Monday, December 10, 2007

Outsourcing: Role of Consultants

Outsourcing of services has acquired a new dimension in the present globalised economy, offering immense benefit in terms of quality and cost effectiveness.

Considering the vast potential of engineering and management consultancy profession there is an urgency to enhance professionalism and competitiveness of Indian consultants to enable them to seize the emerging global opportunities.

Outsourcing is a management strategy by which an organization delegates major, non-core functions to specialized and efficient service providers. Offshore Outsourcing of Business Processes in the burgeoning industry of IT and ITES is growing at a blazing rate.

Consultants specialized in the disciplines of outsourcing can add significant value to an outsourcing transaction. Consultants play significant role both at the macro and micro level of outsourcing firm. At the macro level, consultants can provide value by identifying opportunities for outsourcing and structuring a program for consistently generating appropriate opportunities.

The consultant might identify not only the opportunities for outsourcing of existing business infrastructure, but also most strategic opportunities for the future evolution of the company. At the micro level, consultants can provide value by identifying specific individual tactics that promote their client's interest.

Such tactics may include pricing, identifying the degree of specialization, service levels, RFP development, identification, evaluation and selection of suitable vendors, facilitation of the negotiations and the transition. Over time, consultants can help review of actual performance against contractual performance and can provide assistance in fine-tuning or other adjustments to reflect un anticipated changes in business environment, corporate goals, management, organization structure and the like.

In achieving these objectives for the firm, the role of the consultants may vary as the need change. Consultants need to be facilitative in bringing methodologies and local knowledge with them. They can contribute by filling gaps in the team and generating enough information for customers to know what needs to be done if they go offshore.

They can provide expert knowledge of performance levels and best practices of similar organizations and processes. For outsourcing, consultants can behave as a one-stop shop for entire project management.

The theme of the Tenth Consultancy Congress “Outsourcing: Role of Consultants” is extremely pertinent in this new economy. The Congress will provide a platform for interaction between the various stakeholders with the aim to achieve a better understanding of the issues involved in client-consultant relationship for achieving organizational objectives of world class productivity through outsourcing of engineering and management services to consultants and experts.We look forward to your participation for the success of the Congress

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Wednesday, November 14, 2007

KPO A Step Ahead of BPO

Demand Side Perspective of KPO:
Well beyond cost arbitrage!
The global KPO industry is still in a nascent stage. However, it is growing at a rapid pace. The sectors that are expected to 'shine' within the KPO industry include data search, integration and management services, financial services, research and analytics, technology research, computer aided simulation and engineering design and professional services, such as business research and legal services.

Unlike the conventional BPO, where the focus is on process expertise, the focus in KPO, is on knowledge expertise and requires service providers to possess advanced technical and analytical skills.

Some of the other factors fuelling growth in KPO are:

* Developed economies, such as the US, the UK, and countries in Western Europe are increasingly facing a shortage of highly trained and specialized professionals in various knowledge-intensive high skill sectors, such as R&D in VLSI, engineering design, IT, financial risk management, etc.

* Buyers of off shoring services save more at the high end of the value chain, as compared to the low end on a per-job basis.

* High-quality specialized vendors and successful captives have emerged as role models and created awareness for KPO, both in the West as well as in India.

KPO is not just about 'Cost Arbitrage'
In fact, players solely based on cost differentials will hardly be sustainable in the long run. The central theme of KPO is to create value for the client by providing the highest-quality business expertise and superior productivity/effectiveness rather than cost savings based only on geographic cost arbitrage. KPO services help improve the time-to-market, access to special skills, absorb peak load and enhance organizational effectiveness. Moreover, it simplifies the process and makes it more flexible. Consistent quality is the key word and primarily drives the buying decisions. For example, an error made in a corporate finance valuation model can have a huge financial downside, which is likely to be in factors of 1000+, possibly larger than the savings made by having the spreadsheet produced in India. Similarly, a patent with badly written claims can damage the protection of multi million dollar products in global markets. Finally, the outsourcing solutions for high-end processes are usually highly customized, which is an important element of value creation for the client, but also requires the vendors to run multiple customized processes in parallel.

Large potential for SME customers

While KPO started initially in captive centers of large companies, moving to specialized vendors, who provide such services to large companies such as Investment Banks. This sector holds immense potential for the SMEs in the long-term. There are millions of SMEs, which can benefit from KPO; however, their average volumes are much lower than a few thousand US dollar projects up to 5-10 full-time employees).

While large companies predominantly use KPO for gaining access to talent and cost reduction, SMEs can further benefit from buying KPO services from specialized vendors by being able to gain access to very large resource pools quickly at no up front costs. Additionally, it allows them to vary their cost base in the face of short-term demand swings, which creates the possibility of new business models.

KPO A Step Ahead of BPO
From 'Make' to 'Buy'

With the advent of specialized and high-quality KPO vendors in India, customers will increasingly go the 'buy' route rather than setting up their captive offshore centers. Setting up a captive takes at least a year to stabilize quality, consumes a very large amount of senior management attention, and often ends up with higher operating costs and less management control than working with one or two vendors. This effect is particularly strong in KPO, since most companies do not want to build in-house capabilities in such fields in India due to the lack of critical mass, which is currently likely to be around 200+ professionals and that too, with an increasing trend. (E.g. Business Research)

US/UK biggest markets, but large potential of non-English speaking markets The US and the UK account for the largest share of KPO due to English language, the widespread NRI community and their existing comfort levels with off shoring services to India and similar destinations.

European companies are still far behind in terms of off shoring even BPO processes, but are increasingly opening up to the idea of off shoring higher end work to countries like India. However, this trend is likely to pick up only if issues related to language proficiency and cultural context are handled properly. If addressed appropriately, the non-English segment could become an excellent growth opportunity for Indian companies.

Customers want focus rather than breadth or size Buyers of off shoring services are increasingly looking for those KPO players, which have the necessary expertise, depth and experience in focused areas of KPO. KPO players need to focus on particular market segments, in terms of services provided, industry verticals, functional skills as well as the type of clients served. Typically, customers look for the skill rather than for the size of a vendor and prefer focused vendors over vendors offering large varieties of BPO, IT and KPO services. They want vendors who will totally customize their solutions and offer both project-based delivery models as well as dedicated centers.

Flexibility and speed are critical. For example, in Business Research, customers are asking vendors to run projects from a few thousand US dollars upwards and expect complex global and multi-lingual research projects to start after as little as 15 minutes after the requests have been made.

Supply Side Perspective of KPO:
People, Quality, Differentiation and Marketing KPO is centered on professionals possessing the right skill sets. Therefore, access to a large, high-quality skill pool is a precondition for successful KPO operations, captive or third party. For this reason, KPO operations are likely to emerge in countries with the highest educational standards, providing a large number of highly qualified professionals (Engineers, MBAs, PhDs, CFAs, Lawyers, etc.) such as India, China and Russia. India is likely to capture about 70% of the market for KPO, but the challenges will be significant.

The ingredients of successful KPO are recruiting and training the right professionals, providing consistent quality over time, improving productivity to or beyond Western levels and successfully marketing the services to skeptical customers.

Setting up successful KPO companies, captives and third-party vendors, is very difficult and there are significant barriers to enter have been reflected in the past and the huge list of unsuccessful entries clearly reflect this.

People Philosophy and Development
KPO companies are professional services companies and not white-collar factories. Therefore, world-class people development processes are at the root of successful KPOs. Developing professionals faster and better than anyone else will translate directly into better quality, productivity, retention and success in the market place. Meritocracy and true employee care are only a few elements of such a philosophy.

Recruiting
Recruiting the right people is critical and requires significant hiring, building brand equity at the right schools and in the open market. Successful players can attract better people. The interview-to-offer ratios of successful players are about 25:1 and the offer acceptance rates are as high as 80%.

Training
One of the Best practices in KPO is the huge investment (about 15% of the total work time) and developing skills sets such as, functional skills, cross-cultural skills, as well as managerial skills.
Quality and Expertise
The objective must be to deliver world-class quality at often even improved service levels. Successful KPOs measure quality and get feedback for each individual project sometimes as small as a few thousand US dollars. In-depth expertise is required as well. For example, customers require Junior

Equity Research
Analysts to understand the market dynamics in Oncology when creating a valuation model for a pharmaceutical company active in Oncology. The expertise required can be in industry verticals, functional areas (e.g. Risk Management) or in geographic knowledge (e.g. understanding mid-sized German companies).

Focus
The 'Jack in all Trades' approach is not likely to work in KPO. The work at KPO requires domain expertise and therefore the culture and customer requirement of KPOs and BPOs vary significantly.
Hence, it is important that KPOs develop expertise in few areas and excel in them. There is a reason for why Western Law Firms, for example, do not offer R&D and Insurance Claims Analytics and Call
Center Operations at the same time.
Innovation and Differentiation
KPO companies have the unique opportunity to create new markets, since their price points allow them to offer new types of services simply not available in high-wage countries for cost reasons. However, buyers who offer Innovative services will differentiate successful KPO companies from
players who offer cost arbitrage and will give them a sustainable place in the world markets.

Marketing & Sales and Branding
Selling KPO services in the West will require a Western sales force and significant branding efforts in the medium-term. As of now, tapping the SME potential and selling into Continental Europe requires local support. Successful branding will be another necessary ingredient to generate a sufficient 'pull' in the market.

SOURCE: Financial Express: Dated Tuesday, July 19, 2005 (EST)

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Research

SERVICES
Research Products
- Business Research
- Market Research
- Technology Research
- Compliance Research
- Investment Research
Delivery Model
Research Methodology
Case Studies

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Data Entry & Data Processing

Data Conversion Services (Data/Document/Catalog/Book/etc.)
Data Capture Services
Data Mining Services
Document Image Processing
Online/Offline Data Management
Document Management
Forms/Insurance Claims/Check Processing
Data Cleansing Services
Image Scanning & Indexing
Data Archiving
Printing Works
& much more………..
Call Services

Inbound Call Services

Customer support services
Information support
Invoicing support services
Delivery information and status support
Customer support solutions
Business Feedback
Customer Opinion
Product Survey
Deal closing support
Delivery information support
Invoicing and order filling solutions
Research and survey support
Event management support
Collections support
Competitor updates
& much more...........
Outbound Call Services

Telemarketing
Appointment fixing
Deal closing support
Dynamic order filling services
Customer satisfaction surveys
Payment reminder
Debt Collection
Credit card verification solutions
Outsourcing program notice
Advertising and brand management solutions
Follow-up calls and mailers
Business correspondence assistance
& much more……..
Knowledge Process Outsourcing
Research & Development
Marketing Research; Sales Analytics & Reporting & more
Legal & Intellectual Property
Procurement
Business Strategy
Information Technology
Corporate Finance
& much more……….
Recruitment Outsourcing
Candidate Sourcing & Database Mining
Administration Outsourcing
Applicant Tracking & Process Management
Resume screening & Handling
Phone Interviews
Exit Interviews
Test Scrutiny & Administration
Talent Management
& much more……….
HR Outsourcing
Compensation & Benefits Administration
Employee Services
Payroll & Tax Management
Workforce Performance
Learning & Training Center
& much more……….
Bookkeeping & Financial Services
Accounting data entry
Accounts receivables and payables
Preparation of ledgers
Bank reconciliation
Preparation of financial statements
Tax Returns Filing
& much more……..
Healthcare Services (Medical & Non-Medical)

Medical Billing
Medical Coding
Medical Transcription
Accounts Receivables
Claims Adjudication
Data Entry
& much more…………..

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Saturday, June 23, 2007

List of BPO's and KPO's

go here http://www.sourcingmag.com/forum/showmessage.asp?messageID=2607
and here http://www.fundoodata.com/companies/17/bpo_india

What certifications are required for a BPO and other FAQ's

Are there any certifications for contact centers like ISO?
See all about quality for BPOs

http://www.bpoindia.org/faq/


While having a certification may not help you to get business, not having a certification may be a good reason for a propsective client to reject your organization. Certification is a useful way to advance your contact center career or evaluate how your center stacks up against your peers. There are several certifications applicable to the BPO / Call Centre world. We have divided them into two broad categories: Individual (for employee) and Organizational (for employer) Certifications.
Nasscom is planning on introducing certification programs for HR personnel and also for BPO firms which could become an industry standard in India.

Organizational Certifications
go here http://www.bpoindia.org/knowledgeBase/quality.shtml

ISO Certifications
ISO is here for the long run
It is recommended that organizations go for ISO 20000 http://iso20000-tqmcintl.blogspot.com/

and ISO 27001 http://tqmc27001.blogspot.com/

. ISO – 27001: The IS0-27001 is the highest certification standard available from the International Standards Organization (ISO). The ISO-27001 is awarded for effective e-security and physical security measures. By going in for this certification, an organization can receive an independent assessment of their Information Security Management System (ISMS). At present, very few Indian IT and BPO firms are ISO-27001 compliant. Some of the certified ones are Satyam Computers, Keane India, Accenture, Cranes Software, Aztecsoft, Microland and PSI Data Systems.
10. BS 7799: Given the media attack on the reliability of the BPO industry in India, the BPO companies are taking strong security measures to prevent any misuse of the details of the customers and ensure that all the employees adhere to the rules. Most BPO companies have certifications such as BS 7799 and SAS 70 and undergo third party audits at regular intervals. BS 7799 (British Standards 7799) is set by the British Standards Institute (BSI) and is the most widely recognized security standard in the world.

BS 7799 is now replaced by ISO 20000
http://www.chillibreeze.com/articles/top-certifications-outsourcing.asp