CallingtheCape Highlights Newsletter - February 2006

Dear Stakeholders,

We have a host of exciting events lined up (see Key Dates below) and also some excellent news including the biggest call centre deal ever seen in South Africa facilitated by CallingtheCape and news on the first ever South Africa Outsourcers Forum (see News section below).

If you have any suggestions or views that you would like to share please forward them to rhomeez@callingthecape.org.za

(i) Meaningless Goals, Meaningful Journeys
24 February 2006
Cape Town

Inspiration aimed at Entrepreneurial Leaders; people who want to make things happen, because they said they would.

UCC, The Agents Club brings you Si Ekin!

The presentation highlights the simple principles that made this life-changing achievement possible. The same principles that can help your people work together to meet company objectives. The same principles YOU can use to produce any result YOU want. The same principles I use in coaching people to produce outstanding results.

Topic: Si tell his story of cycling the length of the African continent all 13 500 dusty kilometres and 17 million wheel revolutions. From Cape Town to the UK - humour, entertainment, great visuals, and above all practical business advice which can be applied easily - for immediate impact.

Facilitator: Si Ekin

Si has been running his own coaching business for five years in Cape Town and London. His background includes experience as a British Army Officer, a Photo-journalist and as a volunteer at Mother Teresa's home for the Destitute and Dying in Calcutta.

Date: 24 February 2006

Time: 09h30 for 10h00 end 12h00

Venue: Beach Road, Mouille Point, next to the Radisson Hotel (maps will be sent on request)

Cost: UCC, Agent Club Members (No Charge), Non-Members R40 (excl VAT). Non attendance to the presentation - R75 excl VAT (to cover costs incurred in securing your seat)

RSVP: info@unitycc.co.za - subject Leadership Presentation CT

Please note that seats are limited and will be booked on a first response system.

The UCC Team

0861 11 30 99

info@unitycc.co.za

As long as a person doesn't know what he doesn't know, he doesn't grow.

So come find out what you didn't know and grow!

UCC Banking details

Account Name: Unity of Contact Centres

Banking Facility: ABSA

Account Number: 406 111 3703

Branch Code: 632-905

Branch: Fourways

Reference: UCC CT 02/06

Proof of deposit: Please mail to info@unitycc.co.za  or Fax: 088 011 704-0757

(ii) Merchants Global Contact Centre Benchmarking Report Launch
15 March 2006, The Radisson Hotel,
V&A Watrefront, Cape Town
08h00 - 10h30

In today's increasingly global economy, contact centres face growing pressures to meet rising customer service expectations, performance targets and delivery expectations - all within constrained budgets.

Dimension Data together with Merchants invite you to a preview of the Merchants Global Contact Centre Benchmarking Report 2006. The Report provides organisations with the opportunity to see how their contact centres measure up against global, regional and industry performance standards, understand the latest industry trends and see how different contact centres are responding to today's challenges.

Participation:

This year's Report includes participants from all over the world, with a well-balanced participation from each region.

Our participants include: 88 contact centres from Africa, 77 from Asia-Pacific, 158 from Europe / United Kingdom, and 40 from North America, Making up a total of 363 contact centres.

Author Panel:

In line with our aim to publish a truly global study, this year's Author Panel brings knowledge from a range of locations and organisations.

Introduction:

Simon Roncoroni, Director SR Consulting

Chapter 1: Sample Specifications and Research Methodology
John Vidmar, Senior Vice President: Public Sector and Healthcare Services, Synovate

Chapter 2: Strategy and Development
Craig Rodger, Sales Director: Customer Interactive Solutions (Global), Dimension Data

Chapter 3: Financial Rationale and Management
Graham Parker, Commercial Director: Global Solutions, Dimension Data

Chapter 4: Customer Knowledge and Management
Paul Scott, Business Development Manager: Customer Interactive Solutions (United Kingdom), Dimension Data

Chapter 5: Performance Measures and Metrics
Cara Diemont, Marketing Director: Customer Interactive Solutions (Global), Dimension Data

Chapter 6: Processes and Procedures
Karina Majid, General Manager, Customer Interactive Solutions, Datacraft Asia Limited

Chapter 7: Organisation
Tracy Newton-Blows, Group Human Resources Director, Merchants Limited

Chapter 8: Technology Environment
Grant Sainsbury, Practice Manager: Customer Interactive Solutions (North America), Dimension Data
Stephen Strydom, Sales and Pre-Sales Manager: Customer Interactive Solutions (South Africa), Dimension Data

For more information, please contact Debbie Cordeiro
Tel: +27 21 659 1284

(iii) Gameplan 2010 Breakfast,
28 March 2006,
Mount Nelson Hotel, Cape Town

The 2010 Soccer world Cup starts NOW. That's the essence of the message on 28 March 2006 when leading South African business people, over breakfast at the Mount Nelson Hotel, listen to Gary Baily.

A South African soccer legend, Gary presents with great conviction and power derived from first-hand experience. Goalie for Manchester United, Kaiser Chiefs, England and South Africa, he has been involved in previous World Cups as a player, commentator, analyst and was ambassador on the bid committee with Danny Jordaan.

Via a thoroughly researched, riveting and comprehensive multimedia presentation, Gary will reveal exactly how to make the most of the opportunities between now and 2010, and beyond. Gameplan 2010 is a collaboration between futurist business strategy consultancy - TomorrowToday.biz and Gary Bailey. Leave your involvement too late and the biggest media event of all time, the 'greatest show on earth' will escape you; an event that will bring up to R21.3 billion into the South African economy.

Secure a place for your organisation and your valued clients and partners. A limited number of tables that each seat 10 people are still available. At R4000.00 (VAT excl.) per table, book now by simply emailing kerry@nlighten.co.za

Brought to you by N'lighten Customer Service Improvement Company, this GamePlan 2010 breakfast creates a brilliant opportunity to ignite mutually beneficial ideas for your organisation, key clients, stakeholders, and suppliers.

Should you require any further information, please do not hesitate to contact us.

Assuring you of our best service at all times.

Nathalie Leonard & Noni Kweyama
Directors: N'lighten. The Customer Service Improvement Co. (Pty) Ltd.

Tel: 021 762 2844
Fax: 021 762 8347
Cell: 082 455 6303
www.nlighten.co.za

(iii) Membership & Affiliate Feedback

CallingtheCape membership renewals has started. A customer satisfaction survey will be sent and membership certificates to all companies that renew so that we can get your feeback and improve the service we provide.

Please email rhomeez@callingthecape.org.za for further details.

Call Centre Conference hosted by Marcus Evans,
24 - 26 May 2006,
Cullinan Hotel, Cape Town

Call Centre Managers are faced with many challenges in the management and operation of their call centre. They constantly need to address the issue of how to motivate agents in a high-turnover culture, improve technology and more importantly, keep the customer happy all the time. This conference aims to cover all these issues and more, in order to ensure a successful and energised call centre.

The Call Centre industry is discovering that ROI (Return on Investment) doesn't happen automatically or because of the best technology. They now know that the importance lies in making your call centre profitable, while maintaining high service levels, accountability and positive client feedback. Staff recruitment and retention undoubtedly also remains an issue in the call centre industry and there are many possible causes ranging from performance to incentive schemes.

Click here to download the full conference brochure.

The CallingtheCape newsletter is sent out in the first week of every month. It currently reaches 4 024 (as at 01/09/2005) industry practitioners, financial professionals, investors, and representatives of the media across the globe. The readership is around 80% domestic and 20% international - the international readership comprises mostly of industry practitioners and investors considering South Africa as an investment destination. The readership is predominantly at management level (CEOs, MDs, contact centre managers). The database is made up entirely of industry contacts of CallingtheCape. Please e-mail rhomeez@callingthecape.org.za if you would like to take the opportunity to reach our thousands of subscribers every month by sponsoring our newsletter.

This month's new Corporate Members & Professional Affiliates are:

You may visit their websites by clicking on the links above.

If you are interested in joining CallingtheCape please contact Rhomeez at rhomeez@callingthecape.org.za

(i) TalkTalk, Biggest call centre investment in South Africa to date - facilitated by CallingtheCape

Leading UK telecommunications company TalkTalk, part of The Carphone Warehouse Group today announced an investment in excess of R200m into the South African call centre industry, with operations to be launched in Cape Town and Johannesburg.

The call centres will deal with the increasing volume of calls generated from the rapidly growing broadband customer base in the in the UK. TalkTalk has already announced its intention to invest significantly into the UK broadband market in 2006 and will unbundle up to 1,000 BT exchanges over the next three years.

"We chose to expand into South Africa because the industry, while very new, is also very exciting," adds Rescorla. "There is a real pool of talent that's an excellent fit with our business in terms of both skill and culture. South Africans have a reputation for strong empathy with UK callers and excellent customer skills. We re confident they'll rise to the challenge to fulfil our promise of great customer service."

TalkTalk's Johannesburg operation will be outsourced to Merchants, a leading international provider of outsourced contact centre solutions. The Cape Town operation will be managed in-house by TalkTalk itself. "We chose a two-site strategy to give us access to the biggest pool of skills, as well as to minimise our risk in case of unexpected changes in the number of calls we receive," says Rescorla.

TalkTalk will initially recruit 250 people in Cape Town and a similar number in Johannesburg. Recruitment in the Cape will be managed by Emmanuels and Quest on behalf of Merchants in Gauteng.

"This is the single biggest investment into our call centre industry so far," says Luke Mills Executive Director of Calling the Cape, which facilitated the deal. "It's a fantastic vote of confidence from the UK market." Cape Town is already host to large call centres serving clients of UK businesses including Barclays, the Budget group of companies, JP Morgan and Lufthansa.

(ii) CallingtheCape Board Election results

It is with great pleasure that we write to inform you of the results of the CallingtheCape Board election. The Board will serve for the 2006 and 2007 years. The existing Board of CallingtheCape has met and reviewed the results and Chairperson Sipho Zungu has asked me to communicate the following:

Process

Many thanks to all who voted, were nominated or otherwise participated in this election. In total over 700 people voted for at least one candidate out of the 20 plus nominees. Overall, over 1 300 weighted votes were cast (with internal company votes weighted at half of external votes), which was an increase on last year. Votes were audited and confirmed at random through a telephone analysis.

Votes came from a very wide variety of sources, including international votes, and in most silos there was an excellent choice of candidates, and great participation from the industry. Having reviewed the results the Board was satisfied that they reflect a fair reflection of the will of the CallingtheCape stakeholders.

Results and Full Board for 2006 - 2007

The table shows the results from the election and the full board (including appointed rather than elected directors) is shown below.

In ratifying the results the Board gave due consideration to representivity (the board comprises 64% PDI), gender balance (43% female), Board continuity (4 out of the 9 private sector directors served in 2005) and experience. On all counts the Board was satisfied that the election was conducted in accordance with the published rules and that the new Board meets the organisation's criteria and goals.

Next Steps

To all the directors, congratulations on your appointment and we look forward to working with you. The Board has also asked me to thank Cherrel Jacobs, Jenny Killian and Karel Botha for their service over the last year / two years. The new board will be officially welcomed and ratified at the AGM in early March and we will be in touch with all the directors shortly to notify them of the time and venue for the Board Induction / corporate governance training meeting in mid February.

We look forward to seeing you all at the AGM.

Best regards,

Luke Mills, on behalf of the Board of CallingtheCape

(iii) SAOF (South African Outsourcing Forum) 2006,
2-5 February 2006,
Hilton Hotel Durban

The first South African Outsourcing Forum was judged by those attending to be so successful that it is sure to become an annual feature of the SACCCOM calendar. CallingtheCape put together an SME consortium consisting of 3iSolutions, Contac4, DCM Cape and Syntell in addition to the delegations from Old Mutual, Quest, Kelly and Emmanuels. Early feedback from our delegates is, "A great learning as well as a selling opportunity - definitely something we should do regularly to keep in touch with international buyers."

The importance of the event was clear from the calibre of the speakers who addressed delegates at the conference dinners. These included the Minister of Trade and Industry, Mr. Mandisi Mpahlwa, The Chairman of SACCCOM, Mr. Eddie Funde who is also the Chairman of the SABC and the KZN MEC, Dr Zweli Mhize. Mr Mpahlwa had flown to the dinner directly from the State of the Nation address and emphasized Government's focus on job creation through infrastructure development, with contact centres having been identified as a key opportunity.

Buyer delegates represented global multinational companies, most of which are already involved in outsourcing. Many had not considered South Africa prior to SAOF but feedback at the end of the Forum indicated a firm intention to progress the relationship and to pilot projects here during this year and next year. Delegates were impressed by our infrastructure and lifestyle and by the quality of our English. Concerns were raised about the talent pool of management skills but these were addressed very positively by the HR solutions providers.

Mfanu Mfayela, CEO of SACCCOM, closed the event by recognizing the quality of the interactions that had taken place both during the two days of pre-qualified, one-on-one sales meetings and at the conference which ran concurrently. His message to international buyer delegates was clear, "South Africa is open for business and we will do all we can to make your outsourced operations in our country the most effective of any you may have in the rest of the world."

SAOF was organized by London-listed SPG Media in association with the africanfire, the public relations consultancy for SACCCOM.

(iv) Second Team Leader Development Workshop,
9 March 2006,
Cape Town

We will be hosting our second Team Leader Development Workshop on 9 March 2006 at Connectivity Cape in Cape Town. These development programmes are being organized because we recognized the need to dedicate time, effort and resources into the development of our team leaders.

To find out more about our Team Leader Development Workshops please email Nicky Floris at nicky@callingthecape.org.za

(v) Jobs available

Washiela of Revadmin is looking for candidates wanting to be employed as PA's. Please call her at (086) 111 4770 (South Africa only) if you're interested.

Have a great month.


Rhomeez Hendricks
Communications Officer
Telephone No: +27(0) 21 487 8655 : Switchboard No: +27 (0) 21 487 8600
Fax No: +27(0) 21 422 3744 : Mobile No: +27(0) 82 927 8021
Email address: rhomeez@callingthecape.org.za  Website: www.callingthecape.org.za


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