Yes, there is such a thing as a free lunch… Horses For Sources' official LinkedIn Group, the aptly-named "BPO and Offshoring Best Practices Forum" now has 7,000 members. This is a forum for leading sourcing practitioners to share their experiences, views, opinions, best practices and lessons learned in the worlds of IT Outsourcing, Business Process Outsourcing, Shared Services and Offshoring. You also get a free subscription to the Horses Digest. And it's FREE…
Not too many service providers have had a bigger impact on the world of Business Process Outsourcingin recent years than General Electric’s former offshore captive, Genpact. And much of this rapid growth to a billion dollars of revenue and a global delivery network, can be credited to one individual – the tenacious “Tiger” Tyagarajan (simply known as Tiger to anyone who knows him). And what an apt name for the wee fellow.
I can recall, just a few short years’ ago, when Tiger was fronting Genpact’s US business and taking on the major incumbent BPO providers such as Accenture, ACS, HP and IBM, with stories of Six Sigma excellence and Virtual Captives; dazzling firms such as Kimberly-Clark,
Wachovia and Cadbury Schweppes in the process. And when he’s not absorbed with cricket statistics
, or studying human behavioral patterns (don’t ask..), Tiger now spends his life on a plane somewhere en route to (or from) New Delhi, as COO of the firm.
I managed to pin Tiger down recently in a roof-deck bar in steamy downtown Chicago, where we engaged on some key developments in the BPO industry….
Phil Fersht (PF): Tiger, you’ve been in the F&A BPO industry since its inception – how has the industry changed over the last 5 years? How has the introduction of offshore delivery changed the dynamic?
Tiger Tyagarajan (TT): The overall Business Process Outsourcing Industry has changed dramatically in the last 5 years and within that clearly F and A has been one of the lead “engines “ of that change. I would characterize this change along 4 dimensions :
1. It is now part of every CFO’s thinking vs being a discussion only in select companies , this includes almost every industry , every geography and companies of radically different sizes
2. Global delivery is part of every such discussion , be it from China , Latin America , Easter Europe , India
3. The motivations have also changed from being just cost to leveraging talent , bringing in new expertise , domain knowledge and best practices , accelerating the journey to best in class
4. There is desire and vision to think well beyond just simple transactional work to complex work like Financial Planning , Pricing , Tax , Treasury and Closing and Reporting etc to name a few
PF: Do you see India continuing its dominance as the prime offshore provider of F&A, or do you see China, Latin America and other regions getting more in on the game in the future?
TT: Just in terms of “share of wallet “ India will continue to dominate amongst offshore delivery locations for F and A driven by 2 reasons :
1. English will be the dominant language needed and India has just an abundance of supply that no other country can match
2. Given the scale and maturity of F & A delivery and capabilities, India is in an advantageous position to deliver more higher-end decision making and analytical F &A work, and hence typically transactional will go with that. However, as globalization continues one of the interesting dynamics is not dominance driven by scale but “criticality for Global delivery “ and here I think China is hugely important …. How can anyone claim global delivery and a global solution unless they are really strong and robust in China , particularly as Asian economies grow faster than other parts of the world and China continues to become an even more important player in the global economy
PF: What does the BPO industry need to do next to improve, both from the client and service provider standpoint?
TT: The single biggest issue the overall industry both providers and clients are grappling with is moving away from just pure cost as a single metric to being able to measure true effectiveness of processes and delivery and being able to create a roadmap and a journey to dramatically improve this effectiveness and outcomes of processes .
In some sense everyone is missing the “forest for the trees”. Creating that shared vision, partnering on that journey and having the tools and methodology almost the “Science of processes “ is what is needed to get there
PF: We all understand the benefits sourcing advisors bring to the table when helping clients find a service partner, but can they change their approach to help their clients, beyond getting favorable contract terms for their customers?
I really believe it is important for the more progressive sourcing advisors to step back and rethink their role and the value they are supposed to bring to the table. Some of them tend to narrowly focus on short term favorable contract terms for their customers , but this is a business where impact is created through a long term partnership , through a journey to drive continuous improvement and most importantly through a roadmap to drive Process Effectiveness – not just efficiency. How can the advisors facilitate a process between a buyer and a provider in creating the right partnership model that makes it a long term Win Win for everyone. How do they tie some of their incentive structure to actually some of these goals being achieved ?
PF: Do you really see this merging of application and BPO delivery to create these “platform BPO” offerings, or is it more of an attempt by the ITO vendors to gain a foothold in the BPO market? How should the experienced BPO service providers approach hosting financial applications for their clients?
TT: My view is that “platform BPO “ is another jargon of the industry. Of course it is used as a way to compete by ITO providers , they have to compete that way they don’t have an option. However, the reality is that so many IT implementations have failed because the functional specs were wrong , or the process was broken and created defects , or people just bypassed the technology .
There is no question in my mind that the world and corporations have grossly underestimated the “Power of Process “ and for too long assumed that technology is the panacea of all evils. Sure, if those who handle a process also host the application then you can offer different pricing models such as “pay by the drink “ etc . But my point is that if the people implementing an Oracle or SAP or some other ERP know what causes suppliers to send bills in late , why customers sometimes do not pay their bills on time , what typically causes unreconciled accounts to buildup …. That is where value and success lies in that deep insight and knowledge around process knowledge
PF: Where do you see the industry moving next? Is KPO/analytics a reality in the near-term, or do you see the focus more on getting the basic processes right for a while longer?
TT: I believe that the more evolved providers are already using data and analytics to change the way processes and businesses run. We don’t call it KPO or analytics as we believe that it needs to be part of the process. Every day there is data flowing through that has the capability if analyzed of throwing up insights that can drive real business impact
Would it not be “cool “ to know the moment I have a customer invoice sitting unpaid as a receivable the following 3 things:
1. What is the probability that this customer will pay without a call
2. After how many days if he has not paid should he be called about it
3. What trends in the customer receivables and portfolio is one seeing in terms of risk and credit quality deterioration
And use all this insight to drive DSOs down and cash flow up
PF: And finally, your rise to the pinnacle of the BPO industry is unquestioned. What pearls of wisdom can you share for young executives today looking to build successful careers in BPO? Any specific training/experience they should look to get?
TT: Thank you , Phil you are being too kind !!
While it may sound clichéd, I am a passionate believer that to grow and be successful in this industry you need to have a real passion for the customer. You need to truly believe and start with the premise that they are always right. You need to find a way to weave this into your fabric as an individual, team and company.
The other recommendation I would have is that there is no question that you have to “be global “. Have you spent substantial time in Global assignments? Have you managed global teams ?
Finally, at some level you need to be an expert in some “domain “ , expertise area , industry . You have to be a thought leader . The earlier in your career one does it the faster one will rise later !
Tiger, thanks for being a good Horse – I am sure everyone hear appreciates your time to share your views on the industry. Good luck with the cricket – just lose to England for once (please…).
NV “Tiger” Tyagarajan (Pictured) is the Chief Operating Officer of Genpact. He is credited as one of the pioneers who transformed GE Capital International Services (now Genpact) into a high-end business services and technology solutions company with over $1 billion in revenues, which serves global enterprises in the banking & finance, insurance, manufacturing, transportation and business-services sectors.
I just read yet another media article, this time in the WSJ, on the downsides of using social media tools such as Facebook. While the theme of this article is spot-on, it's merely journalistic negativity to bash a new way of doing things.
Facebook is a great tool because you control how you use it. Yes, it's rude not to accept a friend-request from a colleague, but you can do so in a way that they will never see your updates and you can choose not to see theirs'. They are essentially becoming an addition to your contact database where you can view their contacts too.
And if you find my status updates irritating, then turn off my updates, or de-friend me. I don't want you… if you don't want me. For every 20 great interactions I have, one person may get annoyed, or I may get annoyed by someone else. That person can then remove my updates, of I can remove theirs', so that ratio now moves to thirty-to-one, and so on. Yes, Facebook
newbies may be over-excited with their initial interactions, but they will quickly learn the etiquette of how to manage their social network. And if they don't, then ease them out of your inner circle.
I love Facebook because, unlike Twitter, I control my environment. I choose who's in there and I can develop mindless relationships with people I like (or just find amusing). My job is so busy, so intense, that the few minutes a day spent reading about what people have for lunch, what they think of Delta, or the severity of their hangover, is a pleasant relief after hours of discussing cost-containment measures with some finance director…
I now have friends I would never have had if it wasn't for this silly application. True, nothing beats a pie-and-a-pint, but you can only do that with people in your home town. What's more, I don't always have time to pick up the phone to interact, and I certainly don't have a lot of time for pies and pints these days. But a few seconds to type mindless banter with friendly folks? Works for me everytime…
After our little debate the other day about who is influencing decision-makers these days, I found Ray Wang's new career move worth mentioning…
Ray's joined former Forrester Research "rock star analyst" colleagues Charlene Li, Jeremiah Owyang at consulting outfit Altimeter Group, headed by Internet pioneer Deborah Schultz. They also announced the launch of "The Hanger," a physical space intended to bring together the ecosystem of emerging technologies, thought leaders, business and service providers to innovate and bring new ideas to life. I asked Ray (pictured) this morning why he's doing this:
"Because the rate of technology obsolescence now outpaces the pace of technology adoption, organizations need new enterprise strategies to cope with the massive forces of change they face".
I also asked Ray if he'd say exactly the same thing after a few shots of tequila… This ecosystem development of today's influencers and thought-leaders is the culmination of the impact social media has had on the technology industry. People want immediate relevant, impactful advice and information – and from people whose opinion they trust. The question now is how consulting and advisory firms can make money providing it, and where today's decision-makers go to be "influenced". Interesting times… let's keep the discussion rolling.
Wouldn't it had been something if there had been some sort of interactive journal during the Great Depression, where we could have truly experienced the emotions of the time, peoples' ideas for change, the stark contrasts between desperation and hope?
It's been a geniune privelege to have hosted these emotional debates throughout the entire Great Recession of 2008-9. It's incredible how attitudes have changed over these tough months – I don't know about you, but I feel a little wiser as a result – and the great interaction I have enjoyed and observed with so many of you, has made this all possible.
Here's the whole story of the Great Recession and it's impact on the global sourcing industry (in chronological order):
Prolific blogster and all-round industry pundit Vinnie Mirchandani asks whether the IIAR's definition of the analyst is outdated. He also begs the question whether my good friend Ray Wang, who has recently left research firm Forrester, will repeat his honor next year. Unless old-school PR executives get with the changing times, somehow I doubt it.
Vinnie goes on to declare "seems like AR (Analyst Relations) folks want to cling to a narrow (and shrinking) definition of market influencers." I didn't even feature in the top 3 services analysts, despite the fact there are 45,000 RSS subscribers to this blog and my calendar is booked solid until well beyond Labor Day with client meetings (but I promised my wife to keep my ego in check, so will not venture further with my little dig here…). I haven't even heard of these "top 3" guys… but they seem to be "influencing" far more than I seem to be. Maybe I need to get myself double-booked next time?
To cut to the chase, our marketing agencies need to broaden their horizons beyond stale analyst models and look at who is really influencing the decision-makers. My firm AMR Research, for example, has a huge subscriber-base of Global 1000 clients and a deep vertical focus, but didn't get a single mention, while none of the sourcing advisors, such as Alsbridge, Equaterra, Everest or TPI get viewed as industry influencers, despite playing pivotal roles in influencing and brokering many of today's outsourcing and services engagements. Meanwhile, some analyst firms which focus predominantly on procuring vendor business - not buyers – get mentioned in these ratings. And none of the industry's top bloggers get so much as a mention. Analysts should be rated on the following criteria:
2) Vendor-selection influence (number of actual deal-flows influenced, number of user clients);
3) Quality of buyer-focused research (new ideas, unbiased thinking);
4) Respect from vendors;
5) Respect from buyers;
5) Proven industry longevity.
As many of the analyst "rock stars" leave the traditional analyst industry, such as Ray and, even more recently, star social-media analyst Jeremiah Owyang, isn't it time for marketing and PR folks to look further-afield to identify the new industry influencers? With the new era of social-media upon us, and new entities partaking in thought-leadership, isn't it time for new influencers to be recognized: those people actually communicating with – and enlightening – today's decision-makers?
I spent much of last week at InsofysBPO's customer summit in Baltimore. Infy always does a good job with their events – they bring their customers together and encourage open, unstructured debate, where the good, bad and plain ugly about BPO and ITO are openly discussed. They know the best way to win business is through baring their DNA to customers and encouraging them to trust and want to work with them.
They also invited some industry personalities to wax on about their vision for the future – and some predicted rampant "consolidation among suppliers". I say they are wrong – they are clinging to their knowledge of the past and are not re-adjusting their perspective to the present. I'd be surprised if we ever see
another merger like EDS/HP for a very long time. I don't even think we'll see a lot of smaller-scale service provider mergers. And you can call me on this one if I am wrong. I've seen a couple of providers hawking themselves on the market for a while, and they're struggling find a buyer. I don't believe this is about a price/stock-swap negotiation; I believe it's because they aren't bringing the right stuff to the table anymore for the new breed of service providers.
The way to win clients today is to show them what you're all about, what you stand for, what you believe in, and what your customers really think of you. I see this style being reflected by a handful of service providers today - and it's not a staged selling strategy: it's actually real. These providers generally want the platform to present their passion, energy, dedication, and willingness to improve to their prospective customers. And more and more these days, customers can detect real passion from service providers during a pursuit process, as opposed to the salemanship of "going through the motions". Today's branding in services is far more about the culture of the delivery staff customers will be working with, and less about tag-lines, sexy marketing and past reputations.
What I am also learning myself, is the future direction of our industry unraveling. It's no longer simply about scale. I still hear the daily rumors about whom is buying who, but I barely believe these anymore. ITO and BPO is about culture and industry specialization – tell me where you can buy that these days? You don't buy it, you build it – and you build it buy partnering with new clients and assimilating their knowledge and talent into your own culture.
Today's battle-ground is largely focused on transactional deals, but the new differentiators are centered on industry knowledge and expertise. Most of the leading service providers today can put on a good show for basic application development, or transactional finance / procurement / analytics work. But which of them can boast genuine industry expertise where they can align specific business knowledge with process transformation, underpinned by technology integration expertise?
The only way these service providers can develop this expertise is through smart client acquisitions, where they can re-badge personnel with intimate industry knowledge and share this intellect across other delivery staff. You can only acquire this knowledge when you invest in new clients, as opposed to buying up new scale with transactional contracts, accumulated from yesteryear's' engagements.
It's time for new thinking, not the same old mentality of biggest is always best from the old-school…
There were a few alarm-bells ringing in the outsourcing industry with TPI's shaky Q2 results. As our recent buy-side survey data indicates, in addition to the multitude of service providers and consultants, outsourcing interest and uptake is on the rebound, so what should we read into TPI's 38% drop in revenues from Q2 2008? I spoke to leaders of all the key sourcing advisors to get their candid input on how their firms were faring, and whether TPI’s results are reflective of the sourcing industry in general.
Rival Equaterra, which is currently privately held, reports to us that its Q2 results have increased 10% over 2008, expects Q3 to perform well, and is encouraged by strong IT outsourcing activity, with on-plan BPO advisory business. Another rival, Alsbridge, added: “First half revenues are up 40% on a 1st half ‘08 to 1st half ‘09 comparison. Across the board, we see good demand
for the final half of 09. No really new areas. Same old ITO, F&A, multi-process BPO and SSC.”
However, it’s not a rosy picture for everyone. Another competitor volunteered: “We’re seeing some new ITO opportunities, but these are contingent on clients securing the funds to pay us. Many are choosing to go it alone. This has been a terrible year so far.” Another added: “Since March, each month is looking better. July and August are stronger than most summers”.
Other advisors report a soft Q2, but consistently view a much improved pipeline of business for Q3. Some are enjoying a ramp-up of F&A BPO business, while all see strength in IT outsourcing evaluations. While payroll outsourcing is still hot, demand for end-to-end HR Outsourcing appears very weak across the board. In addition, several service providers have stated increased aggression from advisors looking for consulting income from the sell-side, as they seek to fill revenue holes created by the weak market.
So what can we read into all this?
Customers having other priorities during “shellshock spell”. We’ll all look back on the time between Oct 2008 and June 2009 as a period of shell-shock for most commercial organizations. This hasn’t been a usual recession where firms carve out some costs, make a layoff and move on, it’s been a time for deep business reflection and structural change to the way we do business. This recession has proved that many firms took their time before making decisions that result in business upheaval, and most have been extra careful about hiring consulting help until they are sure they know what route to take. Only now are we starting to see a rebound in widespread outsourcing evaluation activity, and this is reflected in the uptick in business from several of the advisors. This has been a tough period for the consulting period in general, and nearly all major consulting firms have endured widespread layoffs. One management consultancy partner confessed (after several martinis), that his firm made such a deep cut, it even managed to sever consultants who were on billable client engagements.
Deals are smaller and hefty consulting fees are hard to justify. This is probably the biggest issue for sourcing advisors – it’s easy to justify spending $1m for engaging an advisor to broker a $50m deal, but it generally requires a similar effort when you’re evaluating a $10m deal. TPI (and others’) traditional consulting model is simply not geared up to the smaller engagements – how can you perform work of the same quality with significantly less resources and expertise? Customers are resorting to using lighter-touch models (i.e. a retainer service), analyst “on-tap” services, or simply muddling their way through themselves and pounding whomever then can for information and advice. What worries me is the influx of some lawyers who are driving clients straight to a contractual negotiation with service providers, and bypassing much of the due diligence necessary to make the right sourcing decisions. They focus far too much on punitive contracts and not nearly enough on supporting smart governance models and outcome-based approaches.
Other players are stealing marketshare. To be fair to TPI, it has been a victim of its own success, and has found itself defending a substantial marketshare lead during a very tough period for sourcing advisory firms. Any market weakness is going to be much more visible for this publicly-held firm. With revenues in the region of $200m, their nearest competition enjoys barely half this amount. To cut to the chase, they’ve been on a hiding-for-nothing of late.
The increasing presence in this space of most of the leading management consultants, lawyers, boutiques, one-man-shows, analysts and other intermediaries, is spreading the business across an increasing number players. Firms such as AT Kearney, Deloitte, KPMG and PwC have no choice but to embrace smart outsourcing advisory, as most of their enterprise clients need help and support – especially those looking to break out of expensive shared service models. Many distressed firms who know little about outsourcing, but are now having a serious look, tend to gravitate to the bigger brands, as they simply are not aware of specialist advisors, such as Alsbridge, Equaterra, Everest, TPI and W Group.
The nature of advice and support customers need it quickly changing. Simply put, buyers are getting smarter at this and many have their own smart PMOs which know how to conduct a lot of the sourcing evaluation work (or at least think they can). Remember all the consultants who made a packet doing ERP evaluations in the ‘90s? Well, commodity outsourcing isn’t a whole lot different when service levels become standardized, and pricing information much more readily available from multiple sources. Today’s advisors need to demonstrate more business consulting acumen and less of the operational process-focused stuff. The next generation of winners in this space will be those with industry-specific expertise, have access to relevant and credible research and benchmarks (either their own, or from credible analysts), and can develop sourcing strategies that are outcome-based, not simply driven from cost-inputs.
What a crazy market, but you can’t say we’re left with a dull moment these days… comments and insights always welcome,
The new wave of BPO deployment has arrived quicker than many of us anticipated. The recession has driven some common-sense into a BPO value-proposition that was previously centered predominantly on some form of labor arbitrage, with many service providers muddling their way through to attempt to run their clients' process for less cost – and make some sort of profit. Sometimes they pulled it off, other times they failed. Many are currently in a state of semi-transition, with the success of their BPO engagement still hanging in the balance.
Now we've clearly arrived at a turning point in BPO development, which we can put into the following three categories:
1) Straight Lift and Shift: the antiquated form of BPO where client takes "as-is" processes, hands them off to a provider, which subsequently attempts to run with lower staff costs. In many cases it's a simple "re-badge" of existing personnel, with the provider simply employing smaller numbers of the existing delivery team to make a profit on the deal. In most modern cases, the provider will supplement onshore staff with offshore. There is little (or no) enhancement of software applications to standardize workflows and add a modicum of transformation into the engagement.
Likely outcome: Inefficiencies with processes are magnified considerably, change-orders and procedural changes are cumbersome and expensive, client finds it challenging to reduce onshore headcount, and anticipated cost-reduction is not reached.
2) Lift, Shift and Transform: Same as Lift and Shift, but the client and service provider work together to re-map existing processes onto a pre-defined new set of processes.
These can often be standard and may adhere to a particular ERP template, of could be customized to requirements specific to the customer. The client and provider need to determine the incremental transformation costs and price them accordingly over the course of the contract (or as a single fixed fee).
Likely outcome: Initial challenges as processes are moved offshore, but standardization on new technology should create new efficiencies and the opportunity to eliminate unnecessary process steps. Initial cost savings may not be as much as a pure process play, but the aggregated savings over a multi-year period are almost always greater.
3) Tranform onto a standard offering with some degree of personalization: My good friend at SAP, Gianni Giacomelli, sent me in some of his thoughts on this standardization/personalization balance, so am going to hand you over for his thoughts here. Over to you Gianni:
I argue that a few service providers can and should get smarter at executing on the key vision the industry was built on: service provider being better (read: cost, quality, risk) than each individual client because it syndicates practices and scale across customers.
Trouble is, this is not “business as usual” for many service providers with a technology system-integration background, where you get paid for the extra frills you do on each customer. And it is not easy for those coming from small-scope services, who struggle with the intricacies of a consultative value-sale cycle. It will take guts and smarts, but it can be done – like it has been done in many industries where process and technology maturation suddenly help business models change. Here are some key tenets.
Decide scientifically what scope you really want
Here the concept is simple but the analysis is not banal – which means that the right people, if well determined, can build a competitive advantage out of this.
Scope decisions mean analyzing which processes benefit from standardization, i.e. for which ones the cost per unit decreases when volume goes up, or which ones can be optimized from “typical practice” to “best practice” even if at the same level of scale. In both cases providers need to standardize the way they do certain things – otherwise they do not attain the required scale, or are not able to achieve the transformation required to reach “best practice”.
Standardization can happen along two dimensions: processes (e.g. invoice management, dunning, garnishments, …) or delivery layers (automation tools, self-services, tier-1 contact centers, tier-2 global experts, tier-3 local experts). There are methodologies that can help this exercise – again concepts are simple, but implementation not trivial. First, identify what is material: forget about the “long tail” of small subprocesses, especially the ones you know are guarded by anxious stakeholders, as they might distract you from the big picture. This is not banal, as often the cost of service delivery is not well understood at single-process level. Effectively, the provider will need to perform a BPO-specific activity-based costing (ABC) of the design, build, run phases of the service.
Then: providers can start top-down with benchmark-type data to determine the economic behavior of such processes/layers when scale or best practices are applied, or (if you suspect external benchmarks are inappropriate) they can benchmark different client organizational units of the same company and ultimately get to the same result; alternatively, they can work bottom-up and identify processes where resource utilization is poor because of demand volatility (a perfect candidate for pooling resources, thereby increasing utilization), or where fixed costs (e.g. automation, implementation of self-service portals, setting up physical facilities) are substantial and therefore scale becomes key.
This exercise will also help pinning down what should NOT be standardized, and either left to the client retained organization or kept in the outsourced scope but allowed to be personalized. While these processes may dilute the overall “provider advantage”, they can be valuable for horse-trading when it comes to agreeing with the client.
Gianni Giacomelli (pictured) is Head of Strategy and Marketing for SAP’s BPO business unit.
Yes, there is such a thing as a free lunch… Horses For Sources' official LinkedIn Group, the aptly-named "BPO and Offshoring Best Practices Forum" now has 7,000 members. This is a forum for leading sourcing practitioners to share their experiences, views, opinions, best practices and lessons learned in the worlds of IT Outsourcing, Business Process Outsourcing, Shared Services and Offshoring. You also get a free subscription to the Horses Digest. And it's FREE…
Facebook is a great tool because you control how you use it. Yes, it's rude not to accept a friend-request from a colleague, but you can do so in a way that they will never see your updates and you can choose not to see theirs'. They are essentially becoming an addition to your contact database where you can view their contacts too.
Prolific blogster and all-round industry pundit 
The new wave of BPO deployment has arrived quicker than many of us anticipated. The recession has driven some common-sense into a BPO value-proposition that was previously centered predominantly on some form of labor arbitrage, with many service providers muddling their way through to attempt to run their clients' process for less cost – and make some sort of profit. Sometimes they pulled it off, other times they failed. Many are currently in a state of semi-transition, with the success of their BPO engagement still hanging in the balance. 
