SA technology company invests in Nigeria
DIRECT Channel Holdings (DCH) (Pty) Limited, a Business Process Outsourcing service provider operating in Southern and Eastern Africa, has provided Nigeria with a range of call and contact centre outsourcing solutions to banking, insurance, telecoms and retail customers.
In partnership with XL Management Services Group, DCH’s services are now available in Nigeria and soon, across West Africa.
The joint venture was announced at the AITEC Banking and Mobile Money West Africa Conference held recently at the Eko Hotel Conference Centre, Lagos.
Following its successful launch in Kenya, Suleman Shaik, CEO of Direct Channel, indicated that Nigeria would be a logical expansion point for Direct Channel.
“The challenge with new ventures is always finding the correct local partner – XL Management Services Nigeria has a long and solid track-record of service delivery to a number of leading financial institutions and telecoms companies in Nigeria.
“In XL, we found a passionate management team, a company with already established business relationships with South African companies and a services company with a vast network of established clients,” he said.
CEO of XL Management Services Nigeria, Charles Nwodo Jnr, said that the partnership with Direct Channel was a natural extension of the XL Management Services business model in bringing cutting edge, customer service solutions to the West African market.
“XL Management Services is a proudly Nigerian brand, with operations in Ghana, Sierra Leone and Liberia – we hope to replicate the Direct Channel East Africa “footprint” model, in West Africa. As more and more people become connected through the mobile phone and web, there is a definite need to service them differently – the contact centre forms the foundation of that service model. The added opportunity to provide world-class skills and gainful employment to thousands of young men and women in the sub-region is fully entrenched in the XL Group vision – we are very excited with the partnership,” Nwodo said.
Direct Channel handles millions of calls every year through its inbound and outbound call centre operations – this coupled with services such as back office administration and fulfilment services for insurance companies, field marketing, application development and systems Integration, debt collection and call centre recruitment and training services, makes Direct Channel one of the most diverse, and arguably, the distant leader in the BPO service segment on the continent.
