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WHAT’S NEXT FOR BPO PROVIDERS?
BUSINESS PROCESS OUTSOURCING IN THE NEW NORMAL “The pace of change has never been this fast, yet it will never be this slow again” – said Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau at the World Ecenomic Forum annual meeting in Davos in 2018. His message became a harbinger of the events that shook the world in 2020 and sped up the pace of change even further. As is the case with many other industries, the pandemic has pushed BPO players to change the ways they deliver value to their customers. Showing considerable resilience in the face of a global crisis, the business process outsourcing (BPO) market is expected to grow by 7–8% annually over the next four years. The focus for BPOs is now set on employing automation, artificial intelligence and other technologies to build robust service roadmaps and secure lasting client relationships.
another challenge. BPOs expertly perform these tasks, saving their clients time and money. While business process automation has emerging as a threat to BPOs, intra-organisational technology initiatives are notoriously difficult to implement, so corporations trust their BPO providers with automation solutions as well.
With this in mind, it is no wonder that some BPO providers have not only withstood the challenges of the pandemic but even managed to grow. The Paris-headThe global pandemic is transforming quartered Teleperformance, for instance, traditional BPO models and the sector has recently decided to expand its Lithuafaces significant challenges. This article nian team by more than 500 employees. provides general trends by drawing on examples of how Lithuania-based With a new global client entrusting BPO providers are adapting in the face the company with content moderation of ubiquitous change. work, Teleperformance needs specia lists with the right language skills, and OUTSOURCING SOLVES LACK Lithuania’s multilingual talent pool is OF CAPACITY AND EXPERTISE more than ready to meet the challenge. The whole premise of BPO rests on busi- The country has one of the highest nesses having scarce resources. Large foreign language knowledge rates enterprises often lack the means or in Europe, with the average number expertise to carry out certain functions, of languages spoken per person being such as customer support, data entry, or 2.7, and 97.3% of the population speaking accounting, themselves. Many of them at least one foreign language. Operating also do not have the technology stack in Lithuania since 2015, Teleperformance for transaction processing work, which is now employs specialists speaking English,
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Swedish, Portuguese, Spanish, Russian, Greek, and Hebrew.
GEOGRAPHIC DIVERSIFICATION – THE KEY TO COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE The global pandemic has starkly highlighted the flaws of the single outsourcing hub model, affirming that diversification is key to getting the offshore delivery equation right. Other factors, such as tightening regulations in various jurisdictions and a steady increase in wages, are also pushing BPO providers towards a global delivery model. Today, diversifying their geographic presence is paramount for BPOs that want to leverage unsaturated talent pools and gain competitive advantage over their competition. US management consultancy Guidehouse opening an office in Lithuania is a recent example of such geographic diversification. Expanding its managed services business, the company expects to hire up to 100 specialists who will serve Guidehouse clients in the areas of AML and brand risk management. Lithuania’s strong antimoney laundering ecosystem and highly-qualified local talent were the main drivers behind the company’s decision to invest in the country.
Outsourcing&More | May–June 2021
