To me, it’s always good business to do well by doing good. That’s the spirit in which Wipro established its rural BPO program in Manjakuddi, a village with a population of 2500. A large percentage of the 54 employees live in a house with a thatched roof. The village is six hours by car from Chennai.
The mover and shaker behind this project is Puneet Chandra, global head and vice president, Corporate Business Services, who was moved by the work of two institutions:
- The Azim Premji Foundation, whose goal is to educate the girl child in rural India
- Swami
Manish Dugar is the new head of Wipro BPO. Dugar takes over at a watershed moment. “The near future features a volatile and dynamic economy. Thanks to technology and scientific advances, geography is history. Now, what happens in one part of the world impacts the whole world,” he observes.
The senior vice president has had a front seat for the growth of offshoring. He was there when it was all about labor arbitrage. His goal: to lead Wipro BPO through the next phase: producing business-based outcomes. Wipro calls this Business Function Outsourcing (BFO). “We are no longer a commodity player,”… Read the rest
The long-term evolution of industries has long been studied. A small market grows when competitors fill niches and primary demand increases. Innovation sparks products. Services refinement and differentiation then occurs. More providers enter the market and then, as the growth cycle matures, scale and leverage become forces for consolidation. Now joining those ranks: the IT and business process outsourcing industry.
Three recent transactions – HP buys EDS, Dell buys Perot Systems, and Xerox purchases ACS – point to a future where “one-stop shopping” indeed becomes a reality in the outsourcing market.
With IBM Global Services leading this pack of “full-service” providers, what… Read the rest
What are the key attributes of a 21st Century Enterprise? And what will an enterprise of the future expect from its partners? As global enterprises become powerful brands, their key challenges will be demand generation, superior growth and financial performance, margins, cash flows and sustainability. Increasingly such enterprises will need to identify and focus on a set of critical core processes and rely on trusted partners to run and manage other core and non-core processes.
BPO services have matured from being a commoditized service offering labor arbitrage and process standardization to operational excellence enabled by Lean, Six Sigma, and domain… Read the rest
Cloud/BPaaS offerings are gaining a lot of attention in media, analyst, and advisor discussions. For the BPO providers, Business Process as a Service (BPaaS) seems all the more important because this can potentially drive the non-linear revenues combining tools + technologies + services.
It is a potential option but not a panacea to all issues or the only direction the industry will take. We need to make sure that we cut through the hype and stay focused on what works for the customers and build the capabilities around that.
In BPO scenarios, large clients typically approach vendors to outsource processes… Read the rest
The BPO world has come a very long way over the past decade! We have seen significant change in the market, both from buyer and supplier perspectives.
Buyer requirements have evolved across the board to enhance the range of processes that they outsource and the way they structure the engagements and what they demand from a BPO partner.
Providers have evolved to keep pace with buyer interests, and in many ways have also influenced the same by creating and demonstrating capabilities that have strongly contributed to the evolution of the buyers’ thoughts.
Overall, from my perspective here is what that… Read the rest
The cost take-out initiative that companies started in 2008-09 continues as it was a multi-year program. The first tranche of savings came in from discounts from vendors. However, to get a sustainable cost advantage, transformation is essential. Without this, further cost take-out will be extremely difficult.
In addition, organizations are increasingly looking to achieve much more. Business and IT alignment, more meaningful reporting, better coordination between various departments, a reduction of the overheads associated with managing multiple vendors are some of the areas that have potential for significant improvement.
Organizations are willing to increase their discretionary spend but the expectation… Read the rest
Changing business dynamics do influence buyers’ BPO decisions; however cost reduction and process improvement goals always take center stage in the evaluation process. The major shift that has happened in the last couple of years is reduced emphasis on how to achieve cost savings to boost process performance and increased emphasis on how to meet business goals. One thing that keeps the buyer and the service provider on the edge today is ‘What’s new?’
Of late, IT has proved to be that element which has the ability of spinning something new, each time, to meet the needs of both buyers… Read the rest
In Rome, do as the Romans do! This popular proverb has a strong application as corporations expand across international locations. Most of us are aware of the initial failures that some of the top brands in the world have encountered when they have rushed to penetrate a new geography/country without understanding the local nuances fully.
As an example, the Coca-Cola name in China was first read as “Kekoukela,” meaning “Bite the Wax Tadpole” or “Female Horse Stuffed with Wax,” depending on the dialect. Coke then researched 40,000 characters to find a phonetic equivalent to “kokoukole” translating into “Happiness in the… Read the rest
Headline news recently has highlighted several areas of the world where outsourcing is taking a different turn.
Midsized companies are demonstrating a trend of accepting offshore services in outsourcing. Companies in the United States, Europe, and leading banks in Africa, are offshoring to India’s outsourcers.
Wipro is targeting domestic business in China, Korea, and South Africa.
Wipro also established its first data center in Europe, taking over a Citibank center in Germany.
DbyDx Software, an application development firm headquartered in India, is starting to expand its global footprint and announced it’s opening a delivery center in Sunnyvale, California.
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