I have taken the decision to join my friends from PeopleCentric on their trip to Tunisia in May (around the 20th) in order to try and analyze the situation on the spot. My trip companions are going to meet students and professionals who are interested in engineering positions in France. A few months after the Tunisian revolution, I want to analyze for myself the qualities of the Tunisian IT offer and maybe meet potential partners who might be interested in Pentalog’s operational capabilities in Europe.
In Eastern Europe, more particularly in French-speaking Romania (18% of its population, i.e. 4 million people are French speakers), client companies started to arrive a few months ago in order to create a backup for their North-African teams and, in some cases, even to replace them. In Warsaw, one of the most important BPO players in North Africa told Monica last week that they needed to urgently set up a BOT (Build Operate Transfer) team of approximately 50 people in Eastern Europe, for one of their prominent clients.
Two weeks earlier, at the Spring Campus of Croissance+ in Avoriaz, the owner of a Tunisian-based call center told me that she considered the Tunisian electoral process to be a major risk, both before and after the elections, and that she was already migrating some of her teams to other French-speaking outsourcing destinations in North Africa and the Indian Ocean. “First of all, I think that this is a necessary part of my risk management activities. Secondly, my clients are demanding it” she said.
At Pentalog, we have identified two or three clients who joined us in the first quarter rather than choosing other nearshore outsourcing destinations, such as Morocco or Tunisia. We have also lost a client who banked on major price reductions on the other side of the Mediterranean following the recent events.
In short, whether it is to search for new partners or better understand our competitors, it is time I made this trip.






















