Egypt: Land of Pyramids, the Sphinx…and Outsourcing?
India’s tech boom has inspired other developing nations to promote themselves as outsourcing destinations. The latest to try to cash in: Egypt.
Egypt seems like an unlikely place for Western companies to send tech work and open call centers, but Tarek El-Sadany, a government official in charge of helping to grow the country’s information-technology industry, says that the country is well positioned to do these tasks–literally. Egypt is only two hours off of Greenwich Mean Time, so daytime there corresponds nicely with the European workday. For U.S. companies committed to outsourcing, Egypt can be a hop between the U.S. and India.
Another benefit, according to El-Sadany, is that the weekend in Egypt is observed on Thursday and Friday. People typically work on Saturday and Sunday so companies won’t have to pay extra for those shifts–or get stuck with second-class workers–as they might in other countries.
