BPO industry has evolved, from payment and transaction processing to value delivering business model. In today’s scenarios Service providers have become more proactive in identifying and delivering business value to stand out as service differentiator. Vendors
in near future will start projecting themselves as ‘profit center’ than ‘cost center’. The transition of BPO to BPS has already begun; vendors are eyeing for different operating models, where profit gained by client is shared within the syndicate (gain
share model) Being the front-liners of operation, the responsibility of operations goes beyond processing transactions or taking calls, but to provide insights to avoid risk and increase profits. Forming customer insights have become easier with
ABCD & Internet of Technology (Automation, Big-data, Cognitive and other Digital technologies). Technology is acting as key enabler for achieving higher customer satisfaction and exponential profits.
e.g Rolls Royce’s is consistently monitoring ~3,700 engines, to predict when and where breakdowns may occur, helping them to create customize offer based on usage, repairs and replacements. The service currently accounts for more than 70% of their
annual revenue in their aircraft engine division
FinTechs are intensifying the competition and setting trends in BPS. The startups with their finest skilled work force are creating disruptive offerings, and stealing away the pie from existing players. The USP of startups’ is the tailor made
solution to a problem, however implementing such business models at a large scale is challenging.
e.g. In Canada, start-up company ROSS is using IBM’s Watson supercomputer to automate legal research that is normally performed by paralegals. Billed as a “super intelligent attorney”, the ROSS digital solution reportedly scans and analyses 10,00 pages
of text every seconds to return precise answer -ranked by confidence-to specific legal questions posed in natural language. ROSS also continually monitors legal development to notify attorneys of new court development that could affect their cases.
Where should BPS target?
Considering the possible threat from disruption and FinTech, it is necessary for BPS to start
imbibing disruption and building an offering to suit the current fierce competition. Disruptions have the capacity to cut revenue by 50% and give sustainable value to customers. BPS deploying such technologies in client ecosystem will result in two things;
ensuring business sustainability and leaving huge unused pool of employees. Vendor can
up-skill their employees and use it for some other unattended services like handling exceptions. By 2025 BPS will be
“mutual success” business partner – ‘A strategic relationship’, where we will not be cost for the company but, an unexplored area of generating revenue.
e.g. “….as an example of corporate responsibility to help save jobs, Lumb also said that within Accenture, automation replaced 17,000 jobs over the last 18 months - although no one actually lost their job because the company made sure that they helped
retrain employees for newly-created roles….” - Business Insider 23-Jan ‘17
What factors will determine BPS Success?
- Innovation Strategy for creating and implementing ABCD & IoT
- Skilled work-force in disruption technologies
- Tailor made digital solutions
- As-aggressive-as-FinTech