MANILA, Philippines--Financial services firm Citibank says it is ramping up its business process outsourcing (BPO) operations in the country in response to demand for customer support services worldwide.
Established in 2004, Citigroup Business Process Solutions (or Citigroup BPS) is a subsidiary of Singapore-based Citibank Overseas Investment Corp.
The Philippine subsidiary provides support services to Citibank's overseas operations including consumer banking and wealth management segments.
Citigroup BPS currently employs around 1,200 workers. The company announced a partnership with training school Excel Asia to provide agent-staffing services starting last January.
The company did not disclose specific numbers on how much workers it will need to add, noting that demand varies depending on client projects that come up different parts of the year.
Read More Article...
Accenture, the global technology services and outsourcing company, today said it has opened its 53rd delivery centre in Noida to strengthen its outsourcing capabilities.The centre will offer cross industry BPO services in finance and accounting, human resources, learning, procurement and customer care, as well as industry-specific services focussing on insurance, healthcare, pharmaceutical and utility industries, a company statement said.
It also offers customised BPO services, back-office operations for the banking industry and the management of end to end supply chain.
Accenture now has more than 35,000 professionals at 13 delivery centres in six cities including Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad, Pune and Noida.
The center also offers custom BPO services, including the redesign and implementation of clinical data management practices for the pharmaceuticals industry, back office operations for the banking industry, and the management of a companys end to end supply chain, the release added.
The establishment of a delivery center in Noida was driven by the continued strong client demand for Accentures services from India.
In addition to achieve an impressive scale in India, we plan to hire a significant number of people over the next few months to support our new delivery center, said Accentures Lead Executive, Delivery Center Network for BPO in India P G Raghuraman.
Source : http://www.offshoringtimes.com/
Computer on Monday announced that Satyam BPO, its business process outsourcing arm, has been ranked second among the world’s leading BPO vendors in Brown-Wilson Group’s Black Book of Outsourcing.
Satyam BPO was also ranked fourth on the knowledge process outsourcing vendors list. More than 4,000 organisations were evaluated in compiling the lists.
For the third consecutive year, Satyam has been ranked among the top 10 in Brown-Wilson Group’s Black Book of Outsourcing. In 2007 and 2006, Satyam BPO, formerly Nipuna, had been ranked in several categories including KPO, energy and utilities.
Growth areas win
The Chief Executive Officer of Satyam BPO, Mr Venkatesh Roddam, in a statement said “The categories in which we have been ranked this year (BPO and KPO) are the key growth areas that we have been focusing on. Recognition from the Brown-Wilson Group reflects our capabilities to offer transformation services through superior delivery.”
Source : http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/
This article provides guidance on organizational design (OD) for organizations that are undertaking or contemplating a shared service or business process outsourcing (BPO) initiative. It comes from the series, "Guidelines for Shared Services and BPO," developed by Alsbridge to reflect a shared understanding of good practice in outsourcing. Related columns will discuss the following areas: developing a business case, change management and SLAs and service levels, charging and benchmarking.
Organizational design is sometimes used to mean simply the design of an organization chart. However, this article uses a broader definition which covers the operating model, the organizational structure (including the organization chart), the roles, competencies and job descriptions.
For shared services and BPO the model has three main areas, as follows:
- The service management organization is the shared services/BPO operation itself, undertaking the various transaction processing or administrative activities. Some shared services/BPO operations will deliver specialist and expert services. This organization may be an internal shared service center, serving one or many internal customers, or external, which is typically the outsourced/BPO option.
- The retained organization is the term used to describe what is left behind when the shared services or outsourced activities are transferred to the new service provider. There are two aspects to the design of the retained function. First there is a need to design an organization that is effective in "receiving" the service delivered by the shared service/BPO provider. This will require an organization where there is clarity of responsibility for inputs and outputs to and from the provider. Second, there is a need to design a retained organization that is effective in performing its role in supporting the business.
- The governance layer term refers to the activities that are necessary to manage a customer/supplier relationship, including the management of service level agreements, performance reporting, billing, and issue resolution.
Mysore is known as much as for Mysore Pak as it is known for Brindavan Gardens and the Chamundi Hills. This sleepy city has been witnessing a quiet IT revolution since 2003.
According to a NASSCOM - A.T Kearney study, Mysore is all set to breakout into the big league on the BPO scene because of availability of talent and the city’s proximity to Bangalore. So, while the big firms like Infosys, Wipro and HCL are setting up big global trading and delivery centers here, it’s the smaller firms that are actually able to dig in their heels into the local talent pool.
HTMT Global Solutions is one of the first BPO companies is to set-up shop in Mysore. Benjamin Franklin, the Deputy GM at HTMT tells that the 250-seater facility is far exceeding his expectations. Set-up just 1.5 years ago, it has seen some of it’s first employees now become team leaders. The response from the city has been so good that HTMT is already looking to expand by over 500-seats.
Read More Article...
The report concludes that insurers need to reduce costs and become more efficient in order to protect profit margins during this and future soft markets. Further, insurers in the mature markets of North America and Western Europe that are struggling to find new pockets of growth need a flexible policy administration system that enables quicker time-to-market. Policy administration BPO can effectively increase efficiency and flexibility, as well as free resources that can then be expended on value-add functions, according to the research group.
Insurers are increasingly targeting the policy administration function to improve their competitiveness, says Jonathan Steiman, a financial services technology analyst with Datamonitor and the reports author. Business process outsourcing, which is often less capital intensive and less time consuming than other options, is being considered by more and more insurers.
Steiman warns, however, that along with the benefits come some risks. Outsourcing the policy administration function can greatly improve an insurers operation, which is imperative in todays market, but insurers are still wary of losing control of the customer and becoming over-dependant on a single vendor. Many of these risks, Steiman adds, can be mitigated with a comprehensive service-level agreement SLA.
Datamonitor's report notes that both large and small insurers will adopt BPO. Currently, insurers with fewer than 5,000 employees currently have the lowest policy administration BPO adoption rate, however, this is likely to change. According to a Datamonitor survey of 200 global insurers conducted in the first quarter of 2008, small insurers are heavily weighing a BPO strategy, which is evidence of the need to lower costs and concentrate limited resources on value-add functions in today's competitive marketplace.
The survey also found that large insurers those with more than 20,000 employees are increasingly likely to outsource policy administration. Typically, these players engaged in off-shoring via captives, or company owned facilities. The captive route has not been as fruitful as expected, elevating their interest in outsourcing to a third party.
The trends captured by our survey are incredibly interesting, notes Steiman. On the one hand, we see small insurers looking to outsource in order to improve competitiveness. On the other hand, we see large insurers, many of whom already having gone overseas with captives, being drawn to outsourcing because of the maturity and expertise that BPO providers now possess.
Many of today's BPO arrangements can be classified as traditional, or your mess for less, BPO. In other words, insurers look to BPO providers to perform the same functions on the same platforms, but for less money. The savings in traditional BPO are typically driven by moving the process offshore to low-wage countries.
Source : http://www.offshoringtimes.com/
Amitabh Choudhary, CEO of Infosys BPO, has set a steep target of $1 billion in revenue in three years, which is four times its current revenue.
Infosys BPO is growing exponentially at 70 per cent every year, a stark contrast to its IT business growing at 20 per cent.
According to Choudhary, the management has realised that it is important to have an IT and BPO pay together to expand.
But growth alone will not be enough to log in to the billion-dollar league, so Infosys will have to buy more companies like Philips BPO that they acquired last year.
"We have shown through Philips that we can pay the right price and do so again," said Choudhary.
It is surely good news for Infosys investors since a fast growing BPO would mean more revenues for the company, but Infosys BPO is still no match for global biggies like WNS and Genpact unless it scales up extensively through mergers and acquisitions.
Source : http://www.ndtvprofit.com/
While a Citi spokesperson declined to comment on “market rumours and speculation”, investment bankers close to the transaction, who didn’t want to be named, said that a private equity investor is most likely to emerge as the buyer and strategic suitors, such as IBM Corp. and Tata Consultancy Services Ltd, (TCS) are likely to drop out of the race over terms being proposed by the seller. Details on the private equity (PE) firms in the running for Citigroup Global Services couldn’t immediately be ascertained.
“Unlike the Genpact deal, Citi is not willing to commit long-term business to the captive once a new shareholder comes in. Neither IBM nor TCS would be willing to put so much cash down without that commitment,” said one banker. When General Electric Co sold 60% in its Gurgaon-based captive BPO to PE firms General Atlantic and Oak Investment for $500 million, it also threw in a multi-year outsourcing contract as part of the deal.
Read more Article...
The opportunities of business expansion in the domestic market have even made US-listed Indian firms such as Genpact Ltd and EXL Service Holdings Inc.—that presently cater mainly to the US market—devise aggressive strategies to enter and expand the presence in the country.
Declining to spell out his firm’s local strategy, Bhasin said Genpact might scale up to 500-600 people by the end of this year from 20-odd now servicing these customers. It expects revenues to flow from the domestic market from the next quarter.
The Nasdaq-listed EXL Service, on the other hand, is scouting for local buyouts. “We are looking for buyouts in the range of $50-100 million,” said its president and CEO Rohit Kapoor, without elaborating. He, however, said the domestic market looks attractive because of its rapid growth and also as a natural hedge against volatile currencies. “With competition increasing in established markets such as US and the UK, they (BPO firms) cannot afford to ignore emerging markets such as India and China,” said Avinash Vashistha, CEO of Tholons Inc., an advisory firm. India’s domestic outsourcing market could emerge as significant as China, he said.
Demand for business process outsourcing, or BPO, services is rising in the country as domestic telecom, banking, aviation and hospitality companies, among others, try to differentiate themselves with sophisticated customer interactions.
The Indian BPO industry, which already employs 7,00,000, generated revenues worth $11 billion in the financial year to March, of which $1.5 billion came from the local market, according to software lobby group National Association of Software and Services Companies, or Nasscom.
Read more Article...
Revenue from the Indian IT and BPO sectors is predicted to grow by 33% in the fiscal year 2008, reported Sify.com.
Revenue from exports is expected to go over $40 billion for the two sectors while that of the domestic market will go over $23 billion. The BPO sector is predicted to reach $12.5 billion in 2008 and can grow five times by 2012. As many as two million people are directly working in the BPO sector and seven to eight million people are indirectly working for this sector.
Pramod Bhasin, Vice-Chairman, National Association of Software and Services Companies (Nasscom) and President and Chief Executive Officer, Genpact, at the 2-day Nasscom BPO Strategy Summit in Bangalore on 9 June, said that the BPO industry needs more manpower and is currently looking at employing more than 200,000 eligible graduates. He added that BPOs also have to fight attrition. According to Bhasin, India needs to bring in education reforms and improve infrastructure. He said that a private-public partnership is important in this regard.
Ganesh Natarajan, Chairman, Nasscom, and Deputy Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Zensar Technologies said that the BPO sector needs to utilise the prospects in rural areas, promote reverse migration and focus on environment-friendly IT practices, cultivate creativity and encourage women to become leaders.
The Indian state of Bihar has always been in the news for the wrong reasons. Crime, abduction and corruption have given enough negative images to the eastern state of India. But things are set to change.
Don’t be surprised to see a business process outsourcing unit (BPO) unit functioning in a chaotic remote village of Bihar. Recently, Drishtee Development and Communications Limited started some BPO units under the name of Quiver Info-services Limited in Saurath villages. The sari-clad introverted village women now communicate effectively with their clients. The BPO employment boost in these villages has dramatically changed the socio-economic status of the poor villagers.
A confident 26-year-old BPO employee at Madhubani, 220km from Patna, said that she faces no problems communicating in Hindi and if needed, she can manage to handle the clients in English too. So far, training has been provided to eighteen candidates to improve their accent and computer knowledge. Most of the candidates have a Mother Tongue Influence (MTI) in their accent.
While additional details of the stake sale plans weren’t available, based on current annual revenue estimates ranging from $300 million to $400 million (Rs1,230 crore to Rs1,640 crore), industry sources estimate the unit could be valued at over $1 billion.
Citigroup India chief executive officer Sanjay Nayar declined to comment on the development, saying the bank’s policy is not to respond to market speculation, but people familiar with the development and who didn't want their names used said, “Citi has started feeling the market for a strategic stake sale. The process has started and it may take a while before concluding the deal.”
They also said the conglomerate will not go for a complete sell-off. An IBM spokesperson in India said: “We do not comment on speculation and rumours.”
Industry watchers are keeping a close eye on the structure of the deal. One person close to the bank, who did not want to be named, said Citi is exploring the possibility of structuring the deal along the lines of the 2004 IBM-Bharti Televentures outsourcing deal.
In March 2004, IBM took over Bharti’s information technology operations in return for assured revenues of up to $750 million over a 10-year period.
“There could be a similar arrangement whereby IBM would run Citi’s BPO operations for a fee. In addtion to that, it could pick up a strategic stake (in Citigroup Global Services),” this person said.
Read More Article...
The Indian business process outsourcing or BPO sector currently exports around $11 billion worth of services, and is growing at 35% a year. It employs more than 700,000 people and accounts for $4 out of every $10 worth of back-office services contracted out to offshore destinations in the world.
“The study not only estimates the opportunity ahead but also lays down specific agenda for all stakeholders to help achieve this,” said Som Mittal, president, Nasscom.
The study suggests eight measures to do this, including the extension of a tax holiday that is scheduled to end this year; creation of “BPO hubs” with enabling physical and social ecosystems; development of BPO-specific education modules to improve the talent availability and encouraging domestic BPO, among others.
Everest estimates the maximum addressable market size for Indian vendors at between $220 billion and $280 billion, of which less than 5% is currently tapped. The consulting firm also said that the domestic market provides an addressable market of $15-20 billion by 2012.
Read More Article...
Under the contract, Ceridian and Genpact will operate under the virtual captive model. The Genpact-Ceridian centres initially will be set up in Juarez in Mexico, and Jaipur and Kolkata, India. Other locations in Europe and the Philippines are being evaluated.
Genpact also said its services were not disrupted due to damage to the undersea cables traversing the Mediterranean Sea that carry internet traffic between the Middle East and India.
“Genpact uses four DS3 links — two across the Atlantic and two across the Pacific — for its telecommunication needs... One link was affected yesterday (January 31), but because we had three other links, it did not affect service to our clients.
Read More Article...
No official confirmation was available, but sources said six players have been shortlisted and the sale could be concluded in a couple of weeks. Avendus Advisors is advising the firm on the sale process. The final deal could be around $150 million, a source said.
Till recently, known as Techbooks, the company changed its name to Aptara in 2007 to reflect its intent to diversify into services outside its core publishing and content business.
One of its earlier investors, PE firm American Capital, is also set to exit the company in the sale, the source said.
In its core domain, Aptara counts a few leaders such as Reed Elsevier and Blackwell Publishing among its clients in the niche scientific, technical and medical (STM) publishing business, as well others such as Cambridge University Press, Oxford University Press, McGraw Hill and Wiley.
However, last year, the firm also diversified into legal services by acquiring Whitmont Legal Technologies, a litigation support firm. According to information in public domain, the company has grown from about Rs 247 crore in revenues in 2005-06 to Rs 336 crore in 2006-07.
Read More Article...
Similar to automobile shop floors, where jobs are broken down into miniscule tasks and processes demarcated step by step, BPO companies in India are experimenting of breaking a complex activity into numerous simple chores, to be easily performed by even school passouts.
The dilution of task difficulty is primarily seen as a solution to talent crunch and a way to check attrition and battle wage inflation. Although it is not yet mainstream, if scaled up, it will throw up an opportunity for rural India to become the backoffice for BPO operations in metros.
According to Nasscom vice-president Ameet Nivsarkar, “These experiments are being piloted by some BPO firms and the results are encouraging. We have to see how this can be scaled up. Essentially, this could help the BPO industry spread to tier II and III towns where smaller tasks can be offshored.”
The BPO industry in India is currently centred around six metro cities in India which account for over 90% of the operations.
Offshoring within India would capitalise on the vast rural and school dropout population. Says rural back office vehicle GramIT chief integrator Verghese Thomas, “Destinations like Dhaka and Philippines are becoming attractive as lowcost centres. There are 30 million 12th pass people in rural India who could be part of the rural BPO revolution.”
Typically, non-voice and data entry activities could be offshored. Take the example of a mobile phone bill. It has components such as name, address, billable amount and so on.
This activity could be broken into multiple tasks where one person is responsible for only typing names while another does only addresses and the third keys in the billable amount. The software aggregates this information to process the final bill. Also, in more complex jobs, a step-by-step process training is being conducted for quicker and accurate job completion.
Read More Article...
Private equity giant Warburg Pincus-controlled WNS is believed to have pipped rival outsourcing firm, EXL Services, and a multinational player — rumoured to be Capgemini — in a rather prolonged bidding process that marks the successful sale of a large captive BPO unit in the country.
When completed, WNS is set to absorb around 6,500 employees of Aviva’s consolidated operations spread across Bangalore, Pune, Noida, Chennai and Colombo.
Among recent deals, this is complex, not only because of the complications associated with a captive unit, but also because it involves the consolidation of multiple legal entities.
Read More Article...
It happens with almost every industry that in a nascent stage, a large number of players jump onto the bandwagon. As the industry matures, some of them survive while the rest eventually die out in the cut-throat competition. That has happened to the BPO industry in India as well.
Added to this is a long list of woes: over- dependence on North American and European mid-rung Markets, crippling effects of the sub-prime mortgage crises, rupee volatility, rising inflation, soaring fuel prices, intra-industry attrition, looming taxes, global warming and an ill-informed and non-sensitised government machinery.
Read More Article...
