Recognizing the potential of Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) to contribute to sustainable economic growth and create high quality job for Jordanians..Recognizing the potential of Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) to contribute to sustainable economic growth and create high quality job for Jordanians, the Ministry of Information and Communication Technology along with USAID Jordan Economic Development Program (SABEQ), have begun to proactively seek ways to position its growing IT and IT-enabled services industry as a leading regional and international provider of outsourcing services.

Bell hosted a briefing session attended by Minister of Information and Communications Technology His Excellency Eng. Basem Rousan, USAID Mission Director in Jordan Mr. Jay Knott, Mr. Mohammad Saqer Chairman of Extensya, and Mr. Ibrahim Safadi CEO of Bell Amman, along with key representatives from all parties.

Among its many initiatives to support different players in the BPO sector, USAID Jordan Economic Development Program (SABEQ) supported Extensya; a leading provider of Contact Management solutions in Jordan. And since Extensya contracts to provide contact centers for regional and international companies one of the core competencies needed was to develop and implement an English Language Competency Program for Customer Service Representatives in the Call center. Partners of this program expressed their interest to work with Bell Amman; one of Luminus Group members, and affiliated with Bell International that helps over 100,000 students, from more than 120 countries to learn English through one of its 41 worldwide teaching centers and e-channels.

The session was commenced by a brief by Mr. Kinan Jardat sector lead for the BPO sector at the Jordan Economic Development Program (USAID), where he briefed all on the gaps in the BPO sector in Jordan that included workforce, business infrastructure, costs, reliability, industry specialization, Government incentives, and market positioning and access. Mr. Jaradat continued by stating that all stakeholders and parties are ultimately working to improve efficiency in all gaps, and that this particular initiative concentrates on improving efficiency of the workforce.

From Extensya’s end Mrs. Samar Al Qadiri Human Resource Manager expressed the need for support to develop and implement an English Language Competency Program that concentrated on correct sentence structure, standard English pronunciation, and relevant industry vocabulary, as well as perfect technical vocabulary used in that field, especially to those international companies who rely on the English language.

Mr. Peter Frey, Academic Coordinator at Bell Amman, gave a brief presentation in which he outlined the development and piloting of a test at Bell Amman that has been specifically designed to assess the skills of call centre staff in English.

The presentation was concluded with a thorough discussion that concentrated on ways to improve the BPO sector in Jordan. The visit was concluded with a tour around the facilities, where all parties were able to witness an on ground English language test by agents from Extensya.