Last week, we welcomed our first German visa customers to our centre in Nairobi, Kenya. This followed the successful launch of new operations for Germany in Tunis, Tunisia in April. Over the next six months, TLScontact will be opening new centres for Germany across Africa and the Middle East, including three centres in Saudi Arabia. This will take the total number of visa application centres operated by TLScontact for Germany to 26, in 14 different countries.
A six-month rollout period
On May 3rd, our colleagues in Kenya were delighted to welcome our first German visa customers to our visa application centre in the capital, Nairobi. This followed a decision by the German authorities to outsource Schengen visa applications for the first time in Kenya, as part of a regional procurement process run in 2021. This new contract will see TLScontact open new visa operations for Germany across Africa and the Middle East in the next six months.
In April, TLScontact took over visa processing in Tunis, Tunisia from the previous supplier. We also launched a document legalisation service for the German authorities that we already offer at our existing German visa application centres in Egypt and Morocco. This autumn, we will be opening a new centre for Germany in Hurghada, Egypt, and launching new operations in Tanzania and Uganda. We will also be opening three centres in Saudi Arabia: in Al-Khobar, Jeddah and Riyadh.
The second new regional contract with Germany in two years
TLScontact was officially awarded this new outsourcing contract with Germany in October 2021. This followed a previous contract win in 2019 to run visa processing activities for the German authorities in seven different locations in Sub-Saharan Africa.
As our Client Director, Antoine Rault, explains:
“This is a great illustration of the strong relationship that we have built with the German authorities in recent years. In early 2020, we successfully rolled out new centres in Sub-Saharan Africa and we then took over additional visa outsourcing activities for Germany during the Covid-19 pandemic, in the Balkans, Ireland and the UK. This gave us a strong track record going into the new procurement process in 2021 for visa outsourcing in North and East Africa and the Middle East. We are delighted with this new vote of confidence from the German authorities and our teams will be working hard to demonstrate that we can deliver excellent client and customer service in these new locations.”
Strong teamwork to prepare for opening
We have put in place a cross-functional team that is now focused on ensuring the timely launch of our new German operations and a smooth transition from any existing suppliers. This requires close collaboration with the German authorities at both the central and local levels and strong programme management, to coordinate the different workstreams.
Read our article Successfully managing transition to a new visa outsourcing partner.
As part of the new contract, we are deploying TLSclient, a dedicated platform to provide German government case workers a single access to our systems and facilitate their day-to-day contact with our local operations teams. Later this year, we will also be rolling out our Enterprise Feedback Management programme for Germany, to allow us to harness real-time customer insights to drive improvements in our service offer.