The 3rd Wave of Offshore BPO

Circa 2006: Is there a difference in what Prospective Clients are looking for to what they used to look for in 2001 when they are evaluating Service Providers? For sure, there are differences. Now I would call this phase the Third Wave of Offshoring. Let us start at the beginning…

Circa 2001: First Wave – Looking for Capacity: Clients who started the Offshoring explosion in 2001 were looking for capacity – capacity to meet their needs in the scale that was needed for their businesses. Service Providers primarily sold their services based on Available Seats, Band Width and even people on the bench. Clients who moved into India at this stage typically had scale requirements and were willing to work with the selected service provider to build the specific capabilities required for hiring, training and managing.

Circa 2003: Second Wave – Looking for Capability: Clients who adopted the India Delivery Model during this phase were looking for Capability in addition to Capacity. What does Capability mean? To my mind, this means the ability to understand the United Kingdom and United States Customers, ability to hire and train and manage the team for processes such as customer service, technical support and accounts payable. Clients who embraced the India Model at this stage were seeking to catch up with the leaders in offshoring – leaders like Amex, HSBC, HP, BP etc.

Circa 2005: Third Wave – Looking for Offerings: We are currently in this phase. Prospective Clients who are coming in at this stage are looking for service offerings very close to what they are looking for. This means the Service Provider needs to have a good understanding and previous experience in the (a) Industry to which the Prospective Client belongs (b) the processes which are on the anvil for offshoring (c) the ability to seed the pilot team with about 10% of associates with vintage. If you watch the deals that service providers are striking, you will see this trend. There is a reason for this – clients who are moving into India at this stage cannot afford to wait – as much as what Aetna did when they started working with HTMT and Daksh.

Circa 2008: Fourth Wave: What would it be? Watch this space!

Cheers

Paul Simon Arakkal