The Times They Are A-changin'

The New Age of Business Process Outsourcing

‘The times they are a-changin’ - I’ve always wondered whether Bob Dylan ever envisaged the reach and resonance of these famous lines when he sang them. People, across generations, have usurped these lines to inspire themselves — making it a call-to-action anthem for change. 

From revolution to Industry evolution — truer words have never been spoken.

For a long period of time (well into the early 2000s), the BPO industry held on to its ‘Traditional’ models of Outsourcing. Focused heavily on the non-core, back-office processes, which utilized dated technology and legacy platforms provided by the Client. A rigid, SOP driven approach with a goal to manage transactions, oft-times at the expense of providing quicker solutions to Customers.

With the changing times (mid-2000s), awareness on Quality and Continual Improvement increased. We moved from pure-play labor arbitrage to process improvement and increasing the Customer’s experience. A harbinger to the current times, it turned the focus on speed of response, leading to a host of champion-challenger models being prescribed to increase efficiency.

Cut to the current times, and we start to see the emergence of the ‘New Age’ outsourcing requirements — driven by the need for business transformation and innovative solutions based on cutting edge technology. Today the focus is more on real business solutions that leverage domain expertise and technological know-how.

With emerging new technologies such as Cloud Computing, Robotic process Automation (RPA), Machine Learning (ML), and Artificial Intelligence (AI), the shift from people-centric models to a more process-centric approach has already happened. Rule-based and AI-powered Chatbots have already taken over repetitive tasks, minimizing human intervention and bringing significant cost reduction and speed of response, with increasing user acceptance.

Social Media has become a game-changer in real-time customer engagement. It not only provides almost instant VOCs, but also an unprecedented wealth of data that can enhance one’s ability to analyze trends, and read market sentiment. This forces a need for higher responsiveness, because Customer Service now happens on the world stage and every misstep goes viral.

Top BPOs have begun to deliver value that goes beyond just cost arbitrage and people elimination. Emerging technologies such as cloud computing and automation are being bundled into solutions by every company worth its salt, with big data and analytics almost considered a given.

This changing landscape of the post-pandemic world brings the following opportunities,

1.    Increased Ease of doing Business – With the New guidelines issued by DoT, OSPs can work from home or work from anywhere in India. Not only does this increase the talent pool available to hire (opening up job opportunities in smaller towns), it also provides unprecedented flexibility in creating hybrid work models and language-based service offerings.

2.    The emergence of Cloud Computing – XaaS (anything-as-a-Service) models allow for improved business collaboration, along with providing flexibility and scalability. With higher levels of data security and simplified data administration, remote teams have seamless access to resources and platforms for business continuity.

3.    Startups and SMBs looking to BPO as a solution – Startups have had a recent awakening to the benefits that BPOs bring to their business model. They have begun to collaborate on both ends of the spectrum — highly specialized functions, like accounting and legal services, to routine tasks, such as taking inbound calls, responding to emails and chats. In this symbiotic relationship of sorts, the BPOs will increase the Startup’s competitive advantage, and the Startups will play a key role in the evolution of the sector.

4.    Social Media Management will continue to evolve – Consumer demand for multi-channel communication at their fingertips have increased. This provides diverse opportunities — ranging from monitoring various channels of social media (FB, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Whatsapp, etc.) for Online Reputation Management (ORM), to real-time customer engagement, dealing with customer grievances at a much faster pace.

It’s safe to say, that the one-size-fits-all business solution package has breathed its last.

And if we want to stay ahead, as the famous maxim explains, we must continue to Adapt to the changing business ecosystem, be quick to Adopt newer tools and technologies and work to Improve our solutions to meet the changing requirements of the ‘new age’ Clients.

Luckily for us, Altruist Technologies (as the name suggests) has tech at the heart of every product offering. Keeping us relevant and providing an advantage in this highly competitive and fast-evolving world of Business Process Outsourcing.

Today only those who have the courage to be disruptive and the skill to leap over the technology chasm can make it — for the times they are a-changin'.

-      Anto Kirubagaran A, DGM — Business Development