Following its acquisition of the Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) and Customer Experience Technology (CXTech) businesses of Altron People Solutions in October last year, global customer experience management firm iSON Xperiences has significantly strengthened its presence in the South African market to meet growing corporate demand for specialist onshoring services.
“We were looking to gain a foothold in the country and make more jobs available to South Africans in ways that made the most strategic sense for us. At the end of 2018, iSON Xperiences secured the Mutichoice business to deliver customer experience services. Within six months, we were made their exclusive partners for providing inbound customer services and focused on strengthening the three call centre facilities we developed for them. At the time we had 1 200 agents serving Multichoice customers,” says Pravin Kumar, Global CEO, iSON Xperiences.
But to build on this, the company realised it needed to focus on more than just organic growth. In conjunction with the international intellectual property it would bring to South Africa, iSON Xperiences wanted to ensure that a foundation was in place to harness local talent. This was critical, as many of the large multinationals operating out of South Africa have been focused on outsourcing services to other countries instead of developing the potential of the market here.
“The timing of the Altron deal could not have been better for us. It presented iSON Xperiences with the ideal way to build its base in South Africa, especially in the telecommunications space, with Vodacom being an anchor client of Altron People Solutions. The country presents us with significant opportunities in this segment to build on the 75 per cent pan-African market share we have in telecoms. Discussions with our global partner Vodafone gave us further impetus to pursue the acquisition,” adds Kumar.
“We took over the Altron People Solutions businesses knowing they had a well-established employee base who understands the market extremely well. Our close engagements with their management teams meant that there were no challenges following the acquisition of the business and the integration of their South African staff into our operations, while also providing the opportunity to create even more local positions. We are now well positioned to increase our presence not only in South Africa but on the rest of the continent as well. Ultimately, iSON Xperiences has a vision of becoming one of the largest BPO and business process management organisations in South Africa and a significant player globally. With Altron People Solutions bringing a team of more than 1100 experienced people, we will deliver the best possible customer experiences for all the local onshoring needs of our customers with over 2300 agent strength in SA,” concludes Kumar.
