From Polite Interest to Partnership: Why German BPOs are looking at Kenya
The delegation of German BPO and call centre leaders, accompanied with the Nakama Tech Team. The tour and round table conversations were at Nakama Tech offices, hosted together with GIZ Hub, Kenya.
At CCW in Berlin at the start of 2026, conversations about Kenya as a delivery location for the German market were polite and short. By the end of October, a delegation of German and European CX leaders was standing on our delivery floor in Nairobi, asking how to partner.
From polite interest to a delegation in Nairobi
- Regiocom Customer Care
- CMX Solutions
- Hey Contact Heroes
- Yoummday
- Experience Factory
- Kairos Advisory
- Marketing Insiders Group
- AFRC, the French Customer Relations Association
Eight organisations, three days in Nairobi, and a clear purpose: to understand the Kenyan BPO ecosystem and find partners in it.
The questions buyers ask have changed
Earlier this year, the first question about Kenya was whether it was safe to outsource there. In Nairobi, the delegation asked how a partnership would actually run: whose brand is on the floor, who owns the client, and how fast a team can go live.
Two themes came up again and again.
White labelling. Several German BPOs wanted to know how Nakama Tech delivers behind a partner's name. The model is simple. The partner keeps its client, its method and its P&L. Nakama Tech provides the floor, the people, the payroll and the local execution in Kenya.Local execution is where most market entries slow down, and it is where a partner earns its place. Nakama Tech already has the ground in place in Kenya:
- A registered Kenyan operating company, with Nairobi facilities that are EPZ-ready: EPZA has inspected them and the landlord has agreed.
- registration with the ODPC as a data controller and data processor.
- secure delivery sites with redundant power and connectivity.
- a recruitment engine, language testing and training.
- payroll, statutory deductions and Kenyan employment law handled in house.
- local managers who know how things get done in Nairobi.
That means a partner programme can go live in around 30 days, without capital tied up in a building, and capacity can grow or shrink with the client's volumes. The partner stays in control of the client and the method, with non-circumvention and non-solicitation agreed in writing.Many of the companies in the room are owner-managed themselves. They were clearly interested in working with a Kenyan, founder-owned BPO, where decisions are made quickly by the people accountable for delivery. Nakama Tech was founded in Nairobi in 2022 and is still owned and run by its founder, George Jabesh.
Why German BPOs are looking beyond nearshore
The German customer service market has been short of people for years, and the established nearshore hubs now compete for the same talent.Many German BPOs already deliver from nearshore countries such as Bulgaria, Greece, Türkiye, Poland, Romania, Kosovo, Albania and North Macedonia. The next question is where to grow after nearshore, and Kenya answers a lot of it:
- Nairobi is two hours ahead of Germany in winter and one hour in summer, so the whole German working day is covered.
- Direct flights to Europe take about nine hours.
- Kenya’s Data Protection Act 2019 and its regulator, the ODPC, follow GDPR principles.
- Delivery is margin-friendly: a fully loaded seat in Kenya costs a fraction of the European average, as the figures below show.
Language is part of the answer too. Nakama Tech delivers in English, German, French and Italian at C1 and B2 levels, so German-language programmes are an option alongside English and multilingual work.Policy is moving in the same direction. The Kenyan-German Digital Dialogue formally began in November 2023. In June 2026, Germany and Kenya agreed a KSh 7.8 billion package for 2026 to 2028 that names BPO, digital skills and language training among its priorities. The GIZ Digital Transformation Center Kenya, funded by BMZ and the EU, made this delegation happen. That is the Digital Dialogue working at company level.
Margin-friendly delivery, with people who want the job
For a BPO, location is a margin decision. Invest Kenya's BPO sector pack puts a fully loaded contact centre seat in Kenya at about USD 870 a month, against USD 3,410 in Europe and USD 3,770 in the UK. In a white label model, the partner sets the price with its client and agrees a delivery fee with Nakama Tech.The market behind it is growing. Kenya's BPO sector was worth about USD 270 million in 2025, roughly 40% of a USD 700 million GBS industry, with forecasts of up to USD 1 billion by 2030. The same report counts more than 2 million people aged 18 to 35 in the addressable workforce, 642,000 people with B2-level English and over 10,000 new ICT graduates every year.Attitude matters as much as the numbers. In Kenya, a customer experience role is a real first step into a professional career, and agents treat it that way. They want the training, the coaching and the progression that come with it. For a partner, that means steadier teams, stronger process adherence and less time spent replacing people.
What comes next
In 2026, interest in Kenya went from polite at CCW Berlin to German and European BPO leaders flying to Nairobi to find partners. My thanks to CCV, to GIZ and to every company that made the trip.
If you're considering Nairobi for a client programme, tell me the languages, team size and launch date you have in mind. I can walk you through what Nakama Tech would handle under your brand and how quickly we could get the team live.
If you’d like to continue the conversation or explore what this shift might mean for your organisation, our team is always open to connecting - click through to CEO George Jabesh or EU Marketing Director Chris Hague .