Essar Group, an Indian company, had announced they will push R500-million in the next three years to help in the development of South Africa's call-centre business. Aegis is a subsidiary of Essar and a US-based company with 32 centres in US, Philippines, India, Costa Rica and Kenya. They already employ above 33000 individuals. The company plans to purchase the South African company CCN Group.

Applicants should expect at least 5000 jobs. CCN is known as the biggest privately owned contact-centre business in the country. According to Sandip Sen, Global Chief Marketing Officer and Head of Sales of Aegis, the company expects to improve South Africa’s competence in dealing with the demands of many customers. Sen added, "We are a universal company. We are growing at a rapid scale, hiring 1000 new people each year only in India." Aegis already has over 100 Fortune 500 clients, including AT&T and American Express. The company will be able to catch the attention of business from large business process outsourcing markets like UK, US and India. CCN has workforce of 1000 and it is the 12th achievement of Aegis. Since Essar's interests are in the field of energy, steel and telecommunications sectors, they plan to create additional 5000 new call-centre jobs, because they want to nurture geographically through expansion and training. This will result to 18-billion turnover each year. The company is now developing strategy to invest in different sectors in Africa. An oil refinery was developed in Kenya, a port in Mombasa and coal mines in Mozambique are built. The co-owner of the company's telecommunications division is the UK-based Vodafone in India with 76-million-subscriber. [via]