Kenya’s 10-Point BPO Action Roadmap

By TeleSky Stories

When governments and global firms think of outsourcing, two countries come to mind almost instinctively: India and the Philippines. Together, they employ millions, export tens of billions of dollars in services, and have turned BPO into a national economic engine.

Kenya, by contrast, is still described as “emerging.”
Yet the ingredients for scale are already here: a young, English-speaking workforce, strong digital infrastructure, Special Economic Zones, and a fast-growing ecosystem of local and global BPO players.

The real question is no longer whether Kenya can compete—but how fast it can industrialise its BPO sector and claim leadership in East Africa.

Why BPO Policy Matters More Than Talent Alone

India and the Philippines did not win because they had better accents or cheaper labour. They won because policy made scale inevitable.

They treated BPO as an export industry, not a side hustle
They aligned incentives, skills, infrastructure and branding
They created certainty for investors and volume for operators

Kenya has many of the same enablers—but lacks the final accelerators that convert pilots into millions of seats.

Kenya vs Philippines vs India: A Policy & Scale Comparison

Dimension	Kenya	Philippines	India
Industry maturity	Emerging / scaling	Mature global leader	Global giant
Estimated BPO/IT-BPM jobs	~36,000–50,000	~1.8 million	5+ million (IT-BPM overall)
Annual BPO/IT-BPM revenue	~$270M (BPO)	~$38B	$250B+ (IT services & BPM)
Core policy anchor	SEZs, digital economy strategy	PEZA ecozones + services export focus	SEZ/STPI + state-level competition
Direct seat/job incentives	Limited / indirect	Tax holidays & special tax regimes	Explicit per-seat subsidies (IBPS)
Geographic spread	Nairobi-centric (early decentralisation)	“Digital Cities” nationwide	Tier-2 & Tier-3 city expansion
Government as anchor client	Minimal	Strong (health, revenue, citizen lines)	Strong (tax, welfare, utilities)
Global brand perception	“Promising Africa hub”	“World’s CX capital”	“Default outsourcing destination”
Value chain focus	Voice, CX, early BPM	CX → analytics → KPO	BPM → analytics →AI/engineering

The takeaway:
Kenya’s challenge is not capability—it is policy design for scale.

Kenya’s 10-Point BPO Action Roadmap

Launch a national BPO Seat Acceleration Program
Gazette and brand BPO Growth Cities
Use government services as anchor demand
Standardise public-sector CX SLAs and dashboards
Build sector-specific BPO skills pipelines
Incentivise night-shift and multi-shift operations
Promote Kenya as East Africa’s multilingual CX hub
Enforce strong data protection & ESG standards
Track jobs, exports and wages quarterly—publicly
Market Kenya globally as a services export economy

What Success Looks Like by 2028

If Kenya executes deliberately, the picture by 2028 is realistic—and transformative:

150,000–200,000 direct BPO/GBS jobs
$1–1.5 billion in annual BPO/GBS exports
Government citizen support largely run on measured SLAs
Kenya recognised as East Africa’s default outsourcing hub
A clear progression from voice to BPM toAI-enabled services

The TeleSky Perspective

As one of Kenya’s emerging BPO leaders, TeleSky sits at the intersection of this opportunity—already delivering multi-channel, multi-market CX while helping define what locally grown, globally competitive outsourcing looks like.

The next phase of Kenya’s BPO story will not be written by policy alone, or by companies alone—but by alignment between government, operators, talent and markets.

The playbook exists.
The talent is ready.
The scale moment is now.