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IBEX pumps US$2.3m into Ocho Rios expansion

Published:Wednesday | September 23, 2020 | 12:07 AM
The IBEX contact centre in New Kingston as seen in September 2019. The company is now looking to add a fourth centre in Ocho Rios.
The IBEX contact centre in New Kingston as seen in September 2019. The company is now looking to add a fourth centre in Ocho Rios.

Business process outsourcing company IBEX is pumping US$2.3 million into its fourth contact centre, located in Ocho Rios, St Ann.

The facility, which is initially to have 400 seats, is being leased from Jamaican businessman Wayne Boothe. Details around the lease arrangement were not disclosed.

With the expansion of IBEX’s footprint to Ocho Rios, the company has realised its plan for a workforce of at least 5,000 customer agents for its Jamaica country operations, a goal it set at market entry four years ago.

IBEX first opened a centre in Portmore, St Catherine, in 2016, which it later expanded. By 2018, the American company had inked a deal with Digicel Jamaica to lease space at its building on the Kingston waterfront as the new Caribbean and Latin American headquarters of IBEX.

A year later, IBEX opened its third location in New Kingston and, at the time, pitched plans of venturing next into St Thomas, St Ann or Montego Bay.

Events intervened to narrow the choice.

“In 2019, we had our VIP event which honours our top performers in Ocho Rios and our management loved the area. We knew then Ocho Rios would be the location of our next expansion site,” IBEX Senior Director of Marketing Rosemary Hanratty told the Financial Gleaner.

The four locations combined bring IBEX’s investment in capital and infrastructure into its Jamaican operations to over US$12 million.

Headquartered in Washington, DC, IBEX Global delivers onshore, near-shore, and offshore business process outsourcing solutions from 26 sites spread across seven countries. The company employs 17,000 worldwide, who serve its 70 global clients in 20 languages.

IBEX Ocho Rios is to be fully operational in October and will be housed on two floors of the custom-built BPO centre being developed by Boothe.

karena.bennett@gleanerjm.com