Strategies in BPO Sector

Business Process Outsourcing

BPO is the process of hiring another company to handle business activities for you. BPO is distinct from information technology (IT) outsourcing, which focuses on hiring a third-party company or service provider to do IT-related activities, such as application management and application development, data center operations, or testing and quality assurance.

Indian BPO Industry

India has maintained its leadership position in the global BPO landscape. Indias share of the global BPO sourcing market is around 37 per cent. BPO revenues stand at USD 16 billion in FY2012. Employment stood at 876,000. The number of organizations offering BPO services in India is now 500+. India is the market leader for the BPO industry with projections of revenue in excess of US$80 billion by 2015; last year revenue was in excess of US$ 30 billion.

Interesting facts about the Indian BPO industry

The BPO sector in India is estimated to have reached a 54 per cent growth in revenue. The demand for Indian BPO services has been growing at an annual growth rate of 50%. The BPO industry in India has provided jobs for over 74,400 Indians. This number is continuing to grow on a yearly basis. The Indian BPO sector is soon to employ over 1.1 million Indians. 70% of India's BPO industry's revenue is from contact centers, 20% from data entry work and the remaining 10% from information technology related work. Indian BPOs handle 56% of the world's business process outsourcing.

Indias Key Selling points

Critical mass of targeted skill-sets English speaking Geographical-location advantages Investment incentives in the sector Strong Industry support Strong supportive BPO Association (NASSCOM) Electronics & Software Exports Promotion Council (provides marketing function)

Services offered by Indian BPO companies

Customer support services: 24X7 inbound / outbound call center services that address customer queries and concerns through phone, email and live chat. Technical support services: Installation, product support, running support, troubleshooting, usage support and problem resolution for computer software, hardware, peripherals and internet infrastructure. Telemarketing services: Interacting with potential customers and creating interest for the customer's services/ products. Up-selling, promoting and cross selling to existing customers and completing online sales processes. IT help desk services: Level 1 and 2 multi-channel support, system problem resolutions, technical problem resolution, office productivity tools support, answering product usage queries and performing remote diagnostics.

Data entry and data processing: Data entry from paper, books, images, ebooks, yellow pages, web sites, business cards, printed documents, software applications, receipts, bills, catalogs and mailing lists. Data conversion services: Data conversion for databases, word processors, spreadsheets and software applications. Data conversion of raw data into PDF, HTML, Word or Acrobat formats. Bookkeeping and accounting services: Maintenance of the customer's general ledger, accounts receivables, accounts payables, financial statements, bank reconciliations and assets / equipment ledgers. Form processing services: Online form processing, payroll processing, medical billing, insurance claim forms processing and medical forms processing. Online research: Internet search, product research, market research, surveys, analysis, web research and mailing list research.

Industries which BPO serves

Banking and Financial Services

Healthcare
Insurance Manufacturing

Media and Entertainment

Retail and Consumer Products Shipping and Logistics

Telecommunications
Travel and Leisure Utilities and Energy

Challenges and Strategies to cope them

Banking & Financial Services Industries
Challenge: The Banking and Financial Services (BFS) industry is experiencing significant turmoil. Market volatility, increased regulation, shrinking demand, globalization and competition are driving the industry to adopt new operating models. Banking BPO (Business Process Outsourcing) and Financial Services Outsourcing has been adopted as a key strategy to survive and thrive.
Strategy : Banking BPO and Financial Services Outsourcing delivers services across Retail Banking, Commercial Banking, Investment Banking, Mortgage, and Wealth Management. Value to clients business is added by improving their customer satisfaction, unlocking cost efficiencies and streamlining processes through continuous improvements and technology optimization.

Healthcare Industry
Challenges: Rising cost of healthcare, increased adoption of technology, prevalence of quality- and performance-based reimbursement models, evolving physician-hospital -patient dynamics are forcing the healthcare industry to recast business and care delivery processes. Strategy: Healthcare Business Process Outsourcing solutions help healthcare companies extend their enterprise. Deep domain expertise, global delivery network and strong focus on operational excellence allow healthcare companies to focus on their core business and on their business processes. BPOs best practices and proprietary tools and methodologies are used to improve patient satisfaction, reduce operational costs while streamlining processes through continuous improvements and technology optimization.

Insurance Industry

Challenges: The insurance industry is challenged by competitive pressures, changes in customer loyalty, entry of new players and a stringent regulatory environment, all of which are pressuring insurers to change their business models, streamline operations, and improve processes. Industry leaders are increasingly turning to insurance outsourcing to help them compete and grow.

Strategy: Building upon deep experience of delivering business processes for several of the worlds leading insurers, BPO combines deep domain expertise, strong talent and operational excellence to allow insurers focus on their core business and business processes.

Manufacturing Industry

Challenges: Manufacturing companies must rapidly move towards a globally integrated business model. Managing this complex globally integrated business model is driving companies to leverage outsourcing as a key strategy plank.

Strategy: BPO employees, working as an extension of our clients' enterprises, help manufacturing enterprises leverage outsourcing as a strategy for competing better in the global marketplace.

Media and Entertainment

Challenges: The Media and Entertainment industry is a dynamic space where change is the only constant. Companies operating in this industry are facing multiple challenges on different fronts. The convergence of different media, the decline of traditional media and the emergence of New Media have led to a transformed new-age business and consumer engagement paradigm. At the same time, saturation of established markets and emergence of newer competitors are putting increased pressure on margins. Strategy: Plan and execute growth strategies so as to capitalize on digital transition. Connect seamlessly and engage the consumer in a unique and interactive real-time experience. Improve operational efficiency and cost-effectiveness with process excellence and intelligent platforms.

Retail and CPG Industries

Challenges: Market Saturation and Increased Globalization. Consumerization. Complex and Expensive Supply Chain Operations. Intense Pressure on Margins. Strategies: Devise and execute smart growth strategies. Provide a seamless multi-channel end-customer experience. Build collaborative and agile supply chains to rationalize costs and manage global demand. Enhance profit margins with process excellence and intelligent platforms.

Shipping and Logistics

The need for a Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) solution in Shipping and Logistics as a strategy to improve efficiencies, and reduce cost of operations. Provide a wide range of services, across rule-based and knowledge-based processes. Integrate the right people, technology and tools to deliver operational excellence, customized solutions and actionable insights at a reduced cost.

Telecommunications

Outsourcing has the potential of helping telecommunications companies in Managing cost pressures. Gain access to specialized resources. Optimize existing investments and establish a flexible strategy to retain and acquire more customers.

Travel and Leisure

Challenges: The travel and leisure industry is faced with rapidly rising costs, changing customer needs and economic pressures. WNS helps enterprises leverage BPO as a strategy to gain competitive advantage by better managing and leading this transformation. Strategies: The combination of BPO offerings, industry best practices and proprietary tools and methodologies add value to our clients' processes by helping them improve customer service, reduce costs and streamline processes through efficiency, quality and productivity improvements.

Utilities Industry

Challenges: Globalization has brought new opportunities and challenges to the utility and energy industry. Growing global energy demands and supply constraints are making it increasingly difficult to manage revenue cycles and cost structures. Consumers expect better and expanded services at the same cost which requires the industry to rethink their strategies and delivery model to meet market expectations.

The utilities industry has to manage internal challenges in the form of: Redundant IT portfolio across disparate organizations; High Operational Costs; Business Resilience Challenges; and End-of-life platforms.
Strategies: helping clients outperform across the entire Utilities value chain. Delivers business value to its clients through a combination of highly industrialized back-office, leading-edge technology platforms and sophisticated analytical tools. Offer end-to-end solutions that allow Utilities companies to transform their operations.

Indian BPO: Re-engineering to Remain Relevant

The Indian BPO industry has emerged as a preferred partner for global clients from last 20 years. It is much more about Business Process Management, with the sector remodeling itself to move from efficiency to effectiveness. Expectations of both customers and vendors are changing, there is a need to follow a middle path. The Indian BPO industry is already doing so by Developing future-ready solutions by following a verticalized approach (creating in-depth capabilities across verticals). Achieving service delivery excellence. The result of this effort is that India continues to be a leader in the BPO space, accounting for over 37 per cent of the total global sourcing BPO. In order to sustain this edge, the industry now needs to focus on process excellence, newer models and best practices, and emerging opportunities such as Big Data and Data Analytics.

Envisions to-be models, comprising: Operational model (how would the service work?) Commercial model (who would be responsible for what?) Transition approach (how would we move from the as-is to the to-be?). Identifies the risks associated with the to-be models and develops risk management actions.. Determines whether there is a business case by comparing as-is with to-be. Lays out the implementation path for the selected option.

NASSCOM initiatives for BPO

Over the past few years, NASSCOM has undertaken affirmative step to: Ensure secure hiring processes. Generate talent pool for the BPO industry voice and nonvoice Help sector emerge as a preferred employer. Ensure Indias competitiveness versus China, Philippines, South America and South Africa, that are coming up as alternative BPO destinations. Develop an industry-level branding strategy.

Top 15 BPO companies in India for the year 2011-12 announced by NASSCOM

From BPO to BPM

The new era of Business processes highlights transformation from piecemeal outsourcing to complete business process management solutions (Rebranding from BPO to BPM). It brings a combination of deep expertise and commitment to business excellence. The re-branding of the industry will give it the identity of being a full-service value provider rather than an industry that plays only in the lower-end of the services spectrum. It broadens the ambit of the services that the BPO industry currently provides. It no longer matters whether those services are outsourced, shared, managed, or captive. All these are simply the different delivery models that customers can continue to choose from. Today, the industry has a more strategic and intellectual role to play. Industry had already shifted gears, from providing pure-play call centre and process outsourcing services to more serious, sophisticated and mature offerings.

The BPO Story: Pains & Gains of Remodeling/Reinventing

More than two years ago, BPOs started as vendors who could help companies cut costs (as much as up to 40 per cent) by taking a few functions and delivering them remotely. The financial services industry lapped it up, saw benefit and other sectors followed suit. As the sector and the productivity delivered grew, the demands on the vendors grew. Customers enthusiasm curled up a bit and they wanted more value for the money spent. So past few years have seen tighter margins, more regulatory pressures and the customer holding the precious money to their chest. In response, the vendors shrank, optimized operations and cut their own costs. But there is only as much for a vendor to do without getting into a downward spiral of service quality by letting people go and not paying for the right kind of skills.

Gains
As clients have continued to increase pressure on vendors to deliver more value, the vendors actually have moved up to become strategic & innovation partners with domain expertise. Customers are actually finding value in paying for the same. Services delivered are no longer transactional but include knowledge management, business process innovation, co-creation

of products and services, and the creation of new intellectual

property.

Seven themes of BPM

The Three Service Models of BPM

Key Highlights
BPM services exports grew by 12.2 per cent to USD 16 billion in FY2012, largely driven by future ready solutions of platform + cloud and creating customer impact though service delivery excellence. Within BPM, though Customer Interaction revenues have largely remained flat over the last 4 years, the growth areas have been more profound in procurement, F&A and HRO. Indian BPO firms are developing future-ready solutions platform + cloud and creating customer impact through service delivery excellence New age solutions are the key differentiating enablers for innovation that leverage technology-enabled platforms to operationalize business processes combining effective delivery models. Customers are pushing for greater alignment of service, sales, marketing, and branding so that they can interact with an organization in a cohesive manner.

 Several megatrends to reshape the industry going forward, enabling expansion of capabilities and delivery excellence facilitated by evolution of a wide array of new services, business models, expertise, standardization and technology enabled solutions. Faster growth and expansion of GICs will further stimulate newer opportunities in the market. Newer opportunities like Verticalization, Customer collaboration, Customer centricity, SMAC offerings (social media and analytics, cloud, big data, platforms-based solutions) are re-architecting the traditional processes and also redefining the current spectrum of customer satisfaction. Domestic BPM segment grew by 17 per cent in FY2012, to reach Rs 149 billion, driven by demand from voice-based (including local language) services and increasing adoption by both traditional and emerging verticals, including the government.