Savanna-la-Mar welcomes global outsourcing entity

WESTERN BUREAU:

Stakeholders in Savanna-la-Mar, Westmoreland, including the municipal corporation, have welcomed the entry of digital business services company, Teleperformance, into the township. With approximately 3,100 employees in Jamaica, the US$7.5-million outsourcing entity has the capacity to provide 700 more jobs, and is being hailed as a ‘gamechanger’ for the parish.

Savanna-la-Mar mayor, Danree Delancy, chairman of the Westmoreland Municipal Corporation, said: “Teleperformance’s decision to invest in Savanna-la-Mar speaks volumes about the potential and promise that lies within Westmoreland.” He noted that the new facility is an incubator for professional development for the young people of Savanna-la-Mar and Westmoreland.

“This facility is more than just a call centre. It’s a catalyst for economic empowerment, creating numerous job opportunities and fostering professional growth for our residents,” said Delancy.

Westmoreland Custos, Reverend Canon Hartley Perrin, says young people should be happy to have the Teleperformance facility in the parish as it will allow them to connect with other people across the world from the comfort of their workstations in the parish.

“We have never had anything of this magnitude here in the parish that seeks to employ, especially young people in the area of technology,” said Perrin. He described the coming of Teleperformance as a gamechanger for the parish.

Jake Becker, senior vice president of operations and country manager at Teleperformance, says Savanna-la-Mar was chosen as many of his employees travel from Westmoreland to work in Montego Bay daily.

“It’s amazing. Four hundred employees drive from here (Savanna-la-Mar) to Montego Bay and they are on time. They are the first ones to get into the building and they are the last ones to leave,” said Becker.

He was speaking at the ribbon cutting ceremony to formally opened the new state of the art facility, which is sited in the Llandilo section of the parish capital.

Teleperformance is a digital business services company, with more than 410,000 employees globally. Before expanding into Savanna-la-Mar, the company had been operating in Jamaica for the past 25 years from its base in Montego Bay, St. James.

According to Becker, the business processing outsourcing company scouted out possible locations in Hanover and Trelawny before deciding on Westmoreland as the ideal location to accommodate its expansion plan.

“We are going to seed the facility with 300 of our Montego Bay folks. But we are also going to hire hundreds and hundreds of qualified applicants from in and around Savanna-la-Mar,” stated Becker. He said that this will be strategically achieved by building out small centres in communities where staff members reside.