Adel Danish: Xceed competencies emerged…and Egyptians speak languages with the same dialect as their country

• The employee’s turnover confirms his efficiency… and the percentage in Egypt reaches 20%
• Qualifying human resources accounts for 66% of the cost of establishing call centers
• We are witnessing an unprecedented boom in Internet and communications services…and a decline in the prices of international connectivity circuits
• Artificial intelligence helps improve employee productivity…and will not replace the agent
• 80% of calls must be answered within 20 seconds
• “South Africa,” “Kenya,” and “Ghana” requested a study of the Egyptian experience in activism
• The call center profession is not associated with high health risks

The Ta3Heed newsletter conducted a lengthy dialogue with the godfather of the industry in Egypt, Dr. Adel Danish, former Chairman of the Board of Directors of Xceed Company, who confirmed that it is a pioneering school in activity that has contributed to the graduation of many competencies who currently hold leadership positions in major Egyptian and international entities.

Danish stressed that Egypt still has a golden opportunity to compete on the global outsourcing industry map and occupy an advanced position, especially with the successive waves of liberalizing the exchange rate of the dollar against the pound, considering that the year 2002 represents a qualitative leap in the emergence of outsourcing activity in Egypt, an activity that received great support from the political leadership. At that time, it was represented by former President Hosni Mubarak, Prime Minister Dr. Ahmed Nazif, and Minister of Communications Dr. Tariq Kamel.

Does Egypt still have the same competitive capabilities in the global call center industry?

Of course, as evidenced by the fact that the call center employees who spoke French at Xceed were unlike those who spoke to Belgium or Switzerland.

For example, when you want to translate the number 80 in French, it becomes “Catro-Van,” while when you speak in French with a customer in Belgium, it becomes “Octunt.”

To the point that when employees were receiving calls from the three countries, they could differentiate between customers according to the dialect.
However, the availability of human resources who speak rare languages such as Portuguese has been easy in recent years.

What is the reason for the decline in the number of graduates of universities that fluently speak rare languages?

It still exists, but it is difficult to have large numbers of German speakers, especially since there are only two or three German schools in Egypt. Even the specialists in the Faculty of Arts have a German department looking for prestigious jobs such as working in embassies or German companies rather than the call center profession.

Discussions were taking place within Xceed at that time to search for graduates of Al-Alsun Colleges with distinctions and very good grades, but I rejected the idea, especially since those with distinction grades would have higher career aspirations than their peers. We began searching at that time for employees with high evaluations in the company and continuing to work with it for a period of two years or more. He then discovered that they had good and acceptable ratings.

Therefore, the employee who stays in the call center company for long periods becomes not good, as he was unable to advance to the position of team leader or work supervisor, to the point that he became satisfied with his conditions and does not seek to change them with an annual increase in his salary.

While an employee who works for a period of two or three years at the maximum becomes more efficient, especially since the outsourcing industry is characterized by a high turnover rate within it. In India, for example, this percentage reaches 100%, meaning that every year all of the company’s employees are replaced compared to 20% in Egypt .

When looking at the turnover rate, it is necessary to know the reasons why employees submitted their resignation from the company. I then asked Xceed officials to determine the number of employees who left their jobs and compare them to those who succeeded in career progression. We found that the reasons may be due to the nature of the relationship between colleagues within the same work team.

Egypt still enjoys natural and geographical components for the industry, led by human cadres who speak various languages at competitive prices, especially with the liberalization of the exchange rate.

The process of qualifying and developing the human element accounts for 66% of the cost of communications centers, and the remaining percentage is distributed among other matters, including communications departments, rentals, and others.

While the second most important dimension is managing these human resources and exploiting them optimally with the aim of increasing the volume of companies’ business and revenues.

On the other hand, Egypt witnessed an unprecedented boom in communications and Internet services by maximizing the use of submarine cables that pass through its territory, and the cost became reasonable compared to the launch phase of the outsourcing industry, when the cost of an international communication line at that time reached 20 thousand dollars per month.

We found great support for the industry at that time from the government, represented by Dr. Ahmed Nazif, former Prime Minister, Dr. Tarek Kamel, former Minister of Communications, and the leaders of Telecom Egypt. The prices of international connection circuits were reduced, and Egypt began to offer competitive prices for call center services compared to other markets.

Egypt also has a unique geographical location. When Call Center decides to work from India to provide its services to the American or British markets, they call these employees “gravy heart landfill workers” due to the large time difference.

While Egypt is 4 or 5 hours away from any European country, for example, the number of travel hours between Cairo and Paris is 4.5 hours, and Cairo and Berlin is 5 hours. Also, the number of Europeans who know information about Egypt is large due to the cultural closeness in terms of the number of users. credit cards and eating habits compared to other markets such as India and the Philippines.

The call center profession in Egypt has become notorious. What advice would you like to give to recent university graduates?

When we look at the current time at the leadership positions in the call center industry in Egypt, we will find that most of them graduated from the Xceed School, such as Ahmed Rayhan, who is the president of Sutherland Company, Alaa Al-Shafi’i, Ahmed Rifqi from Raya, and currently Ahmed Abu Al-Ezz.

In addition to Rami Katto, son of Abdel Fattah Katto, who manages Vodafone International Services Company in Egypt

An employee at Oxide starts as an agent and then rises to become a team leader thanks to the skills he possesses, then a supervisor, followed by an entire floor supervisor, and a callcenter manager.

For example, XCEED currently has branches in Morocco and Mauritius, and they are currently working on opening new offices in the markets of Saudi Arabia, the Emirates, and Europe. The person currently responsible for the Xceed Morocco office has begun working within the company as an agent.

While other companies are rushing to hunt down cadres who have submitted their resignation from Xceed to work in the same field or another, especially since the system applied in the call center industry is characterized by strictness and extreme discipline in terms of starting dates for providing service to customers, the number of calls targeted to be answered daily, and the duration of the call itself.

I was leaving the company for a week to travel with the executive leadership to conclude a new contract, and everything was going well without interruption.

Can artificial intelligence technology be used as a substitute for a call center employee?

No, there are things that must depend on human communication

How can artificial intelligence technology be used to develop Egypt’s digital exports and as a solution to fill the shortage of rare languages?

Artificial intelligence technology can be used to improve and increase the productivity of call center employees, but it is unlikely that AI will replace the human element, especially with the difficulty of most users dealing with modern technologies such as the chat bot system.

Xceed was providing a phone directory service to 140 customers, in addition to the Microsoft product activation service, which can be provided using artificial intelligence technology.

What are the most popular languages in the outsourcing industry in Egypt?

We can cover more than one language from the same place, and international companies contract for a diverse language package according to the sales of each country in which they operate.

Companies must allocate work teams to serve major clients in major markets such as the Gulf region and are able to coexist with Arab culture and traditions.

How can the return on investment in the call center employee be calculated?

It varies from one company to another, and the difference lies in the optimal use of human resources, but it must be ensured that 80% of customer calls are answered within 20 seconds, equivalent to 3 rings, compared to 90% for ambulance service calls.

What is the appropriate length of a customer service call?

Depending on the type of request, such as inquiring about technical matters, it may take time, but we take care that employees do not talk in vain with customers. For example, Xceed Company used to provide an ambulance call service to the point that 90% of the calls received were insults and defamation, and they were filtered and connected. The most appropriate ones are for the ambulance facility. Also among these calls, some citizens used a sense of humor and humor when requesting the service and believed that the ambulance facility was fully aware of the coordinates of the patient’s location.

Why are there countries ahead of Egypt in revenues from the outsourcing industry despite our ability to compete?

The matter is due to political reasons, including, for example, the current tense security situation on Egypt’s borders due to the Gaza War. When one of the directors of an American company asks his employee to search for a suitable country to establish a call center in and he chooses between two countries, one of which is the Philippines, he will choose Manila directly and not Cairo.

However, the recent period has witnessed a change in some prevailing trends within this industry, such as focusing on North African countries such as Morocco and Tunisia to establish call centers that include employees who speak fluent French, as evidenced by the fact that the Moroccan company Intellisia recently opened a branch in Egypt.

Egypt was able to ensure business continuity remotely during the new Corona virus pandemic, thanks to the strength of its infrastructure, at a time when other countries such as the Philippines could not bear this matter?

We did not stop serving Cisco’s global customers during the events of the revolution of January 25, 2011, and a suitable work environment was provided for employees, including places to stay inside Oxide and providing them with meals and entertainment facilities such as gymnasiums.

Data from the report of the American consulting firm Kearney revealed the emergence of strong emerging companies on the outsourcing map, such as South Africa and Morocco, and Egypt’s decline to 14th place globally. What are the reasons for this?

I received delegations from African countries during my presidency of Xceed, including South Africa, Kenya, and Ghana, to learn about the Egyptian experience in the outsourcing services industry closely, to the point that the President of the Republic of Mali wanted to meet me to thank me for appointing a number of his country’s citizens to Egypt.

Can the events in Gaza affect the outsourcing services industry in the Middle East?

Of course, but for a short period of time, lasting from two to three months. This will become clear from the fears and concerns of some customers about their business in Egypt. Some of them may resort to transferring a percentage of customer service calls to other countries such as India.

What are the most prominent historical milestones that you have witnessed as a spiritual father of the outsourcing industry in Egypt?

I remember well a meeting I had with former President Mohamed Hosni Mubarak in 2002 during his visit to the Smart Village. The concept of the outsourcing industry was reviewed at that time for the first time and promises were made to appoint and qualify employees who spoke foreign languages other than Arabic, such as English, French, and Italian.

The attendees told me at the time that Mubarak would come the following year to ask about the results of the plan, especially since there was no company at that time carrying out work for others outside Egypt, and the concept of outsourcing at that time was new in the telecommunications sector, and during this period I was also a member of the board of directors of the Egyptian Telecom Company.

I asked Telecom Egypt employees at the time to find out the most frequently used short numbers and the brand that receives the most calls. KFC came in first place, then Pizza Hut, followed by McDonald’s in third place.

These companies used to resort to using delivery representatives to provide customer service, and at that time, one of the brands in the pizza industry asked me to contract with xceed and provide the service, but the offer was rejected.

Is the call center profession considered to have high health risks?

No, that is not true

We received financial and technical offers from 4 companies to contract to purchase call center speakers in Xceed. Each company was then assigned to provide 10 units and asked the employees at the time to try the headphones and choose the most suitable ones.

Xceed also used a doctor to visit employees and check on their health once or twice a week, and when there were any hearing problems, the employees with them were directed to work in back office jobs.

Is the outsourcing industry limited only to the call center function?

Outsourcing includes call center calls, technical support services of all kinds, and research and development centers and requires the availability of advanced skills. When Microsoft founder Bill Gates visited Xceed twice, he expressed great admiration for the level of the company’s human resources.

Europe is considered an old continent and seeks to attract successful Egyptian cadres in the industry, which represents a challenge to the growth of the industry. Is this true?

We have sufficient numbers of university graduates. The more we improve the level of education, the better.

What are the funny situations that you remember during your period in managing Xceed Company?

One of the funny things is that when I was serving as Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Xceed Outsourcing Services Company, I received two girls who did not appear to know the Spanish language. They had graduated from the College of Arts, Spanish Department, and they were working in a tourist attraction. I asked them a question: Are you sure of your mastery of the Spanish language? One of them replied, saying: Of course, I know all the customs and traditions of the Spaniards, and I speak to them fluently when visiting the shrine.

So I asked her again about why she chose the Spanish language specifically? She replied with a sense of humor, saying: He amused me, and I admired him.

Therefore, it can be said that Egyptians are very superior in speaking foreign languages with the same accents as the people of the country.