Anyone who has visited Chipata, a picturesque town in eastern Zambia near the border with Malawi, will know it’s not exactly a technology hub.
But one company, Impact Enterprises, is helping to change that. It’s created a digital business process outsourcing venture in Chipata that already employs 45 youngsters from the town, with plans to double that to 100 in the next year and to expand elsewhere in the Southern African nation.
Impact Enterprises, co-founded by CEO Dimitri Zakharov (with chief operating officer Brett Stickels and president Dan Sutera), serves clients around the world, providing them with low-cost back-office and front-office digital services. It hires mainly youngsters fresh out of school or tertiary institutions and provides them with training and personal development.
Most people who work there are under the age of 23 and for many it’s their first job. Many use their time there to save for tertiary studies. But it’s intended that some will go on to become project managers and take on other leadership responsibilities, says Zakharov.
Because it employs mainly youngsters, the company focuses a lot of effort on teaching employees the importance of professionalism, responsibility and team work. It has developed a curriculum that teaches employees “soft skills” and conducts weekly workshops to inculcate a culture of team work, problem solving, communication and leadership.
“We provide a variety of digital services such as lead generation research, order management for the back office, content moderation and data entry services,” he says. “We have worked with over 35 clients across four continents.”
Though Zambia’s technology scene is tiny, it is starting to emerge, says Zakharov, and he hopes Impact Enterprises can play a role in growing the sector. “We are really excited about getting that dialogue going,” he says.
Impact Enterprises started life providing services to small start-up businesses around the world. Now it’s hoping to expand its focus to bigger enterprises.
“We looked at start-ups that had just gone through series A or series B funding and were ready to scale,” Zakharov says. “We’re now spending time trying to get companies with more than US$5m in revenue and which are more established. We are now established in our operations and we think we can handle much larger projects.”
The company provides a wide variety of digital services, with the exception of programming- and design-based work. Zakharov does not believe Zambia offers the right skills to allow it to offer higher-tier services like outsourced computer programming. This sort of work is increasingly being outsourced to countries in Eastern Europe where education is better, he says.
“We do a lot of lead-generation research. Every company is looking for clients, so we do a lot of research — half the requests we get are for lead generation.”
But it also does a significant amount of back-office work. For example, it works with an e-retailer in the US, processing its invoices and purchase orders and updating its shipment tracking information. It also manages social media accounts – Twitter and Instagram, for example – on behalf of clients.
Zakharov says the company decided to launch in Chipata and not Lusaka, because prices in the Zambian capital city are prohibitive for an enterprise of this nature. “Rents are high and prices are unreasonable there,” he says. “Chipata is a large town, but small enough for costs to be a fraction of what they are in Lusaka. We are really focused on these tier-two locations in Zambia – they allow us to provide a personalised service to our clients.”
Zambia is a good choice as a location for this type of business, he says, because it is economically and politically stable – for the most part. Although the currency, the kwacha, has depreciated sharply in recent months, this has played in Impact Enterprises’ favour because it’s helped reduce costs.
Even the Internet access is reasonable in Chipata, Zakharov says. “We have a dedicated broadband connection. It’s not particularly fast, but it’s reliable. Also, the type of projects we do are not terribly time sensitive.”
Zakharov expects Impact Enterprises will more than double its workforce in Chipata in the next year. From there, it will decide whether to expand further in the town or to find a second location in Zambia. “We are positioned to scale our operations.” — © 2015 NewsCentral Media
