Unlocking Offshore BPO Value

The phrase "Offshore BPO Operations" conjures up the image of a Low Cost Location where Smart People work for you, typically Indians or Philippinos. As the adage goes "you go for cost but you stay for quality". Is the Offshore BPO delivery model only about these two benefits - cost and quality?

Is there hidden value that Global Enterprises can unlock? Can Offshore BPO deliver (i) Business Results? (ii) Customer Insight? (iii) Brand Promise of Fortune 500 clientele? (iv) Innovation? Let us take a closer look.

(a) What do Clients have in mind when they talk about "Business Results"?

For Vonage, the VOIP service provider in U.S and Europe it means (a) Reduce Customer Acquisition Costs below $ 210 per customer (b) Reduce Customer Churn below 2% per month (c) Reduce SG&A below 12%. How can Offshore BPO help Vonage?

Through Offshore Telesales : By running telesales in collaboration with Vonage's marketing efforts and increasing the conversion rate. It means Consulatitive Selling over the Phone while keeping things very simple for the consumer. The BPO Service Provider who serves Vonage would need to sell the Vonage Value Proposition to a new breed of VOIP users - late technology adopters who have lot of choice of comparable offerings from Incumbent Landline, Mobile Service Providers and ISPs.

Offshore Customer Retention : A Proactive Customer Retention Program from offshore would certainly help. For example, if a Vonage Customer has not made any outbound call for 30 days it could mean that the customer is testing out a competitor's phone service. Retention rates would increase if the Offshore BPO Provider were to engage with this Zero Outbound Customer and find out whether he is satisfied with the Vonage service.

(b) What exactly is Customer Insight? Can this be delivered through Offshore BPO?

To my mind Customer Insight has got three dimensions:

(a) Analysis of Top Call Drivers and actions thereof focused on call avoidance.
(b) Analysis of Customer Experience - their emotions when they encounter certain processes and products and taking appropriate corrective action.
(c) Analysis of Customer Expectations - Analysis of Customer Verbatims to understand unmet customer needs. These unmet needs could result in new revenue and/or reduction in churn.

I have witnessed many examples of the (a) and (b) category mentioned above in the Indian BPO Industry and Prospective Clients can leverage the same now by working with certain Offshore BPO Players. If Clients were to allow Service Providers to access and analyse customer verbatims, many a revenue/customer retention opportunity would come to light.

Customer Insight could then be "lead indicators" to customer churn or needs for products/services. These of course can be delivered from Offshore Locations.

(c) What is Brand Promise? Can it be delivered through Offshore BPO?

Brand Promise for www.amazon.com is "Affordability, Convenience and Availability". Let us look at Convenience a little closer. A shopper who arrives on the Amazon site need three types of help (a) to find the product that he/she is searching for (b) once the product is found, to buy the same from the site and (c) once the product is bought, to get the product at his home in the quickest possible time. Amazon currently operates all three types of help mentioned above from India through Offshore BPO Players.

If Amazon, one of highest ever rated companies on the J.D Power Index can entrust their brand with the Indian CSP working for offshore BPO players, why would you hold back?

(d) Innovation? Isn't that a tad too much to expect from Offshore BPO?

There are innumerable examples of Accounts Payable operations of Clients getting streamlined once the offshoring decision is taken. This is since the paper invoices, goods receipt notes and purchase orders now needs to be digitized, indexed and transported over the wires to the offshore locations. Workflow systems get built to enable the management of workflow across mutliple continents. In the above example, automation is not what I am hinting at. I am pointing to the change of the business process where a new way of working is designed and then implmented using technology.

What are the benefits of the above Innovation example? (a) Ensure the Global Client gets the full benefit of the credit period agreed to with the vendor (b) Ensure prompt and accurate payment - no duplicate payment (c) Ensure Vendor Satisfaction (d) Ensure high employee productivity.

There are other examples of Innovation within the India BPO Landscape which one would like to cover later. The fact is :Innovation is very much prevalent in Offshore BPO.

The unsung hero in Unlocking of Offshore BPO Value is the Far Sighted Client - An organization which understands and invests in Offshore Strategies for Competetive Edge, not merely Cost and Quality. Therefore should the more relevant question be "When do you want to unlock the value of your offshore BPO operations"?

Cheers

Paul