MIKE:<\/strong> \u00a0So that’s where we partner with our management consulting and with technology experts. You’re exactly right. We’ve seen this movie before in terms of people saying that there’s a product out there that’s all of a sudden going to standardize everything. Are there better products out there? Absolutely. Are people more willing to go to them? Absolutely. Our strategy is clear. We want to own those platforms, especially for the industry-specific areas. We will take our clients to platforms, much like we have taken them into our centers to do the work. The reality is that the platform discussion is no different than the debate we had five years ago about whether service providers do the work at the client’s site or can actually take the work into their own delivery centers.<\/p>\nSo now that the work is in our centers, we can get them to a standard platform, but that’s old-type thinking. What I think is different is that once we get them to those platforms, we can we get them to fourth and fifth generation BPO by looking at the transactions. We use our management consulting talent and industry knowledge to determine what those transactions mean, and then be as flexible as we possibly can to enable our clients to start small and scale fast.<\/p>\n
PHIL: \u00a0<\/strong>This takes me back to the \u201890s when companies were pushing \u2018buy this suite of enterprise resource software and you’d have best-in-class processes across all these domains, and we ended up with a situation where companies were buying full-scope licenses for products like SAP, but struggled to standardize their processes to conform with the ERP. Isn\u2019t this happening all over again, where buyers are being sold some type of \u201cproductized\u201d workflow, however this time the onus has shifted to the providers to take them through the transformation?\u00a0 Doesn\u2019t this emphasize the need for buyers to rely heavily on their providers\u2019 consultative transformation capabilities, as opposed to solely this kind of just low-cost, productized approach?<\/span><\/p>\nMIKE:\u00a0<\/strong> Okay, but if we delivered exactly what you just said, that isn’t good enough. That’s just third-generation BPO. As I said earlier, most of what we’re talking about is industry specific because I don’t believe that clients are going to come off SAP or Oracle for the horizontals. So if all we do is take you to a standard process globally based on a new application, all that does is get you to third generation, with lower cost and more efficient end-to-end processes.<\/p>\nBut today, when you sell to the C-suite, they don’t care that we process invoices, port telephone numbers or support wellness programs better than anybody else. What they really want is what the analytics data tells us about how we can have a better impact on their business either by increasing their revenue or further decreasing their costs.<\/p>\n
I’m not positive you have to go to a new platform. But I am positive that you have to understand what you’re processing and how that’s going to impact your clients\u2019 business.<\/p>\n
PHIL:<\/strong>\u00a0 This is interesting, when we look at how the ITO industry developed – it kind of got stuck in its own version of \u201cthird generation\u201d for a very long time, and arguably, a lot of it still is. But I think there’s a much bigger opportunity in BPO, because of the level of depth and intimacy you have with the clients, and their institutional process that you have to learn over time to help them move to outcome-based delivery situations. So I do think that BPO is more uniquely positioned to move buyers towards these fifth and sixth generations than some of the other outsourcing models in the past.<\/span><\/p>\nMIKE: \u00a0<\/strong>But don’t you think that’s what people wanted out of BPO when we started this? It’s just taken us 10 years longer than we thought. The significant difference between ITO and BPO is that we could finally get into the business. I know it started with taking transactions that weren’t core, and by the time we got to third generation we were certainly doing non-core. But now, with fourth, fifth and sixth generation BPO, we can finally give the industry what it\u2019s been asking for years. Do you agree?<\/p>\nPHIL:<\/strong>\u00a0 Yes, I think the clients have got a lot smarter over the last couple of years, and they are demanding much more innovation from their relationships. They\u2019re also realizing they’re more accountable and until they play out the agenda, it’s going to get tough for them. So I do think that the industry has really moved on in terms of the conversation, in terms of what it\u2019s looking to achieve. \u00a0In fact, we\u2019ve done more in the last two years than the last ten, and these current economic conditions are driving people to look more long term at their businesses, and really try to be a bit more radical with making some changes to their businesses that need to be made.<\/span><\/p>\nAdditionally, the competitive dynamics are at a point where I think we’re already seeing three or four players break from the rest of the pack quite aggressively now, and I think in a year\u2019s time we’ll really start to see a mature market. So I do feel that this sixth generation you’re talking about is going to happen sooner than we think. I think it’s already creeping in. Our research clearly demonstrates decision-makers are increasingly going to each other – we’ve got the data to show it<\/span><\/a><\/span>. Peer experience is more impactful now than anything else, so I do feel the quicker we can get people to the community concept<\/em>, giving them the ability to share best practices, worst practices, ideas and get better at this, the better off the industry will be.<\/span><\/p>\nMIKE:<\/strong>\u00a0 Again, the purple column on the chart that represents sixth generation BPO is what people have been asking for over the years. We used to call them user groups. We still do an event every year, and bring our clients together because they want to talk to each other about what’s going on, about what they’re dealing with, about how they’re resolving issues, whether old or new. So to be able to set up that community in an invited, exclusive-type way where you can really conduct \u00a0business will be key.<\/p>\nPHIL: \u00a0<\/strong>We’re in an interesting age where there seems to be a follow-the-leader scenario going on where someone comes up with a great concept and before you know it, everybody else has jumped on it. And with this concept of \u201cgenerations\u201d that you initially developed, I remember us going through it a while back and we started seeing competitors of yours coming up with similar messages and stories. What goes on in your mind when you see this …and how are you going to win?<\/span><\/p>\nMIKE:<\/strong> \u00a0I love the fact that the industry has taken on the generations vernacular, as it\u2019s the best form of flattery. And when the industry wins, Accenture BPO wins, and if we’re moving the industry into the fourth, fifth and sixth generation BPO, then clients, as a whole, will expect more from us and we’ll deliver more value. So it\u2019s a win for clients too.<\/p>\nPHIL:<\/strong> \u00a0Mike – thanks for taking the time to discuss your BPO Generations<\/em> with our readers – we appreciate it, and look forward to sharing your insights.<\/span><\/p>\nMike Salvino (pictured above) is Group Chief Executive, Business Process Outsourcing, for Accenture. \u00a0You can read his bio here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"“We did our BPO deal in 2005 and now we’re reaching our 7 year-itch”, confided a client governance executive last…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48,835,79,81,838,88,836,91,832,830],"tags":[548],"ppma_author":[19],"yoast_head":"\n
Sal's six stages of sourcing: BPO's Generations - Horses for Sources | No Boundaries<\/title>\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n\t \n\t \n\t \n