Bruce Whitfield:
Love them or hate them, call centres are part of the fabric of doing business nowadays and looking at the results of the Dialogue Group today, one can see that call centres themselves are big business. A relatively recent listing on AltX, Dialogue reporting headline earnings growth in excess of 100 percent from revenue growth of 55 percent.

The chief executive who must be a very pleased, Jason Drew, on the line to us from Cape Town, Jason welcome to the programme. You are actually running call centre operations out of South Africa for a range of international companies now, some fairly new clients.

Jason Drew:
We are indeed. South Africa has really put itself on the map in the last six or eight months as an alternative to India and the Philippines which are the traditional outsourcing locations and as more customers come to South Africa they are not only thrilled with the experience they get here but also they move in herds and more an more come so it is a very exciting time for us.

I think South Africa is at the beginning of a very explosive entry onto the world stage of international outsourcing. That is great news for South Africa and great news for the Dialogue Group.

Bruce Whitfield:
Your one British bank you referred to in your results without naming it, can you name it or is that an issue that you cannot disclose?

Jason Drew:
A number of our customers prefer to keep a very low profile in terms of their international outsourcing and we have recently acquired both an American bank and a UK bank as customers and I think that is just testament to the great work that is being done out of South Africa by the great people working for our business and our competitors businesses. It is very good news for South Africa and I think we will see many more coming in the next six to 12 months.

Bruce Whitfield:
I suppose from a bank's perspective not too concerned about their clients knowing that their call centres are outsourced. They don't necessarily want to know where they are and I guess from that perspective want to maintain that air of mystery around who is at the other end of the telephone.

Jason Drew:
I am not entirely sure, I think it is very clear when you get through to an Indian call centre and a number of our clients ask us where are they calling and there is a great rapport between the UK and the US end clients and South Africa.

South Africa is really enjoying a great position on the world stage at the moment and people are very happy to talk to South Africa. In fact one of our clients said the other day you can year the sunshine in the voices from South Africa.

Bruce Whitfield:
Well, which is always nice I guess. Does it involve, in terms of these bank clients, your call centre dealing with day-to-day requirements of Mrs Jones from Wolverhampton if the ATM has swallowed her card for example? I mean is that the sort of level that you are dealing at or is it just certain services for these particular banks?

Jason Drew:
It is certain services but that might well be an example of something that happened, it might be a balance enquiry and it might be a whole range of services. I mean more and more consumers in the UK and in South Africa use call centres to contact their banks rather than going to branches and as there is a lack of available labour in the UK the UK outsources offshore traditionally to India but now increasingly to South Africa.

Bruce Whitfield:
How much more of that market are we getting in South Africa because India was a big outsourcing destination five years ago? Are we becoming increasingly preferred?

Jason Drew:
I think we are presenting an interesting challenge to India and the Philippines particularly because of what we call cultural proximity. Our agents really understand the banking environment, they understand what a credit card is, they understand what a mortgage is, it is the same intrinsic products and services and so we don't have to go through the training that one would have to do in India to get a basic understanding of those products to explain to an insurance agent what a Golf City is, it's a given in South Africa. In India of course they have a whole different set of cars on the road.

So that cultural proximity plays into it. I mean globally it is a $130-billion business, international outsourcing, and South Africa is only just scratching the surface but I think with the great results being delivered by the well-trained workforce here, there are growth opportunities for South Africa to emulate the success that India has had.

Bruce Whitfield:
In terms of Dialogue, you have doubled your staff numbers since 2005 and I guess that reflects the sort of demand that you are seeing?

Jason Drew:
Sure, I mean in fact in the four months or three months since we published our results we have taken on another 400 people. So we are nearly at 1800 staff already and I think that bodes very well for the rest of the year. It is a great employment opportunity as the President has noted in his state of the nation speech.

Bruce Whitfield:
Jason Drew, sorry we are going to have to leave it there. The chief executive of Dialogue.