Business incubation centre opens

Government will on Wednesday officially open the Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) incubation centre, where budding business by Ugandans will be aided to grow.

The centre, located at the Statistics House in Kampala, can accommodate 250 people. The country will then host the BPO international conference at the Serena hotel – intended to deliberate on how government can adopt the outsourcing model to facilitate business growth as well as creating viable employment for the youth.

“We want to attract players from the private sector to come and operate from a business friendly environment at a subsidised rate,” said Rogers Karebi, secretary general of Uganda Business Process Outsourcing association.

“Government has identified and singled out the business outsourcing industry as a pillar for economic growth,” Karebi said.

Companies that will be given a contract will only pay for water, electricity, salaries for their staff and telephone services. Government would then pay for rent and internet. A company will be given a two-year contract to operate at Statistics House – and can only be increased to three years.

Targeted businesses include banks, NGOs, academic institutions, and private businesses. Karebi said a company had to demonstrate capacity to create employment or exhibit progressive growth. He said a company could lose its contract if it failed to demonstrate business growth.

Currently, the incubation centre can take about three companies, but Karebi said this was just a pilot study to see how the system would work. In 2011, government through the National Information Technology Authority Uganda (NITA-U) and Makerere University, partnered with Orion Outsource World and the African BPO Academy (ABA), to deliver a training curriculum.

In April 2011, 500 youth graduated with international Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) skills.

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