ISLAMABAD: Keeping in view the technological advancement around the world, Pakistan has embraced the outstanding business of call centres in last few years.
According to a report of Pakistan Software Export Board (PSEB), Pakistan has been a major beneficiary of the growth in offshoring in call centre services across the world, as major corporations in the developed markets turned towards more cost-efficient countries. This has led to sustained growth in the number of players, with almost 5,000 companies registered with the PSEB offering call centre services. The local industry quickly positioned itself to benefit from this opportunity and attract international clients with its solutions.
The PSEB report says that the call centre industry has witnessed a steep rise in the decade of FY11 to FY20, and the export proceeds from call centres increased at a healthy compound annual growth rate of 21.4%.
That trend has accelerated over the last two fiscal years when call centre exports have hit new peaks consecutively, crossing the $200 million mark for the first time in FY22 at $216 million. This represented a substantial increase of 39.4% compared to $155 million in FY21.
The report says that the growth trajectory has been consistently steep over the past 10 years, with the exception of FY19 when it slid slightly by 4.93%. For the most part, it has hovered in high double digits.
As a result of this impressive performance, the share of call centre proceeds in Pakistan’s total services exports has consistently risen, increasing from just 0.25% in FY07 to 3.09% in FY22. This has put Pakistan comfortably ahead of comparable countries in terms of the contribution of overall information and communication technology (ICT) exports to the service exports at 15.86%.
The report says that beyond exports, the market for call centres and the broader customer service technology is growing – attracting a number of new players to this space. For example, Lahore-based Intellicon has built omnichannel software that helps customer service teams to better manage their operations, and amassed a major clientele among startups for this. Leading names like TRG have also onboarded local clients, hinting at the growing popularity of outsourcing as a way to better utilise costs.
The report says that with globalisation, every aspect of the business world has become more connected than ever. Putting glance over global call centre ecosystem, the report says that the Asia-Pacific region accounted for the largest share of the global call centre market in 2017 at 26.2%. The industry has been projected to grow to $496 billion by 2027, creating further opportunities for new businesses.
Most recently, the Sindh Revenue Board (SRB) has exempted sales tax on services exports rendered by call centres. According to the notification, the sales tax exemption would be available to the call centre services exported and delivered by registered persons to persons outside Pakistan. This is subject to the condition that the export value of the services is received in foreign exchange through banking channels in the business bank accounts of the registered person exporting the services, and is also reported to the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) in the manner prescribed by the bank.
