BPO firm Merchants expands to Soweto, SA
South Africa-born Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) company Merchants launched a new contact center in the township of Jabulani, Soweto.
In a statement, the firm said that the new facility resulted from a public-private partnership and year-long collaboration with Amandla Social Enterprises, the Development Bank of Southern Africa (DBSA), and the Gauteng Department of Economic Development.
Speaking at the launch event yesterday, Merchants MD Zain Patel said the development isn’t about having a contact center in a township; it’s about social impact and change that businesses can participate in.
“When I think about what Jabulani and this contact center [mean] for us, it’s massively important because it’s a catalyst for change; not only for those that are working there, the community itself – they are learning capabilities for the community and to expand digital capabilities for everybody,” he stated.
Patel added that the center is a start in the journey to “creating an ecosystem whereby people don’t have to travel long distances to work.”
Merchants’ new office employs 96 agents — 75 on-site and 21 remote workers — with an average age between 20 and 25 years old.
Patel also emphasized that “Soweto is capable of delivering services as good as any big metropolis, and hopefully, this will become what we want it to be in different geographies – parts of Western Cape, Eastern Cape, and KwaZulu-Natal as well.”
