initiate pilot projects in the short term before scaling up their operations. According to many of the foreign participants, the event has put Haiti into the spotlight and has successfully allayed numerous misconceptions about Haiti as a service delivery location. The event concluded with prospective investors visiting the largest BPO service provider in Haiti, Digicel BPO.

The BPO Investor Forum, Job Fair, and a range of other sector initiatives are all expected to act as a pivot to help the Haiti BPO sector gain momentum and leverage benefits for larger socio-economic gains.

About Avasant

Avasant is a leading management consulting firm focused on translating the power of technology into realizable business strategies for the world’s largest corporations. Specializing in digital and IT transformation, sourcing advisory, global strategy and governance services, Avasant prides itself on delivering high-value engagements through industry-focused innovation and flexible client-based solutions.

Our seasoned professionals have an average of 20 years of industry-honed expertise, having conducted 1000+ engagements in over 50 countries. Avasant’s next generation consulting and advisory methods have made it the top-ranked firm in its class, with recognition from numerous organizations, including: Vault, NOA, IAOP, and Wall Street Journal.

Avasant’s engagement in the global market has inspired a strong commitment to community and purpose. Avasant Foundation supports technology and skill development programs to create employment opportunities for youth across Africa, Asia, the Caribbean and Latin America.

For more information, visit https://www.avasant.com.

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Contact

Nicole Dulay
Marketing Manager
Avasant
Nicole.Dulay@avasant.com