Why Durban?

Over the past few years, South Africa has established itself as a global offshoring destination. In fact, it has even been named as Offshoring Destination of the Year twice in the past 5 years, by the Global Sourcing Association (GSA)

Durban is the third most populous city in South Africa and is characterised by its large and highly qualified talent pool. As a commonwealth country, the qualifications and legalities are very similar to the UK making it far easier to find good quality and well matched employees.  

It is also the most prominent English-speaking city in South Africa with over half of the city speaking English as their first language. There is also the added benefit that the time difference between South Africa and the UK is only one hour in the Summer and two hours in the Winter.

Benefits of Offshoring in Durban

There are lots of cities in the world offering offshoring services but we’ve settled on Durban in South Africa as the best location for UK companies to offshore to for several reasons:

  • The cost of living and employing people in the UK is skyrocketing. Hiring staff in South Africa costs far less than hiring someone in the UK who can complete the same job. Generally, you will save around 50% of your costs hiring someone with the same qualifications.

  • The productivity in South Africa is far higher than other offshoring locations. The average handling time, response time and communication time are better in South Africa than anywhere else.

  • With the right talent becoming harder to find, offshoring opens up a huge pool of talent across the world. The South African workforce is very well-educated. Over 200,000 people graduate university each year, however, the unemployment rate is incredibly high (32.6% as of the first quarter of 2021).

    This all offers companies a wide pool of potential employees that are eager to work and hold down a stable job.

  • Almost 50% of the population in South Africa speak English as their first language; in fact, English is the language of instruction in public schools.

    Even where offshore staff speak excellent English, communication with your UK team can be difficult where English is a second language for the offshore team, but there is no such a problem in South Africa.

  • The time difference between Durban and the UK is only an hour to UK in the summer and two hours in the Winter (when the clocks go back). This means your staff there can work a normal working day and will be working at the same time as your UK team.

  • As a commonwealth country, many of South Africa’s laws, regulations and qualifications are very similar to our own, making it easier to find suitable staff and minimal time for them to adapt to the rules that apply in your industry.

  • One of our clients suggested that the Durban accent was “easy on the middle class ear” which made us chuckle. The point was that it is easy for UK staff and customers to chat to Durban-based employees without either having to ask the other to repeat what they are saying. And that’s important because an efficient office and great customer service relies on great communication either via Teams or over the phone.

Why Durban?