Kenya keeps coming up on the low-cost shortlist. It deserves a bigger conversation.
Now it's Heard
The industry has a voice. Now it’s Heard.
This edition turns the lens on where the next wave of global talent is really coming from.
David Rickard, Managing Director of Advisory Services at The Knowledge Group, challenges the voice-only view of Kenya and argues that buyers willing to look harder will find something worth building on.
Loud and Clear: Kenya has been cast as a voice play, but the talent disagrees
Organisations are always looking for the next low-cost source of English-speaking talent, and Kenya is increasingly on the list. The logic is simple: plenty of people want work, and they speak English. But on a second visit in under two years, I came away convinced that a voice-only view undersells what the country offers.
The case for voice is solid. Kenya has a young, educated, English-speaking workforce, competitive costs, strong connectivity and a time zone that overlaps well with Europe, and local, regional and global providers such as CCI Global, ADEC Innovations, iSON Xperiences and TP are already established there. For simple, voice-based transactions, Kenya has proved itself.
What stayed with me from my visit, though, was the quality of the people. The standard of spoken English caught me off guard from the first roundtable at Catalyse Kenya, and this was not a one-off. The quality of spoken English across people you come across, not only in BPO/GBS environments but just in everyday life, was very good. There is also a real sense of hustle and an entrepreneurial spirit, no better demonstrated than by my interactions with a group of young innovators who held several jobs at the same time to support their efforts to grow their business. They also spoke about their pride in solving problems for customers, which is hard to train and easy to miss on a rate card. Alongside that sits a natural openness to technology, shaped by early adoption of mobile money and digital services, so new tools are embraced rather than resisted. Managed well, this talent could serve areas well beyond customer experience, including broader global business services, back-office work and AI operations.
AI work is the fastest-growing of these, and Kenya is moving from niche to established player, with the likes of CloudFactory, Thrivin Africa Outsourcing and Techno Brain GBS delivering complex AI services to global, regional and local buyers. For buyers, this shifts the question from "where can I move simple voice work more cheaply?" to "where can I build capability that grows in value over time?"
The answer isn’t straightforward, and three issues deserve weight.
First, the market is relatively immature and the eco-system that supplies mid and senior level talent is still evolving, so across all work types close attention should be paid to the talent pipeline from providers.
Second, although the government is clearly committed to the GBS sector, as shown by the August 2026 cooperation agreement between Invest Kenya and the Outsourcing Alliance of Kenya (OAK) to jointly market Kenya as Africa’s leading GBS hub, along with a dedicated BPO policy and tax incentives administered through Kenya Investment Authority (InvestKenya), concerns remain about policy unpredictability and regulatory and licensing fragmentation, and it will take time to show the stability that convinces all stakeholders.
Lastly, an abundance of talent does not always mean the right talent for your business, so it is important to understand what your future operations will require and to assess whether the target market can meet that need, both now and later.
Kenya won't be the answer for every process or organisation, but for those willing to look beyond the call centre, and to do their due diligence on vendors' regulatory exposure and labour practices, it deserves a place on the shortlist.
Follow Heard
Get the full picture every week: Subscribe to our email newsletter for weekly signal tracking across the industry.
Be part of the conversation: Follow BPO Bullhorn on LinkedIn for debates, polls, and industry insights.
Don’t miss the next conversation that’s shaking up BPO and CX. Tap Subscribe on our LinkedIn newsletter to get future editions of Heard straight to your inbox.
