BPO Management- Need for a sharper focus

I recently read with great interest, a report on the APAC BPO Market that discussed the future BPO market and how the leaders will be positioned. What enthused me was that this article had a bullish outlook in terms of the potential supply, but the BPO service provider has a lot to gear up.

While in the usual Delivery Management circles, we fret about the market having gone to the dogs, the industry no longer being profitable & clients becoming impossible to satisfy, the report pointed out that even now almost 25% of the customers are hugely optimistic, 50% being somewhat optimistic and another 25% being neutral. This clearly meant that within the survey they conducted, almost 75% companies were “non-negative” about outsourcing their activities in the near future. This provoked me as a Service Delivery Lead who worked in both 3rd party and Shared Services organisation with regard to what we should be focusing on; let me share with my esteemed colleagues and be open to an engaging exchange of thoughts.

The two major heads where the current BPO services have been given a thumbs down and where we (SDL’s) need to concentrate for the clients are VALUE & VISIBILITY, and I will take them one by one:

1.      VALUE

An SDL should maintain unwavering focus on these value elements of service delivery:

a     Continuous Improvement: Give the client a cherry on every cake that you serve. Let them see the quality improvement, by bits or hugely.

b.     Partnered projects: Do projects with them, not for them. Make projects customer facing or within the upstream process.

c.      Improve before you automate: Taking a car through a bad & tortuous road is no better than taking a bicycle through it. The waste is in the route, not the transport. Remove the waste first and then bring on the magical BOTS.

d.      Shared benefits: Make the customers believe that every beneficial project also adds to their prestige, goodwill, efficiency and/ or reduces cost & effort. Proactively share some of the spoils with the customer.

e.     Transform process at source: Lead them on the path to stand alongside “best in class”. Work with the executive sponsors to point out areas of non-compliances/ non-standard process and also lead the customer transformation initiatives.

f.       Show Technology: Introduce the clients to better technologies that they need; not something that we want to sell.

2.      VISIBILITY

The true visibility is when both client and provider’s understanding of the value an outcome is similar, quantitatively & qualitatively.

a.      Transparency in dealing: Be the first person to let them know if something broke/ improved in the contract execution process. Don’t hide.

b.     Metrics: Metrics that highlights both the upstream and downstream process. Talk/ discuss/ debate more on business outcomes. Provide insights with metrics that set the direction & agenda. Explain the nuances that facilitate quick decision making.

c.      Show a cause and effect relationship for events:

d.     Open door policy: Make them a part of your live operations. Let them ask questions & feel the floor for themselves; make them realize that the people on our floor are actually their own extended families.

As clients demand “more bang for the buck” and move towards outcome/ result/ benefit based model, there is a shift in their approach towards BPO’s as a result of which we now see more shared services coming up and companies driving their own improvement agenda.

It now remains with the BPO companies and the delivery leads to demonstrate how we symbolize the incremental value accruing over a shared service model and how our core competencies help them deliver continuous, sustainable & metrics driven benefits.

A Service Delivery Lead’s operational focus areas should include:

1.      A time zone neutral service delivery promise.

2.      A satisfied, well engaged team focused on excellence. Commit your best resources to the project, and then make them even better.

3.      Reports, reports, reports.

4.      Be a first level tech/ process adviser to the client.

5.      Focus to retain the smile on the client’s face

6.      Automation/ RPA facilitate better operations, not replacing operations; embrace better technology.

To conclude:

The BPO industry thrives and will continue to do on the shoulders of an effective, empathetic, energetic, focused change leader called Service Delivery Lead. However, in the coming period, an SDL has an even tougher task of maintaining a fine balance between client needs, employee demands and company wants while ensuring that this Industry remains a win-win proposition for every element of the economic chain. We simply don’t seem to have done enough to share the smile with the clients.

Some of the facts may be hard to implement, but the pole position will be for the provider who has a better selling proposition drawn on these lines.