EOH Work Readiness Initiative - Narrative Reports 2014 - 2015 Aug. 2014 | Page 9

INTERIM NARRATIVE REPORT FROM EOH

AUGUST 2014

WHY IMPACT SOURCING?

WHERE DOES SOUTH AFRICA FIT INTO THIS?

One of the recent trends in business efficiency is
Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) which involves the
identification of specific parts of a business value chain
for relocation to an economy which is able to deliver the
required products and services at a more efficient cost
than the original centre of operations.

In South Africa the outlook for youth employment is
even worse than the African average, despite the more
advanced nature of the country’s economy and political
system.

Pursued blindly, BPO can negatively impact the
community which loses the economic activity, damage
the organisation’s brand and cannibalise the long-term
prospects of the business, while buying a short-term
saving in costs. BPO has become a political issue in
many countries where it has been practised and caused
a reassessment of how it can be more thoughtfully
applied.
One of the new approaches to BPO has been termed
Impact Sourcing.
Impact sourcing differs from BPO in that high potential
but disadvantaged youth are the primary source of
employees for the newly created work opportunities.
For many of the youth working in impact sourcing, this
will be their first work experience. The experience they