I had written about the Jamaican BPO sector before. It is clearly a niche market with only 17,000 employees as of right now (albeit it is growing at a 20 % plus rate) but it has some distinct advantages over the more traditional outsourcing countries.
It has some pretty good universities which produces a fair amount of talent, it is in the same time zone as the US (same time zone as Chicago) , salary levels are about 70 % below US salary levels and the official language is English.
Perhaps the single biggest advantage is the typical very "sunny disposition" of the average Jamaican...one will be hard pressed to find a Jamaican who is openly in a bad mood.
No company has placed a bigger bet onto the Jamaican BPO sector than Xerox. The total BPO workforce of Xerox in Jamaica is about 7000 right now...giving Xerox about 18 % market share in an industry which is usually much more fragmented.
The 7000 headcount of Xerox makes them the biggest employer in Jamaica (after the government of course).
Most interestingly, Xerox investment into Jamaica seems to be paying off for them. Internal Key Performance Indicators (KPI's) are hard to come by but a recent article (see here) disclosed that the Jamaican BPO office has a 98.5 % satisfaction rating with its healthcare clients...which should make them one of the highest rated office within Xerox.
One reason given why the offices is doing so well is low turnover. The Jamaican office has apparently the lowest turnover of all Xerox locations worldwide. In an industry which is characterized by high attrition rates that feat is obviously remarkable and undoubtedly leads to higher customer satisfaction.
Jamaica obviously lacks the infrastructure and population to be attractive to the major players in the BPO industry. The headcount required to make a dent in their operation for the biggest BPO players cannot be reasonably made available in Jamaica.
The lesson learned from the Xerox experience though is that on a more individual level companies looking for a good alternative to set up their BPO operation Jamaica might be a good idea.