VOL: Issue:11022022
Arun Malhotra Founder and President
ARDEM Cutting-Edge Solutions for Seamless Business Automation Outsourcing Companies THE RISE OF GLBAL 2022 BUSINESS PROCESS The Right Questions Inuence of AI on the BPO market Will AI take over? TechTimeline Tracing the evolutionof the industryoutsourcing
Further, companies are able to shift their focus on to the core operations in the business with BPOs taking
Bindustry from a mere $7 billion industry in 2006. This rapid growth in the BPO market is the result of more and more organizations realizing the importance and advantages of the services that the BPO companies provide.
Outsourcing some of the essential but not core business processes in the organization helps owners save a lot of overhead costs and it is the prime reason why companies today are looking to adopt these services. Another reason why BPOs are preferred more today is that these organizations have the edge when it comes to the availability of experienced professionals. Recruiting new employees in the organizations and training them is a lot of hassle and BPOs take this load completely off of the hands of organizations that are looking for quick solutions.
Looking past the initial resistance and reluctance to adopt the services offered by the industry, companies are now leveraging the cost-effective, flexible, and agile offerings of the BPO market in full swing. The global scenario of business process outsourcing today is very promising and holds a lot of potential to grow further in the future as well.
Strengthening Business Processes Through Efficient Operational Solutions
POs have gone on to become a $120 billion
Have an insightful read!
- Trishika Rokade
Some of the major business domains that are benefiting from these excellent services provided by the BPO companies today are IT/ITES, financial services, healthcare services, call center services, e-commerce websites, travel industry, retail services, educational institutions, manufacturing and telecom sector. BPOs help these domains by offering services like software development, helpdesk services, infrastructure management services, bookkeeping, payroll processing, telemarketing, technical support services, refund services, complaint processing, service information, and numerous other operations in a business that call for attention.
This particular edition features some of the top global companies that are transforming the way business processes used to be carried out before the rise of BPOs. You will also come across articles that will enlighten you on the current trends and scenarios of the industry.
care of the backend, frontend, and other operations in the organization. An essential service that helps build the goodwill of the company is customer service and oftentimes businesses are not able to give a lot of attention to this important aspect of their business and this is where BPOs come in the picture. With the help of experienced staff, BPOs are able to solve customer queries and ensure a smooth customer experience which is a huge factor that helps with customer retention.
up with its all-new edition 'The Rise of Global Business Process Outsourcing Companies 2022'.
To recognize and honor the comprehensive services provided by these organizations, Insights Success has come
Article 30 16 24 34 20 TECHTIMELINE THE RIGHT QUESTIONS Influence of Ar ficial Intelligence (AI) on the BPO market: Will AI Take Over the Human Work? Tracing the Evolu on of the Outsourcing Industry CallForce Outsourcing Specialists Customized and Innova ve Outsourcing Provider Opus Growth Partners Empowering Businesses to A ain Excellence Salelytics, LLC Driving Revenue with Advanced Technology and Con nuous Innova on
Why Happy Customers Matter – The story behind Business Process Outsourcing Success at ARDEM ARDEM Incorporated 08 CoverStory
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Salelytics is one of the nation’s leading providers of Inside Sales, Account Management & Inbound Support services.
RSM is a powerful network of audit, tax and consulting experts with offices all over the world.
Emerhub provides market entry services such as company registration and remote hiring to foreign companies expanding in Indonesia, Vietnam, the Philippines and Pakistan.
Opusemerhub.comEmerhubGrowthPartnerscentralhubspot.comArdemIncorporatedardem.comCallForcecallforce.co.zaAtentoatento.com
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Co-founder,MarlissaCEORobertsDessyPartnerHugoStrideCEOFernandoPigattiCEO
ARDEM is a Business Process Outsourcing and Business Process Automation service provider. The organization helps established companies improve their operational efficiencies and reduce their overhead costs.
Atento is a leader in Latin America, serving the largest companies in their sector such as: Telecommunications, Banking/Financial Services, Healthcare, Retail, Governmental, and Born-digital Services among others.
Opus Growth Partners is a sales specialization and direct response marketing company. The company's primarily focused on the top end of the market, with clients across technology, professional services, and eCommerce.
Straive (earlier known as SPi Global) is a market leading content technology enterprise that provides data services, subject matter expertise (SME) and technology solutions to multiple domains such as research content, e-Learning/EdTech and data/information providers.
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Visiongain publishes independent and insightful market reports produced by experienced analysts.
Arun Malhotra Founder and President
Pigatti is the right partner for the management of your company. With more than 60 years of experience, Pigatti works with transparency and responsibility so that your business is leveraged towards success.
Candice
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ViceMattConsultingManagementGargoPresidentMarkObrienVPofSales visiongain.comVisiongain
CallForce delivers innovative, customised contact centre solutions from South Africa to the global market.
The story behind Business Process Outsourcing Success at ARDEM
We are able to help our clients across the complete human-technology spectrum, from assignments that are human-effort intensive to assignments that are technology-intensive.
Why Happy Customers Matter –
The Rise of Global Business Process Outsourcing Companies 2022
Arun Malhotra Founder and President
In this interview, Arun Malhotra , ARDEM’s Founder and President, shares the story behind his company’s success
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Establishedsuccessfully.companies
We spend a lot of time understanding the needs of our clients, this helps us configure the best solution for them. Story
Cover
ackend processes are essential to any business or corporation. Typically, these operational processes are effort intensive, time-consuming, and expensive to implement and manage. However, these processes are critical for every business and need to be implemented
need to continuously improve their operations by focusing on efficiency and cost reductions to succeed in a highly competitive market. It is imperative that the back-office business processes are efficient. They need to support and help the businesses improve their performance and overall results.
We strive continuously to provide value to our clients. We spend a lot of time understanding our client’s needs and this helps us to configure the best solution for them. Not only do we provide the best solutions that meet our client’s needs today, but we also build in continuous improvements for our future clients.
Our beliefs, our culture, and the way we work is also our differentiator. We all believe that people are inherently good and have the ability to solve complex problems. We are all capable of delivering truly exceptional results and creating innovative solutions for our clients. Our focus is to provide exceptional and hassle-free service so that our clients can focus on core issues which impact their businesses. ARDEM’s objective is to grow and to create new jobs that benefit many.
Wherever there is a need for information to be collected, processed, and managed, we are able to help our clients. This can be any typical back-office transaction tasks related to Finance and Accounting, Human Resources, Supply Chain, Logistics, Procurement, etc. Or in tasks that require Data Analysis, Data Research, Business Intelligence, and Data Analytics.
existence. Our second objective is to produce the highest quality of work. Our relentless pursuit of quality has allowed us to continue to expand and grow our new customer base.
Shed some light on ARDEM’s offerings and how they impact the industry and your clients?
I am proud to share here that recently ARDEM was ranked among the Top 30 BPO outsourcing companies in the USA by outsourceaccelerator.com. With our excellent team and the continued recognition by our customers, I am confident that we are well positioned for future growth at ARDEM.
ARDEM is a Business Process Outsourcing and Business Process Automation service provider. We help established companies improve their operational efficiencies and reduce their overhead costs. Our headquarters is in New Jersey, and our global data centers are in India and South America.
and the services they offer. They are helping companies across every domain to achieve their goals.
I am very proud of each ARDEM team member. They recognize that our paychecks come from our customers. Each of them works towards achieving the highest customer satisfaction in everything they do. This has been the single biggest driver behind our customers trusting us. Trusting that we will help them succeed. Trusting that we will always meet and exceed their expectations.
I would say our differentiator has been our firm conviction in pursuing two objectives. One, we aim for very high customer satisfaction, and this can be seen in our high customer retention rate. A few of our customers have been with us for more than 15 years in our two-decade of
Please brief our audience about ARDEM, its USPs, and how it is currently positioned as a trusted Business Automation and Business Process Outsourcing partner.
I am amazed by the number of different opportunities our clients bring to us and how ARDEM creates solutions for them. It seems like one day, we are working on an outsourced accounting task, then the next day, we are gathering Business Intelligence for a new client across all
Arun, please brief us about your journey in the industry and how you have contributed to ARDEM’s success.
Our ability to stay nimble, to quickly pivot, and to create new innovative solutions that meet our client’s needs has helped us to grow. Not only do we develop solutions, but also execute them successfully. This is a great benefit to our Atclients.ARDEM,
Yes, we have both people and robots performing back-office processing. Sometimes, people are the best choice to perform certain tasks and other tasks are better performed using robots with Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence. As an engineer myself, I always get excited when we bring in new technology to create a better solution for our clients.
Both the internet and outsourcing of services were relatively new when I started ARDEM. However, I saw an opportunity to make work processes more efficient and to help my clients not only to reduce costs but also meet their compliance and regulatory needs. This has been a differentiating factor for ARDEM.
Prior to my “ARDEM life”, I had worked for over 20 years in the corporate world with a Fortune 500 company. I possessed all the passion of an entrepreneur and the
their retail outlets. I find all this so fascinating. I am also amazed by the complexity of our client needs that we can resolve with our services.
Since we can help our clients become more efficient and reduce their costs, we have been able to expand our clientele in every industry. Accounting, Energy, Banking, Insurance, Manufacturing, Retail, Healthcare, Life Sciences, and many others. Every business in every industry wants and needs to become more efficient and control their costs. We can help them succeed.
In the early years, each new order helped us win the next
we focus on having the best and top qualified people and building robust processes using the most innovative technologies. This focus has helped us exceed our clients' expectations on every assignment.
We can help our clients across the complete humantechnology spectrum. From assignments that are humaneffort intensive to assignments that are technologyintensive. However, we are constantly challenging ourselves to automate and introduce technology. This has produced a higher quality result and/or a shorter cycle time for our clients.
Cover Story
willingness of an immigrant to put in the 18-hour workdays to launch ARDEM.
Starting in my office at home (sorry, not the garage), I initially targeted the government sector, where prior relationships did not seem so critical. Success in this sector helped give us the traction we needed. We kept winning long term government contracts which provided us a stable cash flow and the ability to increase market presence.
We work primarily with small to mid-sized businesses. We also provide our services to the federal, state, and local governments. I am very excited about our recent cloud collaboration platform that we designed for one of the state governments. We implemented a platform with their health department to collect, process, and manage COVID data.
Being an experienced leader, share your opinion on the impact of modern technologies such as AI and Machine Learning's adoption on the business outsourcing space and what more could be expected in the future?
one. Our customers did all the selling for us because of their excellent references. Now, I am proud to say that we have a long list of happy and satisfied customers who are still helping us grow today.
I think all the conversations and particularly the angst about Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence is like the early days of Outsourcing. Like it was for Business Process Outsourcing, these technologies are already here and, here to stay. They will continue to grow and, in most cases, these technologies will benefit all of us. I am a believer in human beings, our adaptability and in our creativity.
Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Robotic Process Automation, and other technologies will continue to be applied in the business outsourcing space. We see in our own work for different clients that we can deliver higher quality and shorter processing cycle times where we have
Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Robotic Process Automation, and other technologies will continue to be applied in the business outsourcing space.
It is always helpful if you can contribute something new. It could be a new approach, a creative new idea, or it could be a new technology. If you don’t, there is the risk that you will be grouped as ‘just another’ BPO.
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Honestly, I was amazed by how quickly my team pivoted at the onset of COVID. We, like many companies in the technology space, were working from physical offices before COVID. Within less than a week after our decision to work remote, we were all working from our homes. We did not skip a beat. All our deliverables to our customers stayed on schedule and all commitments were kept as
Entrepreneurs in any domain are a different breed. You need to be passionate about what you are doing. You need to be absolutely driven by your conviction that you can succeed. And you need to be willing to work like crazy. It is not a job but a passion.
Once you have customers, you want to keep them happy and always provide them a high-quality service. Help them solve their problems. Be responsive to their needs. Once you have people, treat them well, respect them, and help them succeed. Help them understand and adopt the values and beliefs that you hold dear.
to go remote immediately was driven by our belief that this pandemic situation was likely to be longterm. My thinking back in March of 2020, was this could last 18 months. Little did I know that we would still be working remotely today. We are planning to continue working remotely and we have no definite date to return to our offices. I do not see how we could bring back the team to our offices without considering their safety and health.
Considering the current pandemic, what initial challenges did you face, and how did you drive ARDEM to sustain operations while ensuring the safety of your employees at the same time?
applied automation technologies. We apply an Automation Gate check on all our client assignments. This helps us to define what process steps need to be automated in the workflow. The result is always a better solution to our clients.
How do you envision scaling ARDEM’s operations and offerings in 2022 and further?
The COVID pandemic led to a significant jump in our business over the last eighteen months. We had new clients that came over to us because their current outsourcing partners were facing insurmountable challenges and were not able to adapt quickly enough. We had the technology, the infrastructure, and the bandwidth with excellent and qualified team members that allowed us to onboard many new clients over this period.
We expect to continue our year-over-year growth rate, of around 30%. We will continue to enlarge our team size primarily in India and in South America. We have been seeing tremendous growth in our Finance and Accounting Services, Energy, Business Intelligence, and Data Analytics.
We expect to stay in our Remote working model through 2022. We also expect to grow our services as a solution via our cloud platforms. We plan to continue providing our clients with Smart Business solutions that use the intersection of People for Innovation, Robust Processes for Workflow Improvement, and Technology for Collaborative Success.
What would be your advice to budding entrepreneurs who aspire to venture into the business outsourcing services market?
Customized and Innovative Outsourcing Provider
CallForce Outsourcing Specialists
South Africa-based, CallForce Outsourcing Specialists, is providing customized and innovative contact centre solutions to the Global market. The company has a global footprint in over five continents, Africa, the United States, the United Kingdom, Asia, and Australia. The organization is a self-funded and 100% women-owned company.
Please brief our audience about CallForce, its USPs, and how it is currently positioned as a trusted outsourcing partner.
Delivering innovative contact centre solutions from South Africa to the Global market is at the heart of what we do with the goal to streamline the operations of an existing contact centre or create a custom contact centre solution that transforms the experience customers have with a brand.
Our service offering is underpinned by our vision to create 500 000 career opportunities for the youth of South Africa while contributing to the growth of the South African GBS sector by 2030.
E
In a recent interview, we asked a few questions to CallForce Outsourcing Specialists Team, read the answers below to know more about them.
mployment is the basic need of human beings to survive in this competitive world. Competition between people and the organization has taken a rise alongside technology. Even in the pandemic, unemployment numbers were rising due to lockdowns.
being an endeavour entrepreneur helped the company to reach outstanding achievements.
Outsourcing companies hire and appoint people to do the work for the client organization. Business process outsourcing is subcontracting various business-related operations to third-party vendors.
Candice Roberts, the CEO, is a person who is behind the success and innovation of the company. Specialization in
During this hard time, outsourcing helped a lot to organizations and aspiring young generations to grow financially. The organization gets the manpower from outsourcing which is needed to do the work on a bigger scale. Organizations require employees to do front office and back-office operations.
Operations include accounting, payment processing, IT services, human resource, regulatory compliances, and quality management. Companies choose to outsource to improve performance, accurate reporting, productivity growth, and to create an identity in the global market.
The Rise of Global Business Process Outsourcing Companies 2022 www.insightssuccess.comFebruary 202216
Her entrepreneurial journey with CallForce (BEE LEVEL 1) started 22 years ago as a flexible staffing company achieving 100% year-on-year growth prior to the economicfinancial crisis and procuring blue-chip clients such as Standard Bank and Vodacom in our first year.
www.insightssuccess.comFebruary 202217
Candice Roberts The CEO
The CEO, Candice Roberts, is a thought-leader in the Outsourcing sector, currently sitting on the BPESA industry Exco committee, the board of Endeavor South Africa together with the CEO of Accenture and EY and is an Alumni and mentor for the EY winning woman programme globally.
About the Leader
Our formula for success is continually optimised with an integrated omnichannel strategy supported by smart technology platforms and a tech-savvy, accent neutral talent pool that creates agility in this highly competitive Bylandscape.outsourcing
Being an experienced leader, share your opinion on the impact of adopting modern technologies within the business outsourcing space and what more could be expected in the future?
experience spans across a number of different industry sectors including Telecommunications, Financial Services (Banking & Insurance), EdTech, Ecommerce, Logistics and Energy to name a few, where we are particularly focused on Asia, UK, Australia, Europe, United States and the local South African business market.
Shed some light on your offerings and how they impact the industry and your clients?
Ourneeds.client
A digital mindset was our theme for 2021, not just with the implementation of technology, but the strategic planning of the right technology coupled with cultural alignment to ensure we professionally support our clients in this rapidly evolving digital world.
To keep up with changes in customer expectations and demand, it has been important that we reimagine products and services with technology as the driver and continually improve and optimise our digital journey both for our clients and for our teams to ensure the connection to our brand starts from the inside.
Technology is only meaningful when combined with strategic thinking and a human touch, that is why we must
We service and support businesses all over the globe by understanding the geographic requirements and local challenges to successfully create, implement and manage unique BPO solutions specific to our client's business
to the right partner like CallForce, it can be an enabler to outperform your competitors and retain your position as a leading brand.
Ÿ BPESA/CCMG Best External Service Provider – Finalist 2017 Ÿ EY Winning Woman Programme – 2017 Ÿ EY South African Entrepreneur of The Year – Finalist 2017 Ÿ CCMG Best International Outsourcing Contact Centre – Finalist 2018 Ÿ GSA African Outsourcing Project of The Year – Finalist 2018 Ÿ Endeavor High Impact Entrepreneur Ÿ BPESA GBS Top BPO Operator – 2019 Ÿ CCW Finalist: Best in Class Contact Center – 100+ Seats 2019 Ÿ BPESA GBS Top Offshore Campaign – 2019 Ÿ Top Empowerment Job Creation – Finalist 2020 Ÿ ISG Asia Pacific Paragon Awards Finalist – 2020 Excellence and Woman in Technologies Categories Ÿ ISG Paragon Excellence Award – 2020 Ÿ CCW EMEA Regional Winner: Best Public Service Centre 2021 Ÿ Top Empowerment Job Creation – Finalist 2021 Ÿ Top Empowerment Customer Focus – Finalist 2021 Awards and Accolades www.insightssuccess.comFebruary 202218
It is all implemented with our successful and proven formula that combines the right people and optimised processes with cutting-edge technology and digital skills to deliver an exceptional customer brand experience.
Considering the current pandemic, what initial challenges did you face and how did you drive CallForce to sustain operations while ensuring the safety of your employees at the same time?
What would be your advice to budding entrepreneurs who aspire to venture into the business outsourcing services market?
Under the leadership of Candice Roberts, our business growth trajectory has built even further momentum despite managing 3 Covid waves. CallForce has achieved 159% gross profit growth between September 2020 and 2021, having created hundreds of new jobs in South Africa.
We aim to continue the momentum of our excellent growth trajectory as we extend the operations of our business into the USA, UK and Australian markets.
Our continued investment in smart technology as a fundamental enabler to digitise the customer journey and empower our people with relevant insights and learnings to support their career growth is critical as we continue to optimise the customer experience.
A 100% virtual agent training program was designed and deployed to support this brand-new operation. Agility in adapting, streamlining, and distributing the ever-evolving process was key.
Taking calculated risks needs courage, but you don't have to do it alone, there is so much power in numbers.
Some of the solutions we have implemented include speech analytics, AI-driven customer conversational analytics, digital engagement solutions, interview and preemployment assessment tools, software to increase contactability, an ATS system that digitally streamlines our recruitment process, a CRM system to manage our marketing and sales efforts as well as our very own videobased digital communication and performance management
Never underestimate the power of your network – that includes your clients, mentors and teams. By collaborating and staying connected to other business professionals it will support you as you continually develop and refine your strategy and don't forget to factor in agility, which will be key in helping you innovate during times of unprecedented change.
We successfully navigated the COVID crisis and deployed a 300-seater contact centre during level 5 lockdowns within just 8 days to support our country in giving 300 families much-needed income during the global crisis.
spots and take ownership of them –growth is not always a comfortable process, but fortune favours the brave.
understand the pain points in order to map out the right process to create optimisation and efficiency, which speaks into the CallForce proven formula for success.
Our advice is to keep challenging yourselves, your teams, as well as your processes and their supporting technologies because refinement comes from the incremental
Identifyimprovements.yourblind
How do you envision scaling CallForce's operations and offerings in 2022 and further?
www.insightssuccess.comFebruary 202219
Thetools.digital transformation journey is continually evolving, where our future success lies in listening more to the needs of both our teams and clients in order to effectively optimise and digitise contact centres of the future in a meaningful, humanly connected way.
We are excited about the digital community we are building that supports both our hybrid office and work-from-home teams. This is enhanced through Engage – our digital communication platform, and Transform – our performance enhancement tool which brings our highly effective performance management methodology into the palms of our teams' hands.
Over the years of our entrepreneurial journey, we have learnt the importance of celebrating success even in the face of adversity such as the pandemic that has affected us all on so many fronts.
www.insightssuccess.comFebruary 202220
INFLUENCE of ARTIFICIAL Intelligence
When(BPO).the
rogress of Artificial Intelligence is always an argumentative topic among humans across magazines, newspapers, tv channels, and online media. How much will it affect human work? Is AI going to replace humans? How will humans survive if AI takes over the market?
While it is currently accelerating at a rapid rate, it also plays a significant part in the BPO market. We have assembled data focused on artificial intelligence (AI) systems' proper functionality in business process outsourcing, citing the magnifying functions of AI systems
BPO industry first emerged as a new line of business 15 years ago, it was seen as a danger, and people feared job losses. Some see it
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Artificial Intelligence (AI) has given the world so much creativity and invention that it's impossible to forecast what will happen next. The transformation has reached the level where human work depends upon technology and AI.
Will AI Take Over the Human Work?
to know the answers to the questions above, let's just know about Artificial Intelligence (AI) first.
as a threat, while others see it as an opportunity for BPOs to provide support services such as developing algorithms for the Beforesector.getting
What is Artificial Intelligence (AI)?
AI is the next stage in a science that is constantly evolving and expanding. Although AI applications are now being developed for specific industries, their scope is vast and will eventually extend to all economic sectors.
How does AI work and its impact on the BPO sector?
adjustments, and achieve their long-term goals by using artificial intelligence to train computer programs that can access data and learn from it.
Many businesses have begun to incorporate artificial intelligence into their operations. Many BPO firms, on the other hand, have yet to put it to good use. While several have begun to incorporate machine learning into their services and apply AI talents to customer-facing business operations, others are investigating the benefits of artificial intelligence in their BPO projects.
The call center is probably the area where AI has had the most impact. Many customers have already interacted effectively with AI, from automatic payment processes to live chatbots. Machine learning, as part of AI, offers the tantalizing prospect of detecting security breaches and other customer issues more quickly.
AI) on the BPO MARKET:
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Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the ability of a computer, BOT, or Robot to think and function like a human person. It's a branch of computer science that arose from many studies and studies of how the human brain works.
www.insightssuccess.comFebruary 202221
Companies may transform their processes, make
IVR systems used to be more of a source of aggravation than assistance, and many customers tried to avoid this stage by continually pushing "speak to an agent." These factors have undoubtedly made BPOs' jobs easier and enabled them to provide excellent customer care. Other than that, it has become a threat to human work in the outsourcing industry.
Similarly,now.
Human Workforce vs. AI
Conclusion
When you work with a dependable BPO partner, you may invest in the proper technologies to expand your organization on a broader scale. While machine learning can help your organization, it's vital to remember that artificial intelligence and machine learning can't manage AI'severything.technical
Customer's likes and dislikes, retention rate, potential churn, and enthusiasm to buy your product or service can all be gleaned from call centers.
advancements will not eliminate jobs; instead, they will provide new opportunities and boost worker abilities. A reputable BPO company understands how to combine modern AI technologies with a skilled individual.
- Rahul Thakar
According to Glance, 78 percent of customers did not make a purchase choice due to poor customer experience. Call centers or BPOs are using modern artificial intelligence and machine learning methods to solve this challenge.
AI is using modern document scanning and data capture technology. Thousands of documents and incoming mail will be processed. Digitizing your mail and document processing can save you a lot of time, reduce the risk of error, and make dealing with enormous volumes of claims, invoices, applications, medical records, and other documents much more manageable.
www.insightssuccess.comFebruary 202222
automatic systems based on machine learning and artificial intelligence can be put together to help BPO centers improve customer service by quickly responding to them and then providing relevant suggestions or answers to clients in need without the direct involvement of a physical call center Understandingagent.the context may be challenging for chatbots to reply to cues more effectively, but recent improvements in machine learning have had a significant impact on this by enhancing natural language processing.
Artificial intelligence has played a crucial part in propelling the BPO business forward, and it will continue to do so in the future.
Furthermore, the use of AI or machine learning provides solid advice on how to engage with clients depending on their preferences. Speech recognition powered by artificial intelligence opens new possibilities in the realm of interactive voice response (IVR).
Virtual assistant and Chabot-based solutions have grown quite popular since they give clients a quick and automatic generated response to their needs. Consider AI developments such as voice search on client devices right
Hugo Stride CEO
www.insightssuccess.comFebruary 202224
Rtask. Many businessmen, especially those just starting out, face several difficulties in their journey. Having less knowledge about the market, a lack of advanced technology, or skilled personnel can increase the risk of failure. This is where outsourcing comes into the Outsourcingequation.
provides great assistance to businesses with low cost and high efficiency. Hence, most companies tend to opt outsourcing as a go-to option for the smooth execution of certain processes. On that note, one leading name in the outsourcing industry is Opus Growth Partners, which assists businesses to harness growth and increase revenues.
Shed some light on your company's offerings and how they impact the industry and your clients?
Opus offer a range of sales focused services – emphasizing specialization within teams. We provide our clients with both inside and outside sales support, data enrichment, aftersales customer care, and ad buying services. All of these roles are performed by specialists. Unlike many traditional sales teams, where sales representatives may have to source data, prospect, and manage some or all of the deal cycle, including after the point of sale, our teams are totally built out to optimize the activities of each individual component.
Please brief our audience about Opus Growth Partners, its USPs, and how it is currently positioned as a trusted outsourcing partner.
entrepreneur owned businesses to drive sales growth and optimize customer retention. We have a five-star rating on Clutch and are highly rated internationally.
Opus Growth Partners is a sales specialization and direct response marketing company. We are primarily focused on the top end of the market, with clients across technology, professional services, and eCommerce. We work with
, , , , The Rise of Global Business Process Outsourcing Companies 2022 www.insightssuccess.comFebruary 202225
unning a business successfully is a challenging
Empowering Businesses to A ain Excellence
In an interview with Insights Success, Hugo Stride, the CEO of Opus Growth Partners sheds light on the company's journey, its unique solutions, and the importance of outsourcing. Below are the highlights of the interview:
OpusPartnersGrowth
We work with entrepreneur owned businesses to drive sales growth and op mize customer reten on.
Hugo, please brief us about yourself, your journey in the industry and how you have contributed to Opus Growth Partners' success.
My own background combines time in a diplomatic role overseas with the British Government, with more than a decade now spent as an entrepreneur. Originally a lawyer by training, my first brush with outsourcing was as the founder of a technology company, manufacturing sensors and software for customers like Toyota (Europe), The UK Government, and The Olympics.
One of the key areas where vast improvements have been made in recent years is in process automation. It has transformed the scope of what is possible in terms of performance. There has been a great deal of debate at the political level in recent years about the Rise of the Machines, and automation taking away jobs.
However, a closer look shows that across domains – and nowhere is this truer than outsourcing – what automation has really done is to liberate workers from monotony. There is plenty more to be done there, but automation allows our team to double their output on their highest impact tasks –automating downstream activities and removing much of the dullness from the working day.
The impact for our clients is measured in ROI for a business like ours. Because of the projects we tend to work on, which include fundraising, it is typical for customers to see anything from 10-100X from an engagement with us.
Being an experienced leader, share your opinion on the impact of adopting modern technologies within the business outsourcing space and what more could be expected in the future?
I had a number of unsatisfactory experiences with trying to outsource everything from development to sales and marketing. It was a major pain point as a sole founder when it came time to scale. While I was in Ukraine with the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office, I was struck by the quality of education and level of English.
This has two key advantages for a business like ours. First, we are able to deliver more than twice the results for our customers for the same price than would have been possible even two years ago. Second, our team retention in a
I saw the opportunity to solve a problem that had plagued me years earlier and provide a high-quality outsourced service within a European country. I do some contract work as a sales and marketing consultant for leading private equity firms, and technology companies, and the chance to match talent to the kinds of systems I had been building for clients, was one I couldn't pass up.
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Considering the current pandemic, what initial challenges did you face and how did you drive Opus Growth Partners to sustain operations while ensuring the safety of your employees at the same time?
have started to work more with organic channels, as well as experimenting with various forms of paid acquisition. We have identified several avenues that are proving profitable and will be scaling those out over the coming months.
typically high churn industry is excellent, allowing previously mundane work to become significantly more stimulating.
Theclients.second
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is to test and introduce new channels for acquiring customers. We have relied heavily on our own sales model for growth - putting our money where our mouth is. This has been very successful for us. Recently, we
Spend some time working for one first. These types of businesses are operations heavy, and less forgiving of startup culture than many other types of company. It is important to do your learning at someone else's expense, then take those lessons and build something better yourself.
It is a good first business to start in many respects, because the time to cash flow positivity is relatively short. Unless you have deep pockets, or ready access to significant capital that initial sprint to profitability can be painful in nonservice businesses.
We have two primary strategies for the next twelve months: The first is to consolidate operationally – prioritizing not just customer retention, but growth from within those existing accounts. We've seen significant internal growth already, but we have clear ideas on how operational improvement can deliver ever greater performance for
The pandemic was a blessing for us, as a startup. It forced us to prioritize a 'remote-first' business model and optimize our processes and systems to run under those conditions. That has been instrumental in how we've managed to consistently deliver industry beating results for our customers. We were able to put the right systems in place from the start, choosing software that maximized outcomes for clients and employees, without having to fit into predefined legacy workflows.
What would be your advice to budding entrepreneurs who aspire to venture into the business outsourcing services market?
How do you envision scaling Opus Growth Partners' operations and offerings in 2022 and further?
Tracing the the Evolution of OutsourcingIndustry
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Evolution of Business Process Outsourcing
Thecountries.custom
of outsourcing also existed in the 1970s. It was widely adopted in the 1980s for businesses to lower their internal costs. Outsourcing was not formally recognized as a strategy for business until 1989. However, most organizations were not entirely independent, and they outsourced the functions for which they had no expertise internally.
Outsourcing has been practiced as early as the 1700s. Between the 15th and 21st centuries, as travel routes grew, more countries began to outsource commerce to others, eventually leading to outsourcing to India and other
O
A Look into the History of Outsourcing
Tech Timeline www.insightssuccess.comFebruary 202231
The main goal of outsourcing is to save money and time. And by outsourcing, a company can share risks with another one.
The concept of outsourcing never evolved overnight. Companies have struggled to use their competitive advantage to expand their markets and revenues since the industrial revolution.
utsourcing is a strategy in which a business engages a third party to fulfill certain tasks that were originally performed in-house by the company's own employees. To give a gist of how large the outsourcing industry is - around 300,000 jobs are outsourced by the US annually.
Leading BPO firms had reached a point of significant business maturity by the mid-2000s. As a result, they began
India has one of the top BPO providers in the world. Some of those companies are Wipro, Tata Consultancy Services, and Infosys. India's BPO industry is responsible for 56 percent of global business process outsourcing. Contact centers account for 70% of India's BPO industry's income, data entry accounts for 20%, and information technologyrelated work accounts for 10%.
Currently, the BPOs are working on a transactional basis. Businesses outsource their tasks to BPOs. The BPOs complete the task for a fee. But with increasing competition, expectations of businesses will increase.
Every business needs IT services to function. If they don't have an internal dedicated team, the work is outsourced. The most common motive for outsourcing (70%) is to save money. Today, BPO service providers undertake work like cybersecurity, digital marketing, cloud computing services, etc.
Today's Outsourcing Powerhouses
The Future of BPOs
BPOs will be focusing on quality rather than quantity as there is no limit to outsourcing providers currently. India is the top BPO service provider in the world, and it will keep growing its reach. Countries like Malaysia, The Phillippines, etc., will show significant growth in the coming years because of reasons like low costs and increasing skills.
- Sonali Dhiwar
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With the advancements in technology, the BPO industry is modifying itself. With globalization and digitalization, expectations are growing as well. The BPO industry is growing at a staggering pace.
outsourcing companies now work with businesses all around the world. Microsoft Corp., Hewlett-Packard Co., and Oracle Corp. are among the companies that have secured long-term contracts with blue-chip customers.
Analysts predict India will continue to be a key outsourcing destination, with annual GDP growth of 8–10 percent expected over the next decade. Furthermore, outsourcing to India is promoted as a viable solution to worries about Chinese government policies and labor challenges, such as rising costs and shortages.
to ponder how they could accomplish more, as any growthoriented industry would. And by the late 2000s, BPO service providers were able to grow newer skills that added complexity to their portfolios.
To improve outsourcing, more than 93 percent of companies are contemplating or have already implemented cloud services. A growth in BPO service providers will occur faster than ever. Especially after the pandemic, digitalization has grown hence increasing workload and projects.
Today, the BPO service providers fulfill all kinds of tasks that are needed by their client companies. The global outsourcing market was worth $92.5 billion in 2019. Most providers offer core business services like IT services, payment processing, quality assurance, etc.
Geographic and political reasons have fueled the rise of China's outsourcing services business. Over the last five
years, the outsourcing services market has expanded by Chinese43%.
India is the leading country in the outsourcing industry as the skilled talent is increasing abruptly. Hiring a software engineer in India would cost about $600 per month, whereas hiring a software engineer in New York would cost at least $8000 per month, depending on the years of experience the person holds.
Conclusion
Outsourcing to India has a long and intriguing history. Even after more than a decade of fierce global outsourcing competition, India continues to dominate. It's taken a long time to get to this point in outsourcing.
The BPO industry in China is growing fast, and it is catching up with India. BPO service companies have set up and developed operations in China, particularly to serve customers in the domestic and East Asian markets.
adept at leveraging cross-vertical synergies to drive the best sales and service outcomes.
O
Please brief our audience about Salelytics, its USPs, and how it is currently positioned as a trusted outsourcing partner.
We provide five key service offerings to clients, all of which can be customized:
In an interview with Insights Success, Matt Gargo, the Vice President of Salelytics, sheds light on the journey of his company, its services, and the different aspects of the outsourcing space.
We are adept at cross-verticalleveragingsynergiestodrivethebestsalesandserviceoutcomes.
We work with Fortune 1000 companies as well as venturebacked start-ups getting off the ground. Since we don’t offer cookie-cutter solutions and customize any one of our service offerings to the specific needs of our clients, we are highly successful in a broad range of industries. We are
Overall,others.
Outsourcing offers rapid access to a team of highly qualified professionals who connect with the customers utilizing the latest technology and techniques by partnering with a third-party supplier. On the other hand, customers receive better service, agents address issues more quickly, and companies don’t have to worry about high turnover or infrastructure costs.
Driving Revenue with Advanced Technology and Continuous Innovation
we have a highly satisfied customer base. The best evidence to support this is the average tenure of top clients and total client base. Top 10 clients have been with us an average of 10+ years and the overall customer base averages over five years of partnership.
In short, outsourcing provides a great platform for both the companies and customers. Over the years, the outsourcing market has expanded rapidly, and many companies started delivering outsourcing services. One prominent company in that list is Salelytics, which provides Inside Sales, Account Management, and Inbound Support Services.
The Rise of Global Business Process Outsourcing Companies 2022 www.insightssuccess.comFebruary 202234
Salelytics was founded over 30 years ago to support manufacturers of consumer-packaged goods (CPG). From there, we branched into healthcare to include medical device and pharmaceutical manufacturers. Some of our largest client partnerships today exist in the business-to-business space for financial, logistics, industrial supplies, travel and hospitality, and distribution among
utsourcing has become one of the go-to options for businesses. Choosing to outsource is equivalent to requesting a helping hand. Many small businesses outsource not because they want to save money or they can’t find suitable employees, but because they prefer investing the time and effort in matters that are vital to the business. Therefore, hiring a third-party service provider may be the best decision a company can make.
Shed some light on Salelytics’ offerings and how they impact the industry and your clients?
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He drove the growth of the company’s largest client while standing up internal and external compliance and auditing, a modern, speech-enabled quality assurance methodology, and a consultative sales practice focused on leveraging the right technology to drive incremental sales and best-in-class customer
Sole Territory Coverage: Our Inside Sales Associates independently acquire new customers for our clients.
Clients Field Sales and our Inside Sales resources collaborate to acquire, retain, and grow revenues.
Insatisfaction.thisarea,Matt helped spearhead the establishment of the firm’s data warehouse for business contact intelligence, a proprietary tool used to uncover addressable markets with lead scoring for likelihood to Mattcontact.has
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This application is then tied directly into our Gamification platform to provide scoring and tracking to keyword adherence at the associate level that correlates directly to the sales or service goals of the client. This direct tie in has dramatically shortened the speed to ramp for new associates by up to 50% in some cases.
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After leaving graduate school, Matt Gargo started out as an inbound sales associate for a consumer retention program. Through a variety of roles of increasing responsibility in training, talent, and sales operations, Matt established the firm’s Financial Services practice.
in consulting with our partners and building out a custom solution ensures we design a sales or service engagement that is unique to the value goal, be it in revenue generation, service, or service into sales. As part of this, we lead our partners through a robust solution design process that looks at every component, ensuring we’re pairing the best talent, tech stack, and sales and service enablers to optimize value.
About the Leader
Matt Gargo Vice President Client Operations
Customer/Patient Care: Our dedicated care associate supporting Inbound and Outbound needs tied to educating and supporting client’s customer or patient groups. While most of our initiatives are a strategic complement to our partner’s overall go to market strategic, our ability to take on both large Fortune 100 partners while also being nimble enough to provide the advice and counsel to smaller start-ups allows us to deploy our solutions at almost any
also been at the forefront of the transformation of the associate talent and training model from regionalized, brick-and-mortar centric to one that is national and virtual.
Account Management: Our Inside Sales Associates take over a clients specific set or segment of customers to retain and grow through Upselling and Cross selling efforts.
To call out one specific and proprietary solution, we’ve developed a patented ‘Super Associate’ application to provide real time call scoring for associates leveraging our Speech Analytics platform to listen to a selected group of key words and phrases as specific points within a call.
Combining our real-time Super Associate with Lingua—Salelytics proprietary full transcription speech analytics platform—we have empowered our coaches to find opportunities faster than ever and have equipped them
Funnel Development: Outbound appointment setting or demand generation (date and time with qualified decision
to speed the diagnostic function of coaching and developing
to take hours in the ‘old days’ of listening to call after call can now be accomplished with a quick text search across hundreds or even thousands of call interactions and filtered by call outcome or any variety of call meta-data. Both tools are fully integrated in our proprietary performance monitoring and development tool ROADMAP, driving a seamless integration of call analysis and coaching.
Over the past 10 years, there has been a rapid evolution of call center technology aimed at enabling sales and service outcomes and driving better, more prepared associates. Tools such as speech analytics and gamification have become central to how we go to market and key components of delivering upon program KPIs.
Considering the current pandemic, what initial challenges did Salelytics face and how did you drive Salelytics to sustain operations while ensuring the safety of your employees at the same time?
As we were primarily a brick-and-mortar call center business, we’d never been tested to deploy technology and lead our teams remotely. For us, however, there was never a
Our largest initial challenges were around deploying and testing our tech stack remotely and at scale and servicing our remote employee’s hardware and software – especially when troubleshooting remotely. Our second challenge was in training and onboarding new employees who would never work in the brick and mortar. By building out proprietary tools to help with workstation pick up and leverage virtual interviewing and training platforms, we found we’d improved our ability to hire and train.
While it is easy to get distracted by all the technology and tools, the first step is to focus on setting up the basics of the sales or service operation, determining the right KPIs and building a culture and cadence of accountability where everyone has clear visibility into what success looks like at every aspect of the process and level.
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What would be your advice to budding entrepreneurs who aspire to venture into the business outsourcing services market?
For associate in production, expect the further automation of performance analytics through AI-driven speech and sentiment analytics as well as the automation of the call quality and compliance functions.
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In this area, the future promises the maturity of many of these nascent technologies and a further application transforming both the in-office and remote training experiences to where oral and written assessments are supplemented with tools that numerically measure sales and service readiness based on talk track deliver and voice analytics prior to an associate taking their first live call.
consideration around whether we would stay in the office or migrate our employee’s home – we were committed first and foremost to the safety of our employees.
These tools also help reduce the initial time to performance ramp and part of our tactics in keeping associates engaged and ultimately reducing churn. The use of chat and videoenabled chat has tied teams together at a distance and has made cross continental collaboration easy to a measure no one would have believed a decade ago.
With the introduction of MS Teams and enabling video across our employee base, we found we were quickly able to duplicate the in-office camaraderie and support even as we sat in disparate locations. Separately, while we had never specifically intended our proprietary Sales Enabler technology to support a remote worker, we found that with minor changes, they were well suited the job of continuing to drive top notch performance and employee engagement.
Being an experienced leader, share your opinion on the impact of adopting modern technologies within the business outsourcing space and what more could be expected in the future?
While it may seem contrary – in most cases wage-level alone is not the key driver in employee satisfaction and retention. Having a robust understanding of your talent and being able to build processes to vet talent into the right role will ensure KPIs are met but will also bring longer term employee satisfaction and reduced churn. As attrition training is one of the largest drivers in performance and margin erosion within BPO, it is critical that all of these pieces work together as compliments.
paramount. The pandemic has accelerated the desire to work from home and forced companies to confront this as a viable option to a degree ever before seen. Due to the shear success, we’ve now looked at how we can mine for talent at the intersection of wage and skillset regardless of geographic location.
Due to this change in our approach, we’re in the middle of a labor crisis yet have onboarded more associates over the past two years than pre-pandemic. If it weren’t for our embrace of this new mode, we would not have been able to deliver upon our growth objectives over the last two years.
The future of scale is tied to a national model for talent. The old days regarded the location of brick and mortar as
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Where we were tethered to the geography and its inhabitants, having the flexibility to pull the best talent for the price point has been transformational. While the brick and mortar will always be a part of our model, we now have fully virtualized clients spread across markets gives us scale, skills, and flexibility we never enjoyed prior to the pandemic and tied to a finite set of locations.
The technology provides no short cuts into ensuring the basic blocking and tackling exists and can only support a program built on a firm foundation of experience and rigor and cannot fill in the cracks where corners have been cut or outcomes unclear. Second to that is garnering the right talent for the task and being able to target the intersection of skillset and wage for your initiative.
How do you envision scaling Salelytics’ operations and offerings in 2022 and beyond?
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