The State of Sourcing

If you ask any energy & utilities (E&U) industry expert on the most transformational technology to hit the industry in the past five years, the resonating answer would be the smart grid. Companies and policy-makers are working round the clock to roll-out this technology on a global scale. Benefits of the smart gird are aplenty, the most important being the information extracted from each meter providing valuable insights on domestic and commercial energy consumption patterns. A long-term analysis of this data will help save power and reduce energy loads for consumers and industries alike. However, over the past couple of years, a less unsavory aspect of the grid has emerged – potential gaps in the grid for commercial hacking of the grid to disrupt the grid and steal personal information.

Our recently released report on outsourcing in the utilities space predicted a “data deluge” of sorts with the amount of information generated from smart meters attached to every home. All this information will be sent along the grid to the utility for analysis and billing purposes. To prevent misuse of this data, utilities service providers, meter/grid component manufacturers and the utility companies are collaborating with regulators such as the US Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) and UK’s Ofgem to address security concerns and strengthen the smart grid itself through more effective security solutions.

Continue reading ‘Smart grid security measures – How worried should we be?… and other outsourcing insights’ »

Analytics is a relatively new buzz-word in the outsourcing industry with a lot of service providers offering these services, either as a pure horizontal across industries or as a vertical specific service. With marketing services being outsourced, usually in a bundled format with customer support and other BPO offerings to “sweeten” the deal, there are elements of marketing analytics coming into the outsourcing foray. In a new HfS Research report co-authored by ValueNotes, titled ‘Where Offshore Analytics is Heading in 2011’, we have focused on the emergence of ‘horizontal’ analytics across services such as sales and marketing.

To define marketing analytics, let’s take a look at these two terms separately –

Continue reading ‘Defining Marketing Analytics’ »

“TCS eyes slice of legal process outsourcing market” – a new day, another entrant to the LPO market. The recent announcement by the CEO of Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) regarding exploring of opportunities in the LPO segment should come as no surprise to players in the IT-BPO or KPO sector. The LPO market has grown by leaps and bounds since its inception, examples of which are evident through the number of players in the market currently and their growing client base spanning 3 continents.

A primary reason for Thomson Reuters’s acquisition of Pangea3 and UnitedLex’s of Lawscribe in late 2010, in my mind, was to meet growing demands by organizations and law firms alike to cut costs and increase process efficiencies. These acquisitions saw these market heavyweights expand their businesses, core strengths and the ability to offer clients additional solutions. The market is primarily serviced by pure-play providers, like CPA Global, Pangea3, UnitedLex and Mindcrest, who offer legal services as their core focus. The last 2-3 years has seen IT-BPO players entering the market to add to their top line and expand into new service areas. Their only competition is from these large pure-play providers who have established themselves globally because of their head start.

Continue reading ‘Would you like a slice of LPO pie?’ »

- WNS was one of the early BPO entrants in the LPO industry.
- Infosys entered the LPO industry about two years back and currently has a team of 500+ employees in their LPO division.
- Wipro BPO made its presence in the industry around the same time as Infosys and has more than 100 employees in its LPO division.

In addition to these companies, several others such as OfficeTiger (one the early entrants), EXL, Caliber Point have entered the LPO industry. More recently, Accentia Technologies Limited, a BPO provider announced its decision to jump into the LPO industry. The company is scouting for acquisitions to enter the LPO industry.

Continue reading ‘BPOs in the LPO industry?’ »

British Telecom (BT) recently announced its decision to shift work from its captive legal services center (located in India) to UnitedLex, a leading LPO. Another gain for the LPO industry! According to a press release issued by UnitedLex, a team of 15 professionals from UnitedLex will provide commercial contracting and antitrust regulation services to BT legal teams in UK, US, India, Singapore and Hong Kong. Founded four years ago, UnitedLex employs 550 lawyers globally, with a majority located in India and the some based out of the US and Israel.

Five years back, BT decided to withdraw their legal services work from outside counsel and start an in-house unit. Currently, they have about 500 people spread across the globe offering legal support services to the BT operations along with a 15-20 man team operating from Gurgaon, India.

Continue reading ‘Captive no more…’ »

Finance Minister, Pranab Mukherjee emphasized on ‘inclusive growth’ in this year’s budget. The focus was more on the education, infrastructure and social sector development.

From the IT-BPO industry’s perspective, the budget did not provide a reason to celebrate. There were no long term benefits announced for the IT and BPO industry. While there were no major positives for the industry, these are some of the recommendations by the Finance Minister of relevance to the BPO/IT sectors.

Increased outlay for education and infrastructure: The Finance Minister has given special attention to the education and infrastructure sectors. This will benefit the IT-BPO industry in the long term (provided it is implemented properly) by way of availability of a larger and employable talent pool and better infrastructure.

Continue reading ‘Budget 2010-2011: No reason to celebrate?’ »