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GLOBAL SERVICES
A CYBERMEDIA PUBLICATION
An integrated media platform which connects the various constituents of the global technology and business processing services industry ecosystem.
E. Abraham Mathew President Ed Nair Editor ed@cybermedia.co.in
DIRECTORY OF SERVICES NEWSLETTER
Satish Gupta Associate Vice President satishg@cybermedia.co.in
A regular digest of key industry happenings. DIGITAL MAGAZINE The fortnightly digital magazine features research reports, articles and experts’ views. Available on www.globalservicesmedia.com
Ashwin Razdan ashwinr@cybermedia.co.in Pratibha Verma pratibhav@cybermedia.co.in
WEBINARS Global Services’ web-based seminars aim to impart useful information related to outsourcing industry in the form of presentations and discussions by industry specialists.
Sruthi Ramakrishnan sruthir@cybermedia.co.in Niketa Chauhan niketac@cybermedia.co.in
RESEARCH We deliver indepth analysis and research reports on sourcing subjects. MICROSITES
OFFICES Global Services Media LLC. 806 Green Hollow Drive, Iselin, NJ 08830 T: 678-665-6005
Online resource center designed to provide focused content on special subjects to the outsourcing community.
Global Services Cyber Media (India) Ltd. CyberHouse, B- 35, Sector 32 Gurgaon-122001, India Tel: +911 24 4822222 Fax: +911 24 2380694
EVENTS From multi-day, high-level, resort conferences to intimate breakfast discussions we offer a number of opportunities that connects the outsourcing community.
Contact: globalservices@cybermedia.co.in
CUSTOM PROGRAM
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Customized services rendered through different media platforms.
Send letters to ed@cybermedia.co.in, or to any of our writers. We reserve the right to edit all letters. Postings submitted to our blogs and letters to the editor may be published in our digital magazine or Website.
OSOURCE BOOK A directory of global outsourcing service providers. www.osourcebook.com October 2010
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O c t o b e r 2 0 1 0 Vo l u m e 2 , I s s u e 1
FEATURES
M&As: The Rising Tide
10
Hunger for growth is driving M&A deals
8 TRACKING THE OPD RECOVERY
Fueling the tide
12
Q&A with Aaron Solganick
15
M&As by the numbers
16
17 INDUSTRY- SPECIFIC PROCESSES Digital Production— An Opportunity for Providers Pg 17
By Sruthi Ramakrishnan
By Vivek Shenoy
The formula for recovery is old fashioned: hold on tight to your existing customers, over-deliver on your value proposition, and be open to looking at new engagement models.
By Reetika Joshi
Is Insurance Analytics Outsourcing set to Surge?
Pg 18
24 WHY EUROPEAN RPO STAYS WITHIN EUROPE By Pratibha Verma Stringent data protection laws require employee information to be kept within the Union
20
25 WHAT COGNIZANT THINKS By Ed Nair
INDUSTRY-SPECIFIC BPO WILL EVOLVE STRONGER THAN HORIZONTAL BPO by Sruthi Ramakrishnan The US Healthcare Reform bill is being seen as the biggest bonanza yet for the industry. While strong IT services vendors have been developing BPO niches in specific verticals, newer BPO vendor entrants are entering through the industry-specific domains.
4 GlobalServices
Q&A with Malcolm Frank, Cognizant
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Releasing November 16th To advertise or to participate contact: Satish Gupta at satishg@cybermedia.co.in
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EDITOR’S NOTE
Understanding the Nature of Change
C ED NAIR Editor ed@cybermedia.co.in
Microtrends will become waves of change; systemic shocks like the recession can reset the economy and the market.
6 GlobalServices
hange is slow to be noticed. It is understood better, when things add up over time or when a large shift happens. This issue of the digital magazine is all about change; how microtrends will become waves of change or how systemic shocks like the recession can reset the economy and the market. For instance, the story on how the OPD market is recovering from the recession focuses on the impact of cloud computing on software product models and the attractive mid-market opportunity. Mid-market software companies are treating their OPD vendors as extended R&D organizations, while enterprise software vendors will use OPD vendors to handle entire families of products. Globalization of R&D is a far-reaching trend. Similarly, the cover story on M&As spells out the need for companies to buy their way into market share and the increasing willingness of small companies with service niches to sell out. These trends will endure for a few years to come. Reason: buying market share is the fastest way to accelerate growth and to get into new geographic market for services (India, China, Brazil, others). Another interesting example of change is brought out by the story on RPO in Europe. Very strict data laws mandate that RPO work not be offshored outside the European Union. The laws are not aimed at curbing offshoring; they are aimed at strengthening data privacy. This is in stark contrast to the US trying to enact laws that penalize offshoring with increased taxes, discriminating against Indian companies by hiking visa fees, or any other protectionist measures. Finally, the story about Cognizant drives home the point on how a company can synthesize various signals that combine to form large forces of change and make it a way of life both inside and outside the organization. The Cognizant way is a fantastic example of thought leadership. GS
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Releasing November 30th Case Studies are invited from service providers. For more details contact: Satish Gupta at satishg@cybermedia.co.in or visit: www.globalservicesmedia.com/live
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Product Development
Tracking the
OPD Recovery The formula for recovery is old fashioned: hold on tight to your existing customers, over-deliver on your value proposition, and be open to looking at new engagement models.
By Sruthi Ramakrishnan
P
ost recession the outsourced product development (OPD) segment is coping with an empty deal pipeline. "We were all faced with a bifurcated market during the worst of the downturn. Most companies were on a spending 'lock down'”, says Pallab Chatterjee, ex-CEO and presently chairman on the board of Symphony Services." However, there was a sliver of the market that was willing to make the bold R&D investments necessary to emerge stronger during the recovery. The challenge for OPDs was to find and exploit those opportunities." Jim Walsh, Chief Technology Officer, GlobalLogic agrees with Chatterjee. "Companies less than $100 million in annual revenues tended to shrink, and some of the small ones went out of business. So we lost some business in that sector. But in the $100 million category, people saw OPD as a cost saver. So we had more growth there. This growth offset the shrinkage." Market Sweet-spots
It is precisely to this category, that is, to companies in the $25 -500 million range, that OPD vendors are looking to to lift them out of the downturn. "Large ISVs still represent excellent growth opportunities as they are driving innovation across a number of areas, such as Cloud enablement, SaaS, PLM, etc. That said, the midsized market is extremely compelling to us because this is where some of the most exciting and current technology development (e.g., unified communications) is occurring. So we intend to continue taking advantage of opportunities with larger ISVs while expanding our footprint to include the mid market," says Chatterjee. The mid-market attraction, though, is not a new factor. "Going to the mid-market is only logical--startups are not
8 GlobalServices
Pallab Chatterjee, Chairman on the board of Symphony Services enough for sustenance, and big companies are already sufficiently penetrated. So it’s basically a very safe strategy to follow,” says Karthik Ananth, Director-Market Expansion, Zinnov Management Consulting.” And it’s not something that companies started doing last year, they have been doing this for the past three years. They took a halt last year as they did not know what would happen to the mid-size market, but now they are following the same strategy again.” Besides the mid-size market, OPDs are looking to exploit the opportunities provided by companies wanting to refresh their product lines. “Companies wanting to grow in newer markets want to revitalize their product lines so that they can be rapidly deployed and configured at a lower price
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Product Development
point in the newer areas,” says Walsh. “There has been no talk of cost arbitrage in the last nine months. Instead, companies are looking at revenue generation activities, revitalizing their product lines and broadening their markets by leveraging new technologies.” Besides Asia, Europe is one of the geographies OPDs are looking to expand in. “We’re continuing to invest sales and marketing resources in China – for clients who want to tap
Third-party Partnerships: Future of Software R&D l According
to Zinnov's study on Software R&D Globalization, only 5% of R&D budgets are currently being spent on outsourced partnerships, which means about 95% of the R&D is conducted by companies in-house (HQ, Captive models)
l For
OPD VENDORS ARE LOOKING AT COMPANIES IN THE $25-500 MILLION RANGE TO LIFT THEM OUT OF THE DOWNTURN
many of the large sized companies that participated in the Zinnov survey, mature/ existing products account for more than 75-80% of their total revenues. Hence they have to invest heavily on maintaining and enhancing these products to suit requirements.
l In
keeping with their low spend strategy, companies are now focusing on new products for both the US market and the emerging markets to tap into newer opportunities and newer customer requirements.
l Amitava
China’s huge and highly skilled workforce (while maintaining a toe hold in a region that represents a huge market for them). And we are investing heavily in Europe for optimizing the R&D functions of a number of ISVs, telcos/carriers, etc.,” says Chatterjee. Challenges Perhaps the biggest challenge for OPDs in the post-recession period is to match up to the increased expectations from them. As Jim puts it, “The playing field is becoming more difficult for companies, they need to be much better than they were. The bar for software quality and presentation has gone way up.”
As Ananth points out, the recovery story happened three months back. “Now it’s about finding out which are the growth areas and where are the new avenues of growth.” He opines that with the advent of cloud computing and SaaS, software moving to them will have significantly larger opportunities. GS
9 GlobalServices
Roy, COO, Symphony Services,"Two major challenges to software product companies today - freeing up resources to work on new products and maintaining margins for legacy products,”
l Majority
of companies are increasing R&D spend in captive centers in emerging geographies such as India and China
l Biggest
captive center challenge- the tag and the brand recognition to attract and retain people
l 'Go-to-market'
strategy: companies are askingshould we develop it on our own or should we get a partner who can not only develop it for me but also help me in penetrating newer markets and support me in expanding my existing market?
l Challenges
faced by small and medium sized ones: higher total cost of ownership, high set up cost and lower productivity
l The
new pricing models offered by vendors to clients: outcome based pricing, revenue share pricing and risk reward pricing. Companies are now looking to leverage the risk-reward partnership model, where the vendors are willing to absorb a certain amount of business model risk, across the lifecycle of products
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M&As: The Rising Tide
Special Report
The Rising Tide for M&As
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M&As: The Rising Tide
Special Report
■
Fueling the tide
12
■
Q&A with Aaron Solganick, Generation Equity Advisors
15
M&As by the Numbers
16
■
11 GlobalServices
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M&As: The Rising Tide
Special Report
Fueling the Tide By Sruthi Ramakrishnan
The hunger for revenue growth is driving M&A deals in ITO and BPO
T
HE ACQUISITION of Unisys Insurance Services Limited (UISL) by TCS' UK subsidiary Diligenta has brought into focus an interesting trend in M&As in the services industry. Recent deals show that instant growth in market share is increasingly becoming a driver for M&As. The Unisys acquisition, for instance, was done primarily to increase TCS's market share in the UK insurance space. Suresh Menon, CEO, Diligenta had said at the time of closing the deal, “Diligenta will use its vast experience of life and pensions BPO and the existing expertise available at UISL to continue to build its UK operations and service UISL’s customers.”
Buying Market Share TCS has seen instant gains following the transfer of UISL’s business, with the former having become the second-largest insurance BPO provider in the UK, after winning two deals
12 GlobalServices
worth £250 million ($392.5 million) and business for the next six years. A similar trend can be seen in several M&As of recent times. Genpact's acquisition of Symphony Marketing Solutions, Capgemini's purchase of majority stake in Brazilian major CPM Braxis, IBM's purchase of Unica have all had established vendors in niche sectors being acquired by bigger players who offer a wider range of services. "The last two years saw businesses focusing more on managing costs to take a conservative view during the global downturn. Now we see them back like in pre-crisis growth mode and resuming investment – both organic and inorganic," says Sashi Reddi, Founder & Chairman, AppLabs. The software testing and quality management company acquired Value Minds, a developer of web-based testing tools last month. Symphony Services is another company that has been active on the acquisition front, with two recent acquisitionsCoreObjects and Proteans - adding to their expertise and
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M&As: The Rising Tide
Special Report
client base. While the company has found the two acquisi- beyond their domestic market base and gain access to a largtions complementary "to the work we have historically done er clientele, besides granting association with a known name. with ISVs", it has also benefited In such cases, target compaby adding "Proteans’ established, nies aim to, as David international client base to our Shpilberg, Vice Chairman of global ISV client roster". the Board of CPM Braxis said The company is not ruling out in an interview with more takeovers in the near future. EuroBusiness Media, "create a "We are always on the lookout for solid, global-standard compahighly specialized and differentiny that continues to grow at atetd providers that will add to above market rates". our core competencies; bring Besides markets, compagreater value to our client base; nies are also looking to acquire and add strong engineering talent expertise in services that seem to our team. We have very aggrespotentially profitable. IBM sive growth goals for the next sevseems to be leading the race in eral years, and we plan to reach this regard, with the company those goals through a combinaspending more than $11 biltion of organic and inorganic lion in the past five years to growth," says Sanjay Dhawan, shore up on higher-margin CEO of Symphony Services. software businesses like The strong M&A wave is set OpenPages, Unica and to hold across company sizes and Coremetrics. “We will continprice bands, as the industry strives ue to see action from active to return to its pre-recessionary acquirers such as IBM who galloping growth rate and compaindulge in large to small size nies keep all growth options open. transactions throughout the "We are actively seeking ERP testyear,” says Ratna Srivastava, ing companies in the $40-50 milSenior Analyst, Tholons. lion range to help us address the large enterprise market. Many of Going Organic our customers are demanding M&As are like growth on steroids. While they work as highly specialized ERP testing Shashi Reddy, an instant growth booster, do skills and we would be open to an Founder & Chairman, AppLabs they have an adverse effect on acquisition in that space," says in-house initiatives for Reddi. growth? "Most of the buyers Small Firms Willing to be have been chasing targets offering complementary services Acquired and hence not a threat to the in-house initiatives," says Ratna This works well for mid-tier companies, several of which Srivastava. "However, a few large deals initiated in the past were facing closure during the recession. Unica had a loss of couple of months were primarily in line with acquirer’s $22.5 million on revenue of $100.6 million in the fiscal year major line of businesses, but has not been a threat because ended Sept. 30, 2009. Kale Consultants, a mid-size out- the objective was to gain access to a geography or a new sourcing services firm, sold out to European back office client segment." provider, Accelya. Several others like Hexaware Ultimately, internal growth will drive a company's sucTechnologies, Mastek, and Patni witnessed a tough year and cess. “Inorganic growth is fast and allows immediate utilizashrank in revenue. For such companies, choosing to sell out tion of acquired assets. But, if the firm grows only inorganito a bigger (and financially more stable) company may seem cally then it would be difficult for it to maintain sustainable a viable option. growth from within and is a strategy for failure. Hence, there But for profit-making enterprises like Brazil-based CPM has to be a good balance between organic and inorganic Braxis, such M&As enable the target companies to reach out growth," sums up Reddi. GS
“The last two years saw businesses focusing more on managing costs. Now we see them back like in pre-crisis growth mode and resuming investment – both organic and inorganic,”
13 GlobalServices
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M&As: The Rising Tide
Special Report
We are seeing the continuation of a two-year consolidation phase Aaron Solganick, Founder President and Managing Director, Generation Equity Advisors, spoke with Ed Nair about the prevalent trends in M&A in the services industry. Aaron believes that the tide is rising compared to the stillness that prevailed in the past two years. Excerpts from the conversation: GS: What are you seeing in terms of the climate for M&As in the services industry for 2010? AS: The overall climate for M&A for the Software & IT Services industry for 2010 is one of the most active in terms of number of transactions announced in the U.S. and globally. We are seeing a continuation of a 2year consolidation phase of major software and IT services firms. M&A is steadily improving quarter-to-quarter 2010 and has clearly gained significant improvement since a dismal 2009. M&A for 2010 is still at belownormal levels as compared to 20052007, but is steadily improving. GS: What kind of deals are these? What are the drivers? AS: So far this year, the largest M&A deals mostly involved BPO firms, while transactions with the highest multiples spanned offshore outsourcing, government, specialty consulting and digital marketing services, showing that healthy valuations are not just tied to one area. Overall, companies are acquiring to gain traction in a product or service offering or geographic reach (India to US, Europe to US, Latin America to US). We see a consistent trend in larger
15 GlobalServices
IT services and BPO firms acquiring small-to-mid market companies that add strategic value to their current offerings. The mega-mergers over the past 2 years have mainly been to take advantage of a lower valuation and sometimes a near fire-sale. GS: But large deals seem to be missing; the likes of HP-EDS, DellPerot, ACS-Xerox. How are the large companies doing? AS: Even though deals of the type you mentioned have not happened, all of the major technology conglomerates such as IBM, HP, Accenture and Capgemini have been steadily active in acquiring companies in 2010. Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation (NTT), one of the largest global telecommunications service providers announced the acquisition of Dimension Data Holdings Plc (Dimension Data), a global specialist IT services and solutions provider, for $3.2 Billion. PwC also recently announced the acquisition of Diamond Management & Technology Consultants, Inc. (DTPI) for $378 million, a move to improve its global management consulting and systems integration offerings. Aon Corporation’s acquisition of human
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resources consulting and outsourcing solution provider Hewitt Associates for $4.8 billion and 1.6x revenue was a large deal in Q3. Add to this, Accenture-Ariba and CapGeminiCPM Braxis kind of deals. GS: What about the Indian vendors? AS:As for the Indian companies such as Wipro, Infosys and HCL, there have been few M&A announcements in 2010. We see Indian firms acquiring small-to-medium sized BPO firms in the U.S. and Europe, but not Indiato-India firms. We also do not see U.S. or European firms acquiring any of the large Indian firms this year and possibly the next due to large valuation gaps (1x’s revenue for U.S. IT services firms versus 4x’s revenues for Indian IT services firms). GS
Aaron Solganick, Founder President and Managing Director, Generation Equity Advisors, is an experienced technology investment banker. He has completed over $8.4 billion in transactions to date including M&A, private capital raises and IPOs. He has worked at top-tier and middle-market M&A firms and gained experience in complex transactions of most shapes and sizes.
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M&As: The Rising Tide
Special Report
M&As by the Numbers DEALS WITH OVER $500M VALUE
1200
600
1420.20
1500
1137.98
515 NO. OF DEALS
TOTAL VALUE IN USD (IN BILLIONS)
GLOBAL M&A DEALS
900 600 300
500 400
323
300 200 100 0
0 Q3 '09
Q1-Q3 2009
Q3 '10
QUARTER
QUARTER
AVERAGE M&A DEAL SIZE
GLOBAL M&A DEALS COUNT
58
60
8,010 8000
6,864
6000 4000
USD (IN MILLIONS)
TOTAL NO. OF DEALS
10000
2000
50 40 30
21.95
20
0 Q3 '09
Q3 '10
Q3 '09
VC-BACKED M&A DEALS
3.8
120
3.5
2.9
97
100 NO. OF DEALS
3.0
Q3 '10
QUARTER
DISCLOSED DEAL VALUE 4.0
Q3 '10
(for IT services only)
QUARTER
USD (IN BILLIONS)
27
10
0
2.5 2.0 1.5
Q1-Q3 2010
1.4
1.0 0.5
80
104
69
60 40 20
0.0 Q3 '09
Q2 '10
Q3 '10
0
QUARTER
Q3 '09
Q2 '10
Q3 '10
QUARTER
Sources: Thompson Reuters, Capital IQ, National Venture Capital Association, Dow Jones Venture Source, MergerMarket 16 GlobalServices
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Industry-specific Processes
The Digital Production Opportunity For publishing companies undergoing cost and revenue pressures, the digital market presents a holistic solution- one that opens a channel of revenue with non-linear growth, while ensuring minimal costs of production & sales. However, creating digital offerings presents its own sets of problems.
Vivek Shenoy, Analyst — Publishing, ValueNotes Sourcing Practice
O
n the 19th of November 2007, Amazon released its first generation Kindle – an event that shaped the digital market. Since then, large corporations such as Sony, Barnes and Noble, Google, and more recently Apple, have been giving the digital content market significant attention – adding credibility and more so, validating the digital market as a strong revenue source. Consumers have responded well to digital content as evident by e-book sales in the US: The International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF) reports sale of digital content/books in the US, for the first two quarters of 2010, in excess of $150 million – a 200% growth since the same period last year. Publishers, over the last few years, have faced significant cost and revenue challenges – challenges that have shaped how the industry is currently operating. For publishing companies undergoing cost and revenue pressures, the digital market presents a holistic solution – one that opens a channel of revenue with non-linear growth, while ensuring minimal costs of production & sales. Whether it is opening a new channel of revenue through digital sales or migrating to digital only operations, the publishing industry worldwide is getting a digital facelift. However, creating digital offerings presents its own sets of problems. Optimal Production of Digital Content is a Challenge To better understand how publishers address the digital market the ValueNotes Sourcing Practice is conducting a survey on “The Current State of Digital Content”. Initial responses from our survey suggest that integrating a digital workflow in addition to the existing print workflow is a challenge – more than two-thirds of the respondents having indicated so. Most publishers view the creation of digital content as two activities: n Digitisation of backlist/archives n Digitisation of existing/future content Digitisation presents its own set of challenges and is highly dependent on the value of the content (particularly for STM/Academic, reference and trade book publishers). Publishers with a large backlist have faced issues while organising content, identifying source files (due to multiple versions), developing workflows in-house and most importantly organis17 GlobalServices
ing the resources required while undertaking the digitisation. On the other hand, digitisation of existing/future content is highly dependent on developing strong workflows that incorporate multiple formats. The biggest challenge remains in maintaining a uniform user reading experience – across various e-readers and formats. To truly monetise the digital market, publishers need to not only develop the necessary technology skills and infrastructure, but also develop the resources in-house – a significant cost outlay. Leveraging the Outsourcing Model Traditionally, publishers have leveraged outsourced publishing services providers to cut costs. However, with the onset of digital content, publishers are going beyond cost as the primary criteria for choosing a vendor. For example, a large education publisher we interviewed rated product expertise as the primary driver for choosing a vendor. Varying formats, ensuring uniformity of reading experience and integrating deliverables in the buyer’s workflow all require capability and skill on part of the vendor. Buyers have also indicated lack of in-house capability (technological expertise) and resources (scalability of operations) as other important drivers of outsourcing. While buyers might consider outsourcing more, satisfaction levels are a concern. Quality, timeliness and delivery processes remain areas where most buyers seek improvement. Providers (pure-play publishing services and otherwise) now stand at the threshold of a significant opportunity – that of digital production. This opportunity includes volume driven services such as conversions, XML, etc. to value added services such as workflow and process consultancy. However, to successfully address this opportunity; providers will need to match up to the buyers expectations of quality and delivery. Publishers will soon need to find a lasting solution to quality issues – consumer expectations from digital content is increasing rapidly. As the market grows, the publishing industry will adopt digital content on a wide scale and as the market matures, there will be more opportunities to cross-sell content. Whether publishers outsource or not, the need of the hour is to digitise in a holistic manner – one that will facilitate the digital production of existing/future content optimally. GS
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Industry-specific Processes
Is Insurance Analytics Outsourcing Set to Surge? By Reetika Joshi, Analyst, ValueNotes Sourcing Practice
Providers are striving to gain critical industry experience and evolve their banking, financial services and insurance practices independently, with a keen eye on high-end services for the near future
T
he last few years saw the deconstruction of the mighty ‘Banking, Financial Services and Insurance’ (BFSI) segment, for the outsourcing industry. With significantly dissimilar business environments, processes and outsourcing needs, the distinct differences in the banking and insurance sectors have become apparent. They are now treated as exclusive customer segments, and the addressable market for each of them have proved extremely lucrative for outsourcing providers. Due to this reason, providers are striving to gain critical industry experience and evolve their ‘banking’, ‘financial services’ and ‘insurance’ practices independently, with a keen eye on high-end services for the near future. 18 GlobalServices
The insurance segment, worth US$4066 billion in global premiums (Swiss Re Sigma Study, 2009), is no stranger to outsourcing. Insurance, reinsurance and intermediary companies have relied on outsourcing application development and infrastructure management outsourcing for many years, like the aggressively outsourced banking segment. With confidence established in the ‘outsourcing’ concept, in the last decade UK based insurers moved ahead to set up offshore captive centres and Third Party Administrator agreements for various low-end business processes as well. Simultaneously, insurance companies in the US engaged with BPO providers instead, and it is due to their efforts that the intensity of insurance BPO outsourcing has grown to today’s volumes. Collectively, the
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Industry-specific Processes
North American insurance BPO market was valued at US$2 billion in 2009 by Celent, a consulting firm. By 2013, this figure is estimated to double, despite the sizing relating to only core low-end BPO processes. Moving up the Enterprise Value Chain Through Insurance Analytics Processes outsourced today by insurers in the US/Europe include a wide variety of volume-led transactions, in the fields of policy administration and servicing, claims administration, various marketing/ sales/new business outbound voice processes, and customer support. These back-office/voice processes have been easier for insurers to outsource, as they are relatively less critical, offer greater savings potential, and are easier to migrate due to their high process maturity. As the industry matures, several major BPO providers are now transitioning to position themselves as high-value business partners, and are offering a range of knowledge intensive services, to move up the value chain. Of these KPO services, insurance analytics looks to be the strongest contender in the coming years, due to the influence of several competitive forces in the insurance segment, elaborated below. 1. Legislative and regulatory compliance requirements: The US healthcare reform will bring in over 30 million new insured over the course of the next four years, introducing complete new segments for US insurers to service. While this is a great opportunity for insurers, they will need strong risk and price remodelling to aid their product development. European insurers, meanwhile, are subject to compliance requirements from the Solvency II regime, which will bring about a more effective risk management framework for the EU. As a result, insurers have to set up extensive risk modelling to comply with the Solvency II requirements, including quantitative requirements (Pillar I), governance, supervision and risk assessment (Pillar II), and disclosure of insurance operations (Pillar III). 2. Strong competitive pressures encouraging ‘core’ outsourcing: Insurers face a market with falling premiums and profitability, compared to the pre-recession years. There is severe competition, coupled with newer customer and distribution channel dynamics. To be able to compete, insurers must achieve the highest degree of efficiency and leanness. Once ‘unoutsourceable’ core processes are no longer viewed as such. Risk modelling, actuarial services and new product development were traditionally the most core insurance activities, directly linked with company performance and competitive differentiation. The entire gamut of these services was then retained in-house. However, with the paradigm shift, even high level research and analytics work is being considered for outsourcing. This 19 GlobalServices
includes services such as: Predictive analyticsClaims and profitability analysisPersistency modelling and analysisMortality/morbidity modelling and analysisProduct profitability analysisNew product development – pricing, valuationCommissions analysisActuarial / statutory reporting Actuarial dataInformation management While initially more reporting and information management services were outsourced within analytics, providers are now seeing a surge in actuarial and profitability/pricing analytics as well. Based on the industry redefinitions taking place, in the coming years only work that is heavily governed by regulations and/or is incapable of being delivered through technology will remain as ‘core’, to be retained in-house. 3.Provider base gaining KPO domain expertise: The majority of high-value insurance processes are complex, being knowledge and judgment intensive. Hence, these ‘KPO’ services will only be entrusted to established ‘niche’ providers who have demonstrated domain expertise in insurance. Towards this, BPO providers are rapidly verticalizing in order to enhance insurance expertise. Existing outsourcing relationships with IT/BPO insurance clients are being leveraged to cross-sell analytics services. The top insurance BPO providers have a significant presence in India, and are benefiting from the country’s strong talent pool, with strong analytical/mathematical skills and English language capabilities. With robust business delivery models, domain expertise and a large talent pool, providers are positioned well to move up the insurance value chain. When is the Shift? While the stage has been set for insurance analytics to gain traction, it must be noted that the bulk of outsourced work still remains heavy back-office processing and customer support. What has changed for insurers is the increased focus on risk modelling, due to changes in the competitive and regulatory environment. This might not translate into more business for BPO providers in the short term, save for existing accounts that have grown, given higher confidence in vendor capabilities. As providers become more verticalized, and further develop their dedicated insurance practices, the shift towards higher value analytics services will accelerate in the next three years. Risk, marketing and operational analytics, coupled with a consultative approach, will greatly help insurers gain competitive advantage in a challenging and complex competitive environment. Due to heightened demand and the strong value proposition offered by the global vendor base, ‘claims processing’ as the most outsourced activity may see some competition in the years to come! GS
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BPO Trends
Industry-specific BPO Will Evolve Stronger Than Horizontal BPO The US Healthcare Reform bill is being seen as the biggest bonanza yet for the industry. While strong IT services vendors have been developing BPO niches in specific verticals, newer BPO vendor entrants are entering through the industry-specific domains. Opportunities will be widespread where BPO and IT services can be bundled together.
By Sruthi Ramakrishnan
V
ertical-specific BPO services present a larger and more diverse market opportunity as compared to horizontal BPO services. The US Healthcare Reform bill has been the biggest newsmaker in this regard, with many already terming it the “biggest bonanza yet� for the industry. Service providers with expertise in the healthcare area, both from industry leaders like India, Philippines and nearshore locations like Canada, Mexico are queuing up to grab a share of the approximately $2.5 trillion US healthcare pie. Experts say that opportunities will be widespread in those industry domains where BPO and IT services can be bundled together under a single vendor's provision. This will help to generate more efficient business outcomes and to secure future IT work with existing clients. So the providers who can bring in industry domain expertise are set to emerge as significant players in the coming year. A trend which is indicative of this growth potential is that newer vendor entrants are entering the BPO industry through the industry-specific (vertical) process domains. Most of the strong IT services vendors have also been developing BPO niches in specific verticals where they have developed some strong process acumen and client credibility. According to a survey by Horses for Sources, one-in-ten financial services firms, and one-in-five from life sciences, are looking to move into some form of domain-specific BPO this year for the first time. These are typically areas where there is some immediate labor arbitrage opportunity, like trade settlement transactions and mortgage pro-
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cessing in financial services, and data storage and management processes in life sciences. Reasons for Evolution of This Sector
At the outset, process outsourcing had been primarily a cost-control strategy driven mainly by labor arbitrage. Cost-control is still relevant. But in today’s environment, especially keeping the slow economic recovery in view, organizations are searching for value--for ways to do things better, faster, and cheaper--and for the ability to truly transform their businesses. To do that, they need BPO that is based on industry-specific knowledge and that is driven to achieve measurable business outcomes. On the buyer side, several industries- financial services, life sciences, healthcare, retail, manufacturing, media, etc. - are undergoing fundamental changes, right from their infrastructure to business model to customer expectations. In such a situation, outsourcing processes is no longer seen as abhorrent or unusual. Another reason is the success of existing domain-specific BPO engagements. Over half of all the financial services and life sciences firms recently surveyed by Horses for Sources are looking to expand existing BPO engagements this year, and very few intend to pull work back onshore. However, this doesn't necessarily entail massive increased spending overnight, but more a gradual incremental increase in engagement scope. Suppliers also find the marketplace increasingly crowded, and industry-centric capabilities enable competitive differentiation. Moreover, the move to greater domainspecificity is intrinsically tied to the business utility model of the future, where there are signs of the convergence of SaaS, Cloud and BPO/ITO models within an engagement
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structure. The need for clients and vendors to define, develop and implement holistic end-to-end process solutions is slowly coming to the forefront. All these reasons have led an increasing number of industry verticals to explore new and radical means to improve productivity, source new revenue opportunities and driveout cost. Other benefits sought from providers include enhanced customer service, greater competitive agility, and measurable long-term business value, to name a few. Vertical-specific Potential
Healthcare outsourcing : The Healthcare Reform bill has the outsourcing industry abuzz with anticipation. Many BPO firms, including several Indian ones, recently increased or are in the process of increasing their onshore presence in the US or seeking possible mergers and acquisitions with other companies so as to broaden their expertise and so gain more business from the on-the-brink-ofbooming healthcare industry there. But capturing the US healthcare market is easier said than done. So far only a few IT and BPO firms have made a headway into the US healthcare provider and payer market despite the huge potential for automation and out-
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sourced services in areas such as revenue cycle management and claims processing. Industry players and experts cite issues like lesser willingness to outsource as compared to the financial services players, regulatory and privacy concerns related to patient records, compliance to specific Acts such as HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act), knowledge of medical procedures and codes, and variations between states which make this market more challenging. But with 32 million Americans slated to join the ranks of the newly-insured, many providers will soon be seeking assistance in the processing of not just the new enrollees, but their existing clients as well. Insurance providers who were previously hesitant about outsourcing services will also now be forced to rethink, especially as competition will be tougher than ever in their industry. Of course with that, competition to gain profit from healthcare services will be tougher in the outsourcing industry as well. Financial sector outsourcing: The financial services sector has seldom faced a tougher set of business, market, and regulatory challenges. Many firms face threats from ongoing consolidations, more mature non-traditional competitors, and proliferating compliance demands. To meet these
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challenges, BPO is increasingly being seen as a logical and proven tool for banks, card issuers, mortgage, insurance and other financial services firms. Banks and other organizations are using BPO to manage risk, to reduce costs, and to comply with increasingly rigorous regulatory demands. Mortgage Process outsourcing: The major challenge which service providers face while offering mortgage services is the integration of services like loan origination, vendor management, post-closing processing services, third party services until underwriting, modification services, technology services etc. TCS (Tata Consultancy Services) shared with Global Services ('New Demands in Mortgage Processing BPO', September 28, 2009) that as mortgage rates dropped to under 5% early last year, re-finance activity increased creating a spike in demand for origination and loan closing related services. This demand cooled as rates edged up. For default related services including MODs and real estate owned (REO) there were early demand spikes as servicers began to deal with the mortgage crisis. An uncertain regulatory environment and political pressures for moratoria on foreclosures late in 2008 contributed to a slowing in default outsourcing. As moratoria expire and MOD programs become better defined, service providers are facing a need to rapidly add scale. Cycle time has shortened dramatically. For service providers this translates into a need for excellence in manpower management, recruiting, and training. An additional critical element is deep domain expertise – the ability to work with the client to optimize processes, find ways to automate more fully and expand the scope of potentially outsourced business processes. Life sciences outsourcing: The industry-wide drive for pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies to lower costs, access specialized services and increase flexibility through outsourcing work to Contract Service Providers (CSPs) was highlighted by BioCrossroads’ latest report on Industry Developments in U.S. Biopharmaceutical Contract Services. The new report acknowledges that while 2009 was slow for many CSPs, the underlying reasons for pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies to outsource selected activities will continue for the foreseeable future. CSPs should continue to grow as the pharmaceutical industry moves towards a more flexible business model. Biomarker services and the need for larger clinical
trials will provide opportunities for additional growth in future years. Besides, with the consolidation of the pharmaceutical industry and the continued trend of strategic partnerships between CSPs and their clients, many companies in the sector will be drawn to find new revenue sources. Besides India and Japan, China is emerging as a potential industry leader in this vertical. According to a 2008 report ‘The Changing Dynamics of Pharma Outsourcing in Asia: Are You Readjusting Your Sights?’ by PriceWaterhouseCoopers, big pharmaceutical companies rated China as the best location for outsourcing in Asia. The country’s large population represents enormous market potential for Western firms whose domestic profits are coming to a standstill. Pharma companies are also drawn by China’s low production costs. The Wall Street Journal estimates that the total cost of a scientist in China is $30,000, compared to $250,000 in the U.S. Worldwide pharmaceutical firms looking to expand sales into emerging markets are contributing resources to China. Supply Management outsourcing: The market surpassed a billion dollars in expenditure for the first time last year, with a 30% hike in expenditure on new multiscope BPO contracts, as reported by the AMR Research Supplier Management BPO services report of 2009. The main reason for this uptake is the increased availability of low-cost offshore services for procure-to-pay and strategic sourcing support, with 72 percent of services being delivered from India for largely North American and European organizations. But experts say that this market will not sustain its growth trajectory unless customers think beyond short-term labor arbitrage, and service providers introduce significant process and technology enhancements to the early adopters to help them optimize their delivery. Publishing outsourcing: The pressures that publishers faced in the wake of economic recession stimulated the ebook market. In the US alone, trade wholesale electronic book sales amounted to $167 million according to the International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF). The ebook segment is growing and has witnessed serious attempts by publishers to make it a strong revenue source. Outsourcing is being looked upon, besides to tackle
The move to greater domainspecificity is intrinsically tied to the business utility model of the future, where there are signs of the convergence of SaaS, Cloud and BPO/ITO models within an engagement structure
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cost pressures, to deal with the challenges of adapting to new technology, lack of in-house capability and addressing new geographies. According to a 2010 ValueNotes survey of publishing service buyers, India was followed by the US in popular publishing outsourcing destinations, while the Philippines was the second most preferred offshore destination after India. ValueNotes estimates the Indian publishing outsourcing industry to grow to a $1.2 billion annual market by 2012 from $660 million in 2008. This growth is expected to come from the rise in the number of publishing firms that will outsource their work. Indian players are shifting focus from the matured academic segment to the more lucrative segments in the publishing market- educational, magazines, corporate, B2B, trade and e-books will be attractive segments over the next three-four years, and Indian service providers can extend their current capabilities to service these upcoming opportunities. The industry still suffers from a serious piracy problem, caused largely by the high price of books, especially foreign books published under license, where currency exchange rates push up the prices. Besides, diversifying into new areas of business and providing value-addition within current offerings are areas where outsourcing is yet to be viewed as a complete solution, the ValueNotes survey revealed. Media outsourcing: The global media and entertainment industry revenue is likely to increase by leaps and bounds due to the proliferation of content in multiple formats across media platforms. The media process outsourcing opportunity is huge since most of the existing contents worldwide are in the analogue form and need to be digitized for new platforms. As advertising declines, the pace of onshore and offshore outsourcing in the media industry appears to be picking up. The Everest Group reported an increase in media-related outsourcing deals in the last year. Mergers among media companies are driving some of those deals, but most of the push to outsourcing is due to pressures in the ad market. Publishers see labor arbitrage and offshoring as one of the easiest things they can do to cut costs. Many companies today understand the importance of maintaining a good profile on the internet. Hence, they seek social media services like SMO (SM optimization) for their websites from third party vendors to boost their online business marketing while they focus full time on their core business development. Other Verticals
Industry specific variations of horizontals continue to
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remain unaddressed though a few areas such as Revenue Accounting (Travel) or Revenue Assurance (Telecom) are drawing interest. Travel (airlines) is a sector where industry specific services such as Pricing/Fare filing or Yield Management or Load Management have seen demand though "revenue accounting" has been leading in the sector. Insurance is a sector which has been waiting for a good platform solution for a few years now. Firms looking at supply chain functions, such as management of environmental compliance, distribution management, sourcing etc. are also choosing to outsource them. Other emerging verticals include technology, telecom and transportation. Opportunities and Risks
The 2009 Everest report ‘Industry-Centric BPO Solutions- Opportunity to Attain Distinctive Market Positioning’ says that while “verticalization” of services implies numerous opportunities for value creation, there are also potential risks, and suppliers need to identify and adopt mitigation strategies for these risks. Among opportunities, the report mentions that while the overall BPO market is highly competitive, the market by industry is concentrated. Also, the industry specificity of services sets the stage for the introduction of highervalue pricing models. On the other hand, strategic investments for capability building in vertical services will carry larger risks. Experts also warn that while industry-specificity will clearly be a major driver in outsourcing, the financial pressures on vendors to maintain their profit margins may override its development. The capability to deliver genuine domain-specific process acumen to clients is quickly becoming a major differentiator in the market. However, investing in the talent to truly scale these capabilities is expensive, and the margins aren't as appealing as those currently being displayed by several vendors delivering the easy, operational work. As a result, sector-specific skill shortages (specialized skill categories for vertical-specific processes such as actuaries for Insurance BPO) are likely to emerge, according to the Nasscom- Everest India BPO Study (2008). While some vendors are clearly content with a thin veneer of vertical capability, others are picking verticals where they feel they can gain an edge over the competition. But it's a gradual development, and experts say that it will take patience and attitude on the vendors’ side to invest in the depth of talent they need, and less concern about short-term profits and demands. GS
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Human Resource Outsourcing
Why European RPO Stays Within Europe Stringent data protection laws require employee information to be kept within the Union
By Pratibha Verma
T
he European recruitment process outsourcThe seventh principle (concerning information security) ing (RPO) market is not amenable to off- is relevant to how the information is sent and the necessity shoring. Despite being a segment growing at to have contracts when using subcontractors abroad. annual rate of 10 percent, the RPO market Dunphy says, "If data is going outside the EU you in Europe relies solely on a mix of onshoring would have to inform every candidate about it. These are and nearshoring. Cultural affinity and the nature of the constraints. A lot of organizations worry that they don't recruitment process is only part of the reason. Alsbridge want to be the first one to have a legal case about holding Senior Manager Shaun Dunphy says, " Onshoring of RPO data in India or any other offshore destination. For many with some nearshoring is emphatically practiced in Europe RPO companies it is easy to retain the data within the EU. because of data protection laws.” The reason why RPO is not offshored is also because it can The Data Protection run easily in the same contiDirective (Directive 95/46/EC nent.” on the protection of individuWhat do RPO buyers need? als with regard to the processRPO buyers want streamlined ing of personal data and on the recruitment processes from serfree movement of such data) is vice providers, which means a European Union directive they want providers to reduce that regulates the processing of the time it takes to hire good personal data within the candidates, reduce the cost per European Union. It is an recruitment. They want to move Shaun Dunphy, Alsbridge important component of EU to fixed price per recruitment privacy and human rights law. campaign and to lower the According to Information Commissioner's office, the recruitment cost from what they have in-house. It would Data Protection Act says that personal data shall not be have been easier to reduce costs through offshoring but the transferred to a country or territory outside the European laws prevent it. GS Economic Area (EEA) unless that country or territory ensures an adequate level of protection for the rights and Recent RPO Deals in Europe freedoms of data subjects in relation to the processing of personal data. l SourceRight Solutions for Siemens (announced August 9, 2010) This is the eighth data protection principle, but other principles of the Act are also relevant to sending personal l Alexander Mann Solutions for Cobham Plc data overseas. For example, the first principle (relating to (announced July 14, 2010) fair and lawful processing) will in most cases require to l Xchanging for BAE Systems (announced May 18, inform individuals about disclosures of their personal data 2010) to third parties overseas. l Harvey Nash for Buying Solutions (announced Dunphy says that employee-data cannot be transfered to March 2, 2010) other countries without the employee's consent. So, if the l Alexander Mann Solutions for Atos Origin data is going to be stored in the other country, it becomes (announced October 21, 2009) mandatory for the employee to sign an agreement before Source: Ovum IT Services Contracts Analytics joining the company.
“A lot of organizations worry that they don't want to be the first one to have a legal case about holding data in India or any other offshore destination.”
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Q&A
WHAT COGNIZANT THINKS Thoughts are things, as they say. Powerful thoughts have shaped institutions, organizations, nations, and civilizations. Malcolm Frank, SVP-Corporate Marketing and Strategy, Cognizant, was asked by his CEO (Francisco D’Souza) to synthesize the signals from the market and come up with a strategy that would define what and how the company did. In an exclusive phone-side chat with Ed Nair, Malcolm explains the evolution of Cognizant’s thought, called as ‘Future of Work’ and how Cognizant applies it to the marketplace.
M
en and organizations do fundamental rethinking when something is seriously broken. So, what happened at Cognizant?
MF: The recession. Companies in our sector, including us, had grown at superlative rates for the past five to six years. And then suddenly growth stalled. Institutions of the likes of Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers fell. It was scary. GS: Did you panic? MF: Our CEO Franc D’Souza did a very wise thing. Instead of panicking, he gathered the senior managers at Cognizant and charged them with coming up with a synthesized view of what was happening. The top 20 managers locked themselves up in a meeting all Friday, Saturday, and Sunday for many weeks that followed. Instead of just providing our opinions on what we thought went wrong, we looked at what was happening through the lens of our clients. We went client-by-client, half an hour each, in a rigorous way. These meetings were not fun, but after the third one, the pattern started to emerge. GS: What was that? MF: Customers were recognizing that this was not a cyclical downturn; they recognized that this was a shift point. The trigger for that might have been the mortgage crisis, but there were some very large forces at work. It was not about tightening the belts or laying off a few people. Change is accelerating as the global recession gives birth to a “reset economy” in which organizations in every industry are reassessing their business models to overcome unpredictable markets, greater margin pressures and a drought in investment capital. There was this feeling amongst many clients that something was seriously wrong at the basic level, that they need to 25 GlobalServices
Malcolm Frank, SVP-Corporate Marketing and Strategy, Cognizant build a new curve, that they need to find new ways of organizing, new ways of delivering, and new ways of creating value. That was the initial view into what we now call as ‘Future of Work’. GS: Future of Work. Sounds eclectic. So those large forces of change that you mentioned ... MF: Yes. There are a few easy ones. One was certainly globalization. For us, in terms of what we do during the day, we are too close to the trees to be able to see the forest clearly. Our clients had globalized this one piece around IT but there were many other portions of their business model that were not
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globalized. Clients were closely looking at that. Work, of all forms, is migrating to its right location worldwide, allowing companies to leverage expertise anywhere and everywhere it resides. Second is virtualization and I don’t mean it only in the techie sense. New virtualized platforms are enabling real-time collaboration both within organizations and with outside partners, leading to new ways of working, managing and innovating. Virtualized company, virtualized work experience….because of financial pressures companies were highly motivated to try out these new things. GS: What about technology? Isn’t that a force of change by itself? There is so much talk about cloud computing, social media… MF: Yes. Cloud computing, social networking, broadband and mobility are enabling new business and technology models that improve operational flexibility and knowledge sharing. There was first-hand experience at this. The experience they were having on Sunday nights— very exciting and engaging social computing experience using their iPad or to Tweet or chat with friends on FaceBook. And then, on Monday morning and face the old world kind of
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work……the difference is vast and things are not going to go on this way for long. This dissonance between the Sunday night and Monday morning experience was driving some real change not just with the IT footprint but also overall with the organization. It is being turbocharged by the ‘millennial’ generation. This brings us to the next major force of change- the ‘millennial’ generation and their mindset. GS: What about the generation of millennials? MF: A major shift in the nature of work coincides with the growing presence of the Millennial generation in the workforce and the consumer marketplace. There are an estimated 50 million Millennials, defined as persons ranging in age from 18 to 29, who were born after 1980 and have come of age in the new millennium. Approximately 65% of this group is now in the workforce on either a full-time or part-time basis. (Pew Research Center, “Millennials: A Portrait of Generation Next,” February 2010.) GS: What do these ideas point toward? What did you do about them? MF: There were two perspectives: outside-in and inside-out. Outside-in, the answer was unambiguous. But this was the
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general theme. How does this show up in the retail banking, how in the life sciences industry, how in certain portions of the manufacturing industry. We really understand that. It was beneficial for us, but it was more important for the customers. The second important thing was inside-out. Lot of customers came back to Cognizant and said that, “You seem to embody these principles”. That makes sense because if we look at what we do- we are by definition highly globalized and they were particularly intrigued by the management team that is virtual but works in a very cohesive way. We embrace the virtual experience in a meaningful way. Third, we run the company on social technology. It looks like FaceBook. Called as Cognizant 2.0 or C2, it is the marriage between social computing, cloud computing, and knowledge management. Today, C2 provides a virtual “town square” for more than 89,000 Cognizant associates and some 54,000 users have collaborated on hundreds of projects worldwide. About 90 percent of our employees are millennials. When customers look at Cognizant, they say that we already embody a lot of the attributes of Future of Work. GS: Is this a vision or a value proposition or a set of corporate guidelines…..how does the ‘Future of Work’ play out at Cognizant? MF: We live by it. It is not a vision or value proposition to attract clients or new recruits. It is a very pragmatic way of doing things, the way things are done at Cognizant. We believe these are going to become operating norms for the next generation. We talk about it internally a lot. The opportunities that are created for our associates- how do you manage teams that are globally distributed teams, virtual teams located in many different places, located across different organizations in a very cohesive way. These are capabilities that are going to serve them well for the next decade or so. GS: All of these are concepts validated by what’s happening in the world. But in the end, Cognizant is an IT services and BPO company. How do you apply this ‘Future of Work’ construct to your business? MF: The ‘Future of Work’ helps us understand and analyze the future of every industry. Our great strength is the 2-in-a-
box model, we have got senior client partners onsite with customers. It helped us get in front of the customer quickly, to take these concepts, and really hone them across various industries. Our broad findings were: 1. Organizations need more scalable and flexible IT systems and processes that allow knowledge to be captured and applied by virtual teams inside and outside the conventional organizational structure. 2. Powered by new (and often cloud-enabled) platforms of collaboration, new systems which rely heavily on social computing and mobility solutions, are emerging to replace or extend traditional systems of record to deliver just-in-time insights, across disciplines. 3. The impact of this is unique. Knowledge is getting created, captured, and used differently. This is fueling highvalue, knowledge-based processes at forward-thinking companies. These activities range from clinical trials data management in life sciences, to risk management and underwriting in insurance, to mortgage loan-decisioning in retail banking, among others. Cognizant delivers IT and business capabilities to its clients. We do it by combining applications, platforms, infrastructure, knowledge processes, and domain expertise in unique ways. GS: Give me live examples. MF: We helped a global life sciences company have access to real-time reports from a fully outsourced sales and marketing analytics solution. This solution was delivered as a business process as a service (BPaaS) solution. While delivering more accurate and timely cost data, the BPaaS solution is enabling the company to flex its sales and marketing operations as business conditions dictate. Another top-five global life science company engaged us to help optimize and extend how it analyzes sales and marketing data (e.g., segmentation, promotion response analysis, alignments, call planning, and incentive compensation). Using a mix of next-generation solutions (hybrid and pure BPaaS), we helped the company reduce its analytics spend by 33% in 2009 (compared with 2008), while reducing its OpEx across sales and marketing operations to fund other ongoing business transformation initiatives. GS Ed Nair
“Change is accelerating as the global recession gives birth to a “reset economy” in which organizations in every industry are reassessing their business models to overcome unpredictable markets, greater margin pressures and a drought in investment capital.”
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