Capgemini is leading the development of 3rd Generation BPO services delivering value to the top line - by combining unique Business Insight processes with the innovative use of business intelligence tools and deep industry knowledge, Capgemini unlocks the hidden value-add in basic BPO workflow.

Capgemini is first-to-market delivering BPO with Business Insight, which enables clients to make better, more informed decisions that drive measurable business outcomes that contribute to the top line.

"Capgemini is at the forefront of the evolution of BPO from transaction-focused outsourcing agreements to relationships that deliver significant business value and insight," said Hubert Giraud, Head of Capgemini Global BPO. "Capgemini is the first to deliver BPO with Business Insight, and in doing so, we are continuing our history of leading innovation in BPO services and also responding to an emerging client need that should support long-term growth in North America."

Delivering BPO with Business Insight

By combining its unique processes with sector-specific skills and facilitating that these innovations are embedded into day-to-day operations through Delivery Excellence Teams, Capgemini makes innovation part of the service. Clients can benefit from Business Insight processes such as: customer analysis; spend intelligence; audit forensics; revenue recovery and leakage prevention; ethical fraud testing and contract compliance. Business Insight provides clients with value-add to their top line, taking BPO far beyond cost reduction.

Backed by 12 years of global innovation in BPO, Capgemini is building upon a strong BPO presence in North America in the finance and accounting (F&A) services market and utilities and manufacturing sectors. Current major Capgemini BPO clients in North America include Hydro One, Toronto, Canada and TXU Corporation, a Dallas-based energy company. Hydro One and TXU represented the two largest BPO engagements in the world in 2002 and 2004.

3rd Generation BPO - The New Wave in Business Process Outsourcing

Capgemini has been innovating in BPO since the '90s. This 1st wave was largely driven by labor arbitrage and economies of scale. Through the end of the '90s and into the '00s, 2nd Generation BPO has added continuous improvement and the ability to deliver in increasingly complex project environments involving multiple processes, multiple ERPs and multi-language services. These two generations delivered strong benefit to the bottom line. Capgemini is first-to-market delivering BPO with Business Insight, which enables clients to make better, more informed decisions that drive measurable business outcomes that contribute to the top line.

"Capgemini leveraged innovative processes and economies of scale to deliver more efficient and standardized processes. Outsourcing our F&A services to Capgemini has resulted in improved quality, business agility, and risk management," said Phil Cox, Director Shared Services, Unilever Asia & Africa, based in Singapore.

"Outsourcing F&A processes to Capgemini enables us to focus our time and resources to our core business areas, which impact our profitability and competitive advantage. Best of all, Capgemini delivered a flexible solution on time and on budget with no disruption to daily business or customer interactions," said Beth Summers, Chief Financial Officer at Hydro One.

Capgemini is broadening its scope of service offerings to target additional opportunities in the growing North American BPO market. This builds on a strong foundation of BPO horizontal services for F&A and Customer Care & Intelligence and BPO-vertical services such as SmartTrack™ and Revenue Management for Utilities and Technical Content Management for complex manufacturing clients. Capgemini is bringing to the market two new services:

1. BPO Procurement Services to include: Outsourced Operational Procurement Centre (OPC) Services and Outsourced Spend and Category Management, and
2. Assurance Services for SOX Compliance

Further supporting business value, BPO services are delivered in a flexible framework supported by leading Capgemini proprietary technology and delivery models. Capgemini's BPOpen™ is an innovative Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) and integrated services platform designed to help increase speed-to-value in BPO delivery. Capgemini's outsourcing approach facilitates that transformation includes process enhancement and continuous improvement. Therefore, BPO customers profit not only from reduced investment and lowered change-risk, but also from increased process efficiency. Capgemini has a proprietary delivery model called Rightshore™ for providing project resource, which draws upon its global network of skilled professionals, matched to client demands, addressing that the right resources are provided at the right place and time. In addition, Capgemini builds teams with deep domain experience that are relevant to each client's business. This is a key feature of Capgemini's delivery resourcing strategy and a critical component of its ability to provide Business Insight.

"Capgemini recognizes that 'one size fits all' is not a solution, and consequently our BPO offerings utilize the best of a tailored approach for the client while combining the benefits of economies of scale, process standardization, labor arbitrage, and technical innovation," Giraud said. "Our transition methodology is the industry's most robust and cost effective approach. Well-defined and detailed migration strategies reduce risk and enable us to immediately exploit continuous improvement techniques and deliver client benefits at the earliest opportunity."

Investing in North American Leadership

Capgemini's enhanced solution set supports the Corporation's strategy of increasing its presence in and share of the North American BPO market. Capgemini's North American initiative is a part of its long-term growth strategy fueled by the lucrative market potential for BPO in the U.S. and Canada, which represents 64 percent of the global US$152 billion BPO market. The company is leveraging its success as a leader in BPO in Europe, combined with a solid foundation in North America, to grow in North America's manufacturing, utilities and financial sectors.

To support this initiative, Capgemini has created a new BPO business unit and has put in place a new, highly experienced executive management team. Deputy Global BPO Leader, David Poole, has also assumed the role of North American BPO leader and has relocated to North America. In this additional role, Poole is responsible for driving, building, and growing BPO opportunities in existing and new North American markets. Poole will build upon his success in Europe where he was instrumental in leading Capgemini BPO to a Tier 1 ranking in F&A BPO on Gartner's positioning matrix.²

"The market potential is very strong for Capgemini's expanded portfolio of BPO solutions in the U.S. and Canada," Poole said. "Our key goals are to increase awareness of Capgemini BPO solutions in the North American market and expand beyond our core strength of finance and accounting. We plan to be as active and dominant in North America as we are in Europe."