Guyana did not live up to the expectations of itel CX’s leadership.
It was reported that BPO firm itel CX will shut down its Guyanese operations by the end of this year. Although the company has yet to provide details on why it will close down its site in Georgetown, its leadership told NSAM that, unfortunately, business was underperforming in the country.
“The decision to close the facility in Georgetown was due solely to the performance of the business in Guyana, which unfortunately did not meet expectations,” itel CEO, Yoni Epstein, explained in a written statement.
The company’s communications team refused to elaborate on the unmet expectations and the ways in which their Guyanese operations fell short. However, local press reports point to higher costs of operations and a difficulty to attract Fortune 500 clients.
Itel’s exit from Guyana caught interested parties off guard for its suddenness. The company described Guyana as a “nimble and efficient nearshore partner” and wasn’t coy about its high-hopes for the location.
Itel broke into Guyana in July of 2021 through the acquisition of local firm Emerge BPO.The acquisition included the takeover of Emerge’s offices, which were spread through several floors of a seven-story building in the middle of Georgetown. Nearly a year after the buyout, itel had already invested US$1 million in those facilities and planned to inject a total of US$4 million into the project by July of 2022.
The company’s Guyanese experiment will come to an end only 3.5 years after launch, a reminder of how swiftly a project can fall apart in the BPO industry. The shutdown is expected to affect over 400 employees of itel in the country.
Deflating the hype?
Itel’s exit from Guyana casts some shadow over the country’s supposedly booming BPO industry.
Earlier in the year, Guyanese authorities announced a US$2.8 million investment and the building of two large BPO campuses in the Mahaica-Berbice region. The project is built on the back of Guyana’s sudden oil jackpot, which catapulted its GDP prospects and allowed enough revenue to plan for economic diversification.
The Guyana Office for Investment (GO-INVEST) assured that the local BPO sector remains healthy, pointing to other operators who are still “very interested” in the country.
“Teleperformance just expanded in Guyana. Why would they be expanding in Guyana if the industry wasn’t ready for it?,” stated Peter Ramsaroop, Chief Investment Officer at GO-INVEST, in an interview with a local news outlet.
However, one cannot help but wonder about the reasons that forced itel to pull out in such a sudden manner from a location in which it had invested considerably already.
In one of its most recent press releases, itel made frequent mentions of an “industry-wide downturn” and difficult macroeconomic conditions.
As it prepares to leave Guyana, itel has been steadily expanding in other locations. The company announced in August that it will increase headcount in Jamaica (its home turf). In September, it opened a physical site in Belize City, where it had been operating remotely for two years.
Itel’s communications team assured that “the growth of the business in Jamaica and other areas did not affect the decision to close Guyana.”
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Publish date : 2024-10-04 01:01:00
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