It In The Bpo World

IT in the BPO world Indian BPO outfits use IT for everything from VoIP to forecasting when their best agents need to be at their desks to handle workload. A California businessman calls the airline to find out if his morning flight to Washington DC is on time. Behind the scenes his call is routed thousands of miles away to a BPO company’s call centre agent in India who has the real-time flight information available on his PC and is able to update the customer. This scenario would not be possible but for the power of Information Technology (IT) that has emerged as one of the key drivers in the ongoing BPO (Business Process Outsourcing) success story. There was a time when no one had thought that strategic processes would be outsourced to BPO companies in India. IT has helped foreign organisations outsource their processes to BPO companies in India without worrying about security. Using IT, BPO companies have been able to offer continuous uptime to their customers by adopting advanced networking capabilities and thereby meeting their Service Level Agreements (SLAs). With their innovative IT infrastructure BPO companies have successfully adhered to international regulations winning customer’s hearts and increasing their confidence to outsource more strategic processes to India. The use of IT has also brought in added operational efficiency and transparency in BPO companies. Winning customers Whenever any international customer wants to outsource its processes to India the first thing which goes on in the customer’s mind is the level of IT infrastructure available in India. MS Rangaraj, chief technology officer, Nirvana Business Solutions Pvt Ltd says, “For customers sitting thousands of miles away it Customers is important to ensure that they are able to proactively sitting manage the environment in which their processes are thousands of It is possible to running. This will increase the confidence level of miles away listen to specific customers as they will have full control of their should be able parts of a processes even [though the BPO outfit they are to recorded [VoIP] outsourcing to lies] thousands of miles away.” proactively call manage the without having Nirvana Business Solutions (NBS) has invested in a environment in to go through ‘Call Logging System’ from Witness Systems which which their the entire lets them capture one hundred percent of any and all processes are calls made by its agents on behalf of a client. This helps conversation running. bring transparency to its operations. Rangaraj explains, Mohit Jain MS Rangaraj “The operations manager at the customer site abroad Chief Chief Information Technology Officer 24/7 Officer Customer Nirvana Business Solutions

can log into the system and get first hand information of all the calls made to and from the call centre agent by his customers. In case of any issue that a customer may have with a transaction, we are in a better position to resolve it.” Managing calls with IP Telephony BPO companies in India swear by the power of IP Telephony as it is user-friendly and helps them perform multiple functions using one common infrastructure. Aditya Menon, group chief information officer, MphasiS says, “In IP telephony one doesn’t require any multiplexers as it facilitates automatic call distribution which is simplified by software. It provide a single channel for voice and data. With IP Telephony one has less equipment to deploy and manage. We are deploying IP Telephony in every new centre that we are opening as it is easier to implement and manage a hub and spoke model facilitated by this technology.” IP Telephony has also helped Indian companies keep the bulk of their systems in India rather than maintaining equipment abroad. Mohit Jain, chief information officer, 24/7 Customer, explains, “By using IP Telephony we have been successful in locating the complete voice logging system in India rather than on site at locations abroad. Tremendous cost savings have resulted and managing performance has become very smooth as digital voice files can be played back and it is possible to listen to specific parts of a recorded call without having to go through the entire conversation.” Fine-tuning operations IT has completely transformed the way operations are handled by Indian BPO companies. These outfits use IT to monitor their peak transaction periods and place their most efficient agents to handle these. For instance 24/7 customer is using a call management and a workforce management system to streamline its operations in just this manner. Jain of 24/7 Customer explains, “Using call and workforce management systems has helped us reduce staffing and transportation costs by 10 percent.” Similarly MphasiS makes use of a tool called ‘Blue Pumpkin’ to forecast a call centre’s agent requirements. Based on call patterns, the tool helps analyse peak volumes and the fluctuations at any point of time during the day. Based upon reports generated by the tool, the transportation department at MphasiS chalks out pickup and drop schedules for its agents. NOCs—secure and reliable As security and reliability are major concerns for customers outsourcing processes to Indian BPO companies, they expect foolproof measures to be taken. Take the case of ICICI OneSource that has a Network Operations Centre (NOC) in Mumbai which monitors every single device across its call centre operations. Sanjiv Dalal, chief technology officer, ICICI OneSource says, “There is a central monitoring system in place at the NOC, which helps securely manage the networks upon which the customer’s

business critical processes are running. In case a link fails, even at the customer’s site, it is able to sound an alert so that the error can be rectified and uptime maintained.” Interestingly the company is also using cellphone censors and detectors in areas where the customer’s sensitive data resides. Besides ICICI OneSource, BPO companies such as 24/7 Customer and MphasiS have set up NOCs to monitor their total IT infrastructure to provide greater reliability and assured security to their clients. We expect BPO companies to deploy more IT systems as they attempt to bring the service industry on par with manufacturing’s position many years ago when industrial processes began to be outsourcing to distant locations. IT Initiatives by Indian BPO companies Company IT Initiatives The company uses a forecasting tool 'Blue Pumpkin' that helps forecast the peak hours (when there are maximum number of calls during the day). It is also using a quality monitoring system called 'NICE' to monitor the quality of MphasiS transactions and the efficiency of agents who handle customer calls. MphasiS is in the process of building a data warehouse which will have data for all processes running and help improve analysis and forecasting. It has been using a call monitoring system to monitor transaction quality. The company also has a NOC to ICICI manage its IT infrastructure and it plans to implement OneSource Business Intelligence Tools and IP Telephony in the future. 24/7 uses a VoIP-based call monitoring system called 24/7 ‘NICE’. It has deployed IP Telephony, a call Customer management, and a workforce management system to streamline its operations. Nirvana NBS has implemented an Interactive Voice Response Business System (IVRS) from Cisco Systems. It plans to deploy Solutions more IP telephones. Source: BPO companies

IT Role Misunderstood in BPO sourcing and design: Although an increasing number of business process outsourcing (BPO) decision makers understand the critical role Information Technology (IT) plays in BPO success, many continue to struggle to

determine how to tangibly act on this knowledge when undertaking a BPO effort, according to an EquaTerra market study. Free report, and free webcast slated for Wednesday, March 26 at 11am eastern. The study also found that buyers in the Americas and Europe are still uncertain about how to actually account for IT solution options in the BPO sourcing and solution design process. Additional key findings from the 2008 market study include:

Perceived importance of the BPO service provider’s IT solution to BPO success • •

The average score given to the importance of the BPO provider’s IT solution was 4.36, up 17 percent from the 2007 edition of the study 88 percent of 2008 study respondents cited the provider’s IT solution as being somewhat or very important to BPO success Most critical attributes of BPO service providers’ IT solutions

Flexibility to adapt to buyer process specificities • •

Cost-efficiency, so the provider can pass on additional savings to the buyer Ease of use for end-users (e.g., via self-service tools, strong reporting)

Top enterprise software preferences in BPO •

•

Buyer preferences for IT solutions in BPO: While the majority of buyers are open to considering BPO service providers with different IT solutions, they have clear IT solution preferences Buyer preference for enterprise software solutions: When entering into BPO efforts, most buyers prefer to continue using the same commercial enterprise software solutions they currently have in place

Said Stan Lepeak, EquaTerra’s Managing Director of Research, “Although IT is linked to business process performance, EquaTerra consistently finds the IT topic, and often the buyer’s IT group, under-represented in the BPO process. As a result, poor planning around IT needs and issues in BPO frequently becomes a common root cause of BPO problems.” Similar to prior years of this assessment, the internal IT group was the lead source of advice on IT issues in BPO processes, cited by just over half of the respondents. However, while 75 percent of U.S. respondents identified the IT group as a key source of advice, only 31 percent of European respondents did so. In the 2007 survey, 63 percent of U.S. respondents cited the IT group as a source of advice, compared to 44 percent in Europe. While these rankings overall are positive, they still show that a relatively large number of the BPO buyers do not meaningfully include their IT group in BPO efforts. While this

approach has potential risks, EquaTerra asserts that BPO buyers must seek external IT subject matter expertise if they truly feel their IT group cannot provide the needed support, or if the IT group does not step up to the challenge.