BPO Future Forward IV

8/12/2019 BPO Future Forward IV

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www.infosys.com/bpo

BPO Future Forward

Inside: 6Thought Papers

Technology the New Normal- Enabling Businesses


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1. Social Networking in Customer Care Centers

2. The death of distance in Supply Chain

3. Designing an Optimal Technology Landscape For

Accounts Payable Transformation

4. Special Tools for Special Purposes Addressing the

Sourcing & Procurement Challenges

5. Winning the Red Queens Race Redoing the math of

value creation for Communication Service Providers

6. Dealing with the New Normal in Finance Operations

7 - 11

12 - 15

16 - 21

22 - 27

28 - 32

33 - 39

IndexINDEX


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Dear Reader,

Organizations around the globe are continuing to grapple with one of the most

challenging business environments. The increasingly rapid pace of technological

change has made technology the business enabler providing us with opportunities

to innovate, progress into newer markets and develop newer customer centric products

and services.

Businesses need to connect use of technology to their business strategy to focus ontrimming excesses, to focus on their core strengths and get to know how technology

can enable and drive value to their businesses.

It gives me immense pleasure to present to you the 4th edition of the Infosys BPO

Journal which has Technology the New Normal- Enabling Businessesas its central

theme, and brings views from a global strategic advisory firm and Infosys subject

matter experts.

This Journal articulates strategies and solutions to multiple industries by thought

leaders. This includes areas such as emphasizing the importance of designing anoptimal technology landscape to transform the account payable function within

organizations. It also focuses on implementing Special Tools which could address

sourcing & procurement challenges and how technology can trigger the death of

distance in the supply chain. We also focus on redoing the math of value creation for

Communication Service Providers, and adopting Social Networking to facilitate

collaboration in customer service centers and transforming it into a training platform

to increase its efficiency.

I would like to thank The Hackett Group and all the authors for their contribution to

this edition of the Journal.

I welcome your feedback on this edition at [email protected]

I wish you all a very happy and prosperous New Year.

Best regards,

Ritesh Idnani

Head of Worldwide Sales and Marketing

F o r e w o r d


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Social Networking can be adopted by a Customer Care Center to facilitate

collaboration. By capitalizing on Social Networking, the Customer Care Center can

be transformed into an informal learning platform that enables traditional training

and informative sessions. Team members can benefit from knowledge sharing and

collaboration leading to increased levels of efficiency at the Customer Care Center.

Social Networking in Customer Care Centers

Rajesh Cheeyancheri


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Addressing Challenges of Customer Care

Centers

Companies are focusing on customer service to differentiate

themselves, ensure customer loyalty and retention, compete

effectively and remain profitable. As products and services

become more complex and sophisticated, providing customer

support becomes challenging. For instance, resolving a

problem for IPTV service, a next generation television service

offered by telecom companies, is far more complex than

resolving an Internet service issue.

Companies must innovate and launch new products or

services faster to ensure consistent revenue and growth. As

the shelf life of these products and services reduce, Customer

Care Centers have to re-train their staff more frequently to

handle new services. Since these Customer Care Centers

are located in multiple geographies, the cost and logistics

associated with training is daunting.

In a majority of industries, a technology monopoly is

redundant. The gap between the market leader and the

followers is slim because technologies/skills are easily

adopted. Consequently, companies have to find a distinctive

value proposition to sell their products. Packaging extended

warranties and selling premium after-sales services with a

product have now become a common practice. Customers,

who buy these additional services, demand that their

problems are resolved promptly and efficiently. Customer

Care Centers need to innovate to address these challenges.

Bridging Social Networking with the Customer

Care Center

Social Networking and Customer Care Center are verydifferent concepts.

Social Networking is becoming increasingly popular because

it is associated with individual lifestyles and caters to the

individual's personal activities. It works in a relaxed

environment with no real deliverables or accountability.

In contrast, a Customer Care Center is a highly reactive and

time-bound environment - the clock starts to tick as soon as

a customer calls and stops when the customer ends the

conversation. The efficiency of a Customer Care Center

operation is constantly evaluated and enhanced using a

number of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). To meet these

goals, Customer Care Centers comply with pre-defined

standardized processes for their day-to-day operations.

In a Customer Care Center, human capital is a critical resource

- agents/advisors, team leaders and floor walkers work

towards a common goal. Human capital can be empowered

by applying the underlying concepts of Social Networking

such as forming teams or groups to share experiences. For

example, when an advisor discusses with his/her peers how

they handled an irate customer, it offers options to manage

similar situations in the future.

Such a collaboration at an advisor level helps improve the

overall skill level of its staff and creates a more informed

and empowered organization. In addition to the formal

training and awareness sessions, collaboration enables

knowledge sharing obtained through hands-on experience,

which will otherwise remain confined with the individual.

When collaboration gathers momentum and attains critical

mass, it can become a rich repository of data which can be

analyzed to identify the areas of improvement or emerging

trends.

For advisors, it provides an opportunity to transcend routine

case handling and encourages them to take ownership in

their work. It offers a platform to showcase their work and

helps them build a repertoire of case handling skills that is

not always imparted in training. As clients and counterparts

are located in different geographies and have different ways

of talking and writing, a forum to view anecdotes of advisors

is useful to understand the nuances, conversational styles

and cultural cues embedded in a conversation. Such skills

cannot be imparted in classroom training or through

documentation.

Integrating Social Networking into theCustomer Care Center

A Customer Care Center works in a gated mode - advisors

have access only to a pre-defined set of resources (tools,

people, applications, etc). The mode of operations is defined

by factors such as the business model, data protection,

operational efficiency, etc. These factors must be taken into

consideration when introducing concepts of Social

Networking in a Customer Care Center.

System Generated User Modified Content (SGUMC)

A fault, case or ticket is the entity around which the whole

Customer Care Center operates. When a customer calls the


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Customer Care Center to resolve a problem, it begins with

the creation of a 'fault', a 'case'or a 'ticket'by the CRM

application. In its lifetime, the fault is attended to by various

people with a sole objective - close it at the earliest. Once a

fault is closed, for all practical purposes, it just becomes a

quantitative parameter in the different metrics generatedby the Customer Care Center. Invariably, the qualitative

aspects are not captured anywhere.

The System Generated User Modified Content (SGUMC) is

an entity envisaged to capture the qualitative aspects when

an advisor at the Customer Care Center works on a case.

The SGUMC entity will have its origin in a system generated

fault, case or ticket that can be modified by advisors at the

Customer Care Center to record their observations, analysis,

comments and anecdotes. Once created, SGUMCs can beshared and exchanged among advisors.

Advisors and Budadvisors

Any agent or advisor at the Customer Care Center can

participate in such a collaborative environment. Just as in

any social networking environment, advisors can form groups

and communities. A budadvisor is an advisor who shares a

special relationship with another advisor. For example, if

Ted is a budadvisor of Pal, Ted can comment/update Pal'sSGUMC. Advisors select which advisor can become their

budadvisor.

Public Sharing Space

Every SGUMC created in the Customer Care Center will be

stored in a Public Sharing Space. The SGUMCs created by

advisors are a good source of information for anyone involved

with the Customer Care Center. For example, new recruits

can use it to get up to speed on their work. Similarly, training

teams can use it to examine any area which requires attention.

SGUMC in Action

Let us evaluate three potential SGUMCs and how they

interact with different actors:

1. DreamCase

2. NightmareCase3. Case2Watch

DreamCase

Every advisor will have cases that worked perfectly. These

cases can be self-motivating and provide a 'feel-good' factor

when one looks back at the work. If an advisor feels that the

case proceeded well, it may be worthwhile sharing it with

buddies. The benefits are two-fold: 1- More people get to

see a case handling they probably can emulate and 2- Itvalidates the advisor's case handling with his/her peers. It

can also lead to 'bragging' in Social Networking parlance.

Figure 1: Creating and Sharing DreamCase and NightmareCase SGUMCs

Step 1: Create SGUMC

Cases

DreamCase NightMare

SGUMC

Step 2: Share SGUMC with the various Actors

Step2tep

DreamCase NightMare

UserUser

Public Sharing Space

Budadvisor

Budadvisor BudadvisorBecome Budadvisors

Advisorsat the

Center

Share it withBudadvisors,

Exchange comments

Submit SGUMC toPublic Sharing Space

Access SGUMC fromPublic Sharing Space


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An advisor can selectively build his/hers DreamCase SGUMC

and share it with the advisor community. When a DreamCase

is created, it can lead to different situations:

The advisor can share it with his/her existing

budadvisor. The budadvisors can comment on the

cases or begin discussions around it. One interestinguse of the DreamCase can be to use it in training or

team huddles where the participants can use it as a

case study and discuss it.

The DreamCase SGUMC can also be directed to a Public

Sharing Space. Every registered user can access the

Public Sharing Space and view the DreamCase. Based

on the DreamCases, advisors may want to become a

budadvisor to the author of a particular DreamCase.

For example, if a Advisor-Z is handling a particularcustomer and sees another Advisor-Y having a lot of

DreamCases around that customer, Advisor-Z can

become Advisor-Y's budadvisor.

NightmareCase

On the one hand, advisors work on DreamCases, on the other,

they have NightmareCases. While most people wish to forget

a nightmare experience, these cases provide important

lessons for the individual and the Customer Care Center. Itis important to share these experiences with peers. They

may relate to behavioral skills in handling a particular

customer or a complicated technical issue that made the

case very difficult.

In fact, NightmareCases will attract more discussion and

comments than a DreamCase.

Case2Watch

Today, services delivered to the end user are complex and

involve multiple organizations and applications. Typically,services have numerous components and a long supply chain

spanning different geographies linked together by business

and service level agreements.

For an advisor who is one of the links in the supply chain,

the ability to know the status of the case after it had been

handed over to another organization can be helpful. It can

be particularly useful for advisors who are closest to the

end customer to ensure that the case is acted upon and not

parked somewhere. In addition, it expands the horizon ofthe advisor to understand and appreciate the challenges of

other organizations that are all part of the supply chain.

The above situation can be resolved by Case2Watch, the

SGUMC created by an advisor which will be updated as

the case progresses. Another advisor who is interested in

a particular case can subscribe to a Case2Watch for

updates or to participate in a discussion around that

Case2Watch.

Social Networking in a Customer Care Center can facilitate

collaboration in a highly reactive environment. For the

Customer Care Center, it is an informal learning platform

that enables traditional training and informative sessions.

Figure 2: Case2Watch

Step 1: Create SGUMC

Cases

Step 2: Share SGUMC with the various Actors

Step2tep

UserUser

Subscribe andget updatesabout theCase2Watch

Update theCase2Watch

Case2Watch

SGUMC

Case2Watch

SGUMC


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Technology as an enabler of BPO operations has moved beyond process and

productivity improvements to being an enabler of the client's business performance.

Supply Chain BPO services offer the greatest potential in transforming the client's

business operations by bridging the distance between front and back office supply

chain processes. Supply Chain Visibility dashboards in particular have the ability to

enhance collaboration between the client and BPO vendor to optimize the global

supply chain in real time. We explore the potential benefits and impact the SCV

dashboard can bring about in managing the supply chain in an outsourced

environment.

The death of distance in Supply Chain

Shyam.R.Rao


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Introduction

As the BPO industry has matured, it has developed more and more sophisticated tools and technologies to enable its processes.

The move has been from simple inward looking tools like workflow and training tools that enabled the vendor's functions to

automation tools which help boost productivity and improve client's back office functions. The next wave of technology in

this growth curve will be those that directly impact and enable a client's business functions.

Impact on client operations

1Wa

ve2Wa

ve 3Wave3Eg: Workflow, trainingtoolsVendor enabling tools Eg: Automation toolsTools impactingvendor and client

Eg: Supply chaindashboards

Tools impacting clientsbusiness operations

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>>

ToolComplexity

>>>

>>>>>>>>>>

>>>>>>>>>>

Wave technologies1

addressed the key concerns of an industry in its infancy - the enablement of operations in a

stable and efficient manner. Workflow tools and technologies to enable knowledge capture

and transfer were, hence immediately put into practice to ensure that the operations at the

vendor's offshore locations were planned and routed through smoothly. The outcome was the

successful transfer and performance of back office operations at the vendor's premises.

Wave technologies2addresses issues such as improving the productivity of client's processes being performed by

the vendor. Automating tools like macros, OCR etc help to reduce effort involved and thus

reduce costs and increase efficiency of processes for the client and vendor

Wave technologies3

will go beyond the process and enable the business performance of the client. This will

involve moving beyond the process and look at impacting the business metrics of the client.

Thus Wave 3 technologies will enable BPO organizations to go beyond the incrementalbenefits from initiatives like six sigma, kaizen etc and achieve exponential benefits from

leveraging "tech as a multiplier" in its processes. This will be particularly effective in

functions like supply chain wherein the use of technology can bring about increased visibility

and the ability to pro-actively remedy and optimize the value chain in real time.


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Enabling the Supply Chain

The supply chain provides a fertile ground for the

implementation of Wave 3 technologies due to the

challenges posed in this area, as well as the exponential

benefits available from implementing tech based solutions

to these challenges. Supply chain managers are typically

confronted with several obstacles in their efforts to optimize

the value chain in real time:

The components of the global supply chain are

disbursed across multi-location, multi system and

across partners/customers with varying requirements

and demands with no common platform

Organizations also tend to have multiple legacy

systems that will not talk to each other seamlessly

Observation of "danger" signals cannot be done in

real time and remedial actions taken in retrospect

sometimes result in greater damage leading to

inefficient supply chains

Out sourced back office components of the value chain

further complicate the end-to-end visibility and control

of the supply chain

Supply chain managers are hence increasingly looking at

visibility dashboards that link the various components/systems together and provide a consolidated view of the

performance of the supply chain through well defined KPIs.

These dashboards combined with analytical and

collaboration tools will help monitor and influence the supply

chain to enable real time optimization.

The Supply Chain Visibility Dashboard

A supply chain dashboard will typically involve 4

components:

1. Configurable metrics- Specific KPI's which cover both

process (TAT, accuracy, productivity) and business

metrics (inventory turns, perfect orders, DSO) which

can be customized by supply chain managers to

capture their business imperatives

2. Supply Chain Exception Management (SCEM)- by Alerts

generated from pre-set values to above metrics. These

alerts will be routed through role based user hierarchy

3. Analytical and Collaborative tools- which enable drill

down root cause analysis and collaborative problem

solving of above exceptions

4. Track resolution - through reporting of status and

impact of corrective actions identified above

An important feature of the dashboard is its ability to link

varying systems together and enable the client to view the

consolidated supply chain and collaborate with the BPO

vendor of back office supply chain processes to influence

and optimize it in real time.

Benefits of a dashboard in Supply Chain BPO

services

A major risk that organizations face in outsourcing back office

processes of a supply chain is that of distance - distance

from supply chain partners, distance due to time zones and

distance due to varying systems that prevent visibility and

inhibit real time control and optimization of the supply chain.

By integrating supply chain visibility dashboards into the

outsourced environment, this risk of distance can be

effectively addressed and overcome. Some of the benefits

of this integration of dashboard technology and BPO services

in the supply chain area are:

The death of distance in the supply chain - thus

enabling real time monitoring and control of backoffice supply chain processes

Collaborate in real time with the back office BPO team

to optimize the supply chain by cross/ upselling,

expedite/ substitute, prevent stock outs and increase

conversion ratios

Provide a productivity tool for the client to manage

offshore operations by moving the needle from

process metrics to business metrics1

Thus by enabling supply chain visibility through SCV

dashboards in an outsourced environment will de-risk

offshore supply chain operations and ensure real time

operational control and optimization. This would of course

work best when client and service providers collaborate to

ensure that all touch points in the process are optimized

through the application of the technology.

1 Vijai Kumar Balachandra & Radhakrishnan Prashant, "Moving the

needle in Order Management outsourcing: From Process metrics to

Business metrics", BPO Journal II, 2008


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A global provider of imaging technology products and services wanted visibility into

its service and product performance which include products like digital cameras,

printers, imaging accessories and equipment. It also needed the ability to track

consumer concerns, calls, and problems with products, returns and replacements.

The company partnered with a service provider to create a plug and play supply chain

visibility and collaboration workbench based on Microsoft BI stack which consolidated

information fragmented across the company's multi-tier, multi-system global supply

chain. This customized workbench/dashboard provided the client with a platform to

monitor and control its supply chain in real time by detecting signs of possible failures

and resolving them proactively. This visibility into product defects and the agility in

resolving them has enhanced call center/back office performance and reduced repair

and return rates, driving up overall customer satisfaction.Case

Stu

dy

Conclusion

The supply chain provides immense scope to enhance and

enable the collaboration and optimization of processes

between the client and his BPO partner through the

implementation of next generation tools and technologies.

Supply Chain dashboards which bridge the distance between

the front and back office components of the supply chain

and bring about visibility into the client's global value chain

in particular will help BPO vendors to go beyond process

improvements and truly impact the business performance

of the client's operations.

References

1. Vijai Kumar Balachandra & Radhakrishnan Prashant, "Moving

the needle in Order Management outsourcing: From Process

metrics to Business metrics", BPO Journal II, 2008

2. Arora et al, "Service Performance Workbench - a strategic

differentiator", Infosys Whitepaper, Jan 2009

3. Barret Jane, "Collaborative Inventory Practices yield MarketAdvantage" AMR Research, 2008

4. Hostmann & Richardson, "Succeed with business

intelligence by avoiding 9 fatal flaws", Gartner Research,

Sept 2008

5. Kard Khalid, "Real World Example: Eastman Kodak Security

Metrics Dashboard" Forrester Research, Apr 2009

6. Orlow et al, "Making dashboards actionable" Forrester

Research, Dec 2003

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Shyam.R.Raois a Solution Anchor in the Order Management practice at Infosys BPO. He has 9 years of

experience in the supply chain area in the Hi-tech and Discrete manufacturing space. He is an alumnus

of the London School of Economics


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Companies that leverage technology to automate their Accounts Payable (AP)

function can achieve sustainable, long-term benefits by aligning cost optimization

objectives to their long-term vision and strategy.

Designing an Optimal Technology Landscape -For Accounts Payable Transformation

Shubha Subramanian, Ved Vyas, Rajagopal NVS


17/4017

The current economic condition has caused companies to

experience severe revenue and cost pressure and an

uncertain future. As a result companies are banking on

technology to deliver benefits beyond just "cost savings"

and help create transformational benefits that

can help them not just in turbulent times but in good timesas well.

One area which is becoming an important agenda item for

companies all over the world is the automation of AP

function, because even today an overwhelming majority of

invoices in companies are paper based. With billions of

dollars worth of invoices getting processed every month,

inefficiencies in invoice processing and delayed payments

to suppliers can lead to increased costs and end user

dissatisfaction. Given that manual processing of supplierinvoices costs anywhere between US $10 to US $20 per

invoice, and keying in information from paper invoices is the

most time-consuming and the least value added task in AP

departments, companies are increasingly looking at

technology to drive down costs and improve efficiencies in

their AP processes. Companies that have successfully

automated their AP function have managed to bring down

costs to less than $5 per invoice resulting in transformational

cost benefits and significant bottom-line improvement. Other

benefits include faster ROI, minimized impact of process

failures and delays, cash management and working capital

optimization, improved decision making, enhanced controls

and supplier satisfaction.

Traditional approaches to technology involve understanding

of immediate concern areas and gaps, and investing in

software solutions to address those short-term concerns.

The sections below, however, advocate an approach where

the "gap analysis" is done against a "Technology MaturityRoadmap" and the long-term strategic vision of the

company.

We believe that companies that embark on transformation

through technology enablement should do a two way

assessment on before designing the optimal technology

landscape for its AP function. The assessments involve a

detailed review of the following:

existing processes and technology the company

currently has;

profiling and segmentation of their supplier base and

evaluation of suppliers' capabilities and fitment into

the overall technology solution. BPO service providers

play a major role in helping companies tailor

technology solutions to meet their needs and

requirements, and more importantly, in translating

their long-term vision into action. The sections below

describe the approach to be followed for the initial

assessment phase.

Technology Maturity Framework and Gap

Analysis

Technology maturity refers to a company's ability to leverage

technology to automate its manual, non-value added tasks

and provide real-time information to enhance decision

making capabilities. The technology maturity framework is

intended to help companies assess their current level of

maturity vis--vis an evolution roadmap. There are 4 levels

defined in the maturity model.

Level 1

is primarily targeted at controlling paper workflow

of the company.

Level 2

involves integrating the imaging and workflow

solution with ERP and sets the foundation for

simplified invoice processing.

Level 3

involving integration between invoice processing

software and the ERP system also includes an

electronic workflow. This integration can empowerdecision making process by providing real-time

visibility of invoice status, informative dashboards,

automated escalations and alerts.

Level 4

is primarily applicable to large organizations that

operate in multiple geographies, languages and

have large volumes of data. This level requires heavy

up-front investment in supplier data management

solutions, e-invoicing, Supplier portal, payment

factory.


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Low complexity High complexity

Level

0 Level

1 Level

2 Level

3 Level

4

Manual

Processing

No workflow

Implement

scanning

system

Implement

workflow

Implementscanningsystem (OCRintegrated)

Implement ERPintegratedwork flow

Implement ERPintegrated POsystem

Implementinvoice trackingsystem

Implementapproval via ERPintegratedsystem

Implementvendor querystatus trackingsystem

Automaticuploads of

vendor masterdata requestsinto ERP system

ERS EDI / e-invoicing Vendor portal Introduce

payment factory

Manual

No Paper Flow

Automated Data

Flow

Real timeenvironment

Automate throughe-Invoicing

The tools and technology solutions currently used and their

capabilities thereof will need to be mapped against the

maturity framework. This will help a company in identifyingits current state of technology maturity and benchmark its

capabilities against best-in-class (Level 4). This

benchmarking exercise can help companies identify

investments and capabilities required to transform its AP

function.

As companies aspire to move up the maturity model, there

would be varying levels of investments required at each level.

Any investment in technology should be planned in such a

way that it acts as a business efficiency enabler and providestangible business benefits. The high technology investment

required to automate some of the manual, non-value added

activities in the AP process is one of the major reasons for

outsourcing the AP function to BPO service providers.

Supplier Profiling and Segmentation

Another important evaluation involves a detailed study of

the supplier database to understand the profiles of thesuppliers the company deals with and their historical

behaviour pattern. Companies with insights and

understanding about their suppliers are better placed to

collaborate with suppliers to innovate their products and

service offerings. Technology acts as a key enabler that

facilitates this collaboration with the extended enterprises.

Data analysis can help in identifying distinct supplier

segments and understanding the characteristics and

constraints that define each of the segments. The questions

to be considered while identifying the supplier segments

include:

Are the suppliers regular or one-time suppliers?

Do the suppliers supply goods or services?

Are the suppliers high-volume or low volume

suppliers?

Are the transactions with the suppliers of high- value

or low value?

Are the purchases from the suppliers against a PO or

are they non-PO supplies?

Are the transactions with the suppliers simple or

complex in nature (attributes to be considered include

language capabilities, invoice formats, geographies,

tax related issues etc)?

More often than not, companies will have to deal withsuppliers with varying degrees of technology maturity. The

supplier profiling and segmentation exercise can provide

pointers about the type of technology investment required

to optimize ROI. The company should consider investing in

Table 1: AP Technology Maturity Model


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ERS and EDI / e-Invoicing for high-value and high-volume

suppliers. Though the company has to make upfront

investment in setting up the technology platform and process

for reconciliation, long-term benefits (by way of improved

working capital predictability, improved on time payment

capabilities and significant reduction in processing costs)can be quite significant. For the suppliers, the benefits would

include prompt payment, better cash forecasting, lower bad

debts etc. On the other hand, for low-value, high-volume

suppliers, P-card implementation might be the optimal

solution. Similarly for suppliers who are in the mid-segment,

a company may decide to implement image scanning

integrated with workflow as it requires no investment from

suppliers but can yield significant benefits to the company.

The diagram below is an illustrative list of technologysolutions that companies could consider for their supplier

segments:

Therefore a thorough understanding of the supplier segments

and their characteristics can go a long way in engaging with

the suppliers and designing the most appropriate technology

interventions for each of the supplier segments that can

provide win-win situations for suppliers and companies.

Designing an Optimal Technology Landscape

Evolution of technology is not a linear process and a single

approach to technology should not be uniformly applied to

companies. Rather a "One Size Fits All" approach to

automation needs to be replaced by a strategy that is

customized to fit a company's overall strategic vision, needs

and expectations from technology solutions.

The optimal technology landscape should be finalized after

taking into consideration the following factors:- current

technology capabilities, relationship maturity of the supplier

segments, tangible and intangible benefits expected from

automation and strategic long-term vision of the company.

Identification of the desired state in maturity model will help

in identifying gaps, prioritizing resources, focus areas and

will, more importantly, aid in chalking out an action plan to

get to the desired state. It should also enable the company

to cope with the immediate constraints and challenges while

making it agile enough to adapt to the changes that the

business might undergo in future.

Companies do not have to go through the various levels of

technology maturity in sequence and can adopt a multi-pronged

approach to realize optimal benefits from the automation

Table 2: Technology Solutions for Supplier Segments

Supplier Characteristics BenefitsSolution

ERS

Suppliers with established mutualtrust relationship

# of invoices and invoice value arelarge

Manual goods receipts against POs

Supplier invoicing and invoice entry process eliminated No delays in payment, pay only for what you receive. Pre-determined invoice cycle time resulting in improved working

capital predictability Processing cost per invoice will be in the range of $ 0.80 to $ 2.50

EDI or ElectronicInvoicing

Non-ERS suppliers # of invoices and invoice value are

large Manual goods receipts against POs

No manual intervention required to process invoices Improved invoice cycle time and visibility through invoice life

cycle Reduced Processing cost per invoice Improved ability to avail early payment discount

P-Card / Self ServiceVendor Portal

Low value purchases Prepayment

Minimize the manual efforts through p-Card, Self Service Vendorportal, PO flip etc

Simplified process

Paper-Based Invoices # of invoices and invoice value ismedium or Low Paper invoices for suppliers with

no e-invoice capability

Centralized sorting and OCR scanning resulting in improved

process efficiency Workflow enabled with integration with ERP to reduce cycle time

and improved visibility through invoice life cycle Approval workflow for non-PO to ensure compliance and visibility


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process. There are tangible benefits to be reaped in each of the

levels of the maturity model and based on priorities, pain areas

and resource constraints, companies can, with the help of BPO

providers, move up the evolution chart either in a fairly short

time-frame or over a longer period of time. For example,

companies that are at Level 0 (of the technology maturity model)can leverage outsourcing and technology expertise of their BPO

partners to move to Level 3 in the short-run. However not all of

its suppliers would be ready or willing to invest in technology

for several reasons including ROI, strategic importance of the

supplier, value of business transacted between the company

and the suppliers etc. It is, therefore, imperative to adapt to

other alternatives to accommodate suppliers unwilling to invest

and overhaul their existing processes.

In the process of automating functions, it is important toalign process improvements with technology solutions and

create a synergistic value to companies. Only then can the

benefits be truly enduring. BPO providers have the requisite

capabilities to combine expertise in process outsourcing and

technology in a synergistic way within the AP framework to

provide integrated value benefits to companies.

Proven technology and optimization expertise of BPO service

providers can enable companies to scale up the automation

of their AP functions at reduced cost and in a relatively short

period of time. BPO providers will work with companies not

just in automating and harmonizing their internal AP

processes but also in analyzing and working with the various

suppliers to design optimal technology solutions for each of

the supplier segments depending on their relationship

maturity levels (Refer Table 2). The benefits that BPO

companies provide are mentioned below:

Working CapitalEfficiency

Reports and analysis

Predictability of working capital requirements Improved Discount Capture % High Visibility on Payables outstanding Unlock cash flows Prevent late payments (& penalties)

Operational Efficiency

Workflow tools

ERP Integration

Automation - OCR

Reports and analysis

Improved Paid on Time (PoT) capability

Productivity

Escalation and tracking

Well informed policy decisions

ContinuousImprovements

Drive Standardization andharmonization

Improved Accuracy Innovation Best Practices Sharing

Consolidation - One process for allgeography/entity

Leveraging the best talent across industries Year on year reduction in TCO Eliminate waste and non-value added activities

End User Satisfaction Supplier Portal (Self Help tool for

suppliers)

Minimal time spent on answering Invoice statusand payment queries

High visibility of supplier queries and highersupplier satisfaction on account of accurate andpredictable payments

Controls & Compliance Audit Trail

Duplicate Processing control

Automated Approval flow

Electronic Audit Trails

Revenue leak avoidance

Better enforcement of business and SOx controls

Cost Optimization

Outsourcing Work Flow Tools Special Handling of discount

eligible invoices Help in converting Paper based

invoicing Supplier to electronicbased (ERS, EDI or E-Invoicing)

~30% Cost savings, Labor arbitrage & shift in

focusing controls, Macro Management

Productivity and Cost Reduction

From Cost Center to Self serving model.

Reduction of Manual invoice processing and cost

of the same

Offerings of theBPO Service Provider Benefits to Clients


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Conclusion

Companies all over the world suffer from an over-reliance on manual processes. The inefficiencies of the manual processes are

often overlooked during times of high growth but become prime candidates of focus during times of recession. New tools,

technology and platform solutions have evolved in the last few years that can automate the manual, non-value added tasks

inherent to AP function and provide transformational benefits to companies.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Shubha Subramanian - heads the Finance Center of Excellence and handles domain competency and

knowledge management initiatives of F&A practice at Infosys BPO. She has worked in the core finance

and accounting functions for several companies and also has experience working as a trainer. Shubha is

a Chartered and Cost Accountant and also holds MS and MBA degrees in Corporate Finance from University

of Wisconsin, U.S.A.

Ved Vyas is responsible for driving the products & alliance strategy and commercialization in the F&A

practice at Infosys BPO. Ved brings around 14 years of experience in program management, customer

relationship management, outsourcing transition and business development. Ved has led many cross-

functional and multi-location teams to ensure delivery of ERP implementations and custom development.

He has also worked as a Manager in Steel Authority of India (SAIL) for a couple of years where he was

involved in production planning & control. He is a B.Tech graduate from IIT-Kanpur and an MBA from

IIM Ahmadabad.

Rajagopal NVS is the P2P Product Manager for F&A Products & Alliances team at Infosys BPO. He has

rich experience in P2P domain - managing operations / designing products & developing reconciliation

solutions. Raj has worked with global corporations - across industries like manufacturing, dot com, Capital

and healthcare. He is a commerce graduate.


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Although a number of procurement technologies have entered mainstream adoption,

there is significant continued innovation in procurement, as evidenced by new

technologies, and ongoing refinements in current offerings and product offering

restructuring. Several procurement technologies are becoming mainstream

solutions, including strategic sourcing applications, spending analysis and

e-procurement. These solutions are appealing to a wide audience because of their

proven track record to enable and/or deliver significant cost reduction.

* Hype Cycle for Procurement Applications, 2009; by Deborah R Wilson, Andrew White, et al.;

28 July 2009, Gartner, Inc.

Special Tools for Special Purposes - Addressing theSourcing & Procurement Challenges

Bipin Wadhwa with Ravi Panchanadan


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Enterprise resource planning systems have been, for some

time, the key automation enablers of procurement function.

They have, perhaps in many cases, created discipline in

transactional process execution and resultant data

management. However, the Chief Procurement Officer's (CPO)

challenge to reduce procurement cost can be furtheraddressed at various stages of sourcing and procurement

cycle, through use of specific special purpose automated

tools (which may be decision support, process accelerators

or collaboration tools).

Special purpose tools are generally used for a niche set of

activities such as spend reporting, spend analysis,

negotiation management, (master) data cleansing, cost policy

compliance and control. No doubt organizations can evaluate,

implement and deploy such solutions entirely through internalefforts, but now with evolution of service offerings by

Business Process Outsourcing organizations, using their

services can create additional advantages - of service

knowledge, expertise and cost.

The context - CPO Challenges

The economic recession has brought forth the need to reduce

and control costs. The Chief Procurement Officer's role hasgained importance given the CPOs teams' influence over

managing spends. While proven technologies that enable

transactional activities exist, such platforms may not generally

always support every facet of sourcing and procurement

activities that can help reduce or manage spends better.

For example, from a CPO's perspective, the reduction of cost

& better cash flow can be achieved by sourcing better. For

this, summarized & detailed view of all spends must be

available through a decision support CPO DASHBOARD,

preferably at the finger tips of the CPO and his team. It should

enable the management, at various levels, to understandthe progress over key procurement performance metrics,

which area or category could potentially need deeper

investigation for correction, or a relook at strategy.

But then, this is easier said than done, for many a time, the

reporting flexibility in applications used may be limited - after

all each one has his own approach to review the information.

Special purpose tools have been able, to a large extent,

address these by using feeds from different application

instances, and providing the dashboard, which can furnish

the desired summary, and dig deeper to identify possible

area of variance. Similarly, organizations can take advantage

of sourcing and procurement point solutions, which provide

niche functionalities to address different challenges.

The fundamental difference - ERP and Special

Purpose tools

Growth is an imperative strategy of all organizations. As

organizations grow in revenue and size - people, capacity,

volume, sites, products and services, the underlying operations

need to keep pace. Enterprise resource planning platforms

enabled implementation of collaboration between various

parts of the organization, through set of well defined and

standard processes. In doing so, they enabled a resultant

repository of data, or database, consisting of transactionalCPO DASHBOARD

Using MS SQL Servers, SharePoint &

Performance point technology, a CPO

Dashboard can provide an individual user

defined dashboard layout, with instant alerts

and mail messaging collaboration

SPENDING SCORECARD

% of Savings YOY

% Spend under Management

Active Suppliers per Billion & Spend

% Spend from High Cost Countries

7.45%

92.55%

204.65#

53.35%

ValueGoal &Status Trend

11.22%

89.05%

45.12#

52.00%

Examples of processes that were primary

focus of enterprise resource planning are

raising & approval of purchase requisitions,

raising of approved purchase orders based on

purchase requisitions, recording of goods

receipt, recording of invoice and matching

them with purchase orders and goods receipts,

recording of payments to vendors and

reporting of payables. For a very large

organization, the sheer volume of these

transactions can be mind-boggling, and well

served by such applications systems


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data generated through execution of processes. Many of these,

due to the nature of standardized and well defined processes,

permitted themselves to be outsourced to captive or third party

shared services organizations.

Special purpose tools, on the other hand, address a specific

activity or set of activities that may help in providing analytics

to supporting decisions, or accelerators to executing

processes, or collaborate with suppliers.

found to fall short. They generally have ability to interface

with, or use data from, varied end to end technology solutions.

Uses, deployment challenges of special purpose

tools in sourcing & procurement functionsHowever, this may be easier said than done, for either data

required are available in different and variant systems

The spend analysis solution tool is enabled by on line analytical processing

or OLAP technology, which allow fast analysis of shared multi-dimensional

information. Unlike traditional database management systems, which store

data in many two dimensional or flat tables, OLAP technology allows data

to be in a three dimensional table. It supports multiple hierarchieswhich

allow data to be categorized and classified & viewed at various levels

(dimensions, nesting and categories).

It permits easy data manipulation- slicing (extracting values relating to a

single value of a dimension), dicing (extracting a sub cube of original), rotating

(changing the dimension orientation or swapping a row/column with a off-

spreadsheet dimension).

Data from different systems, with different file & data formats, can beported

(loaded)into the solution tool. One can define a standard format and for

each source data type, rules to load and convert into standard need to be

defined and re-used.

Similarly, for creating analytical reports, rules based reporting templates can

be created. Any ad-hoc reporting template, can also be created using certain

commands.

An important aspect of the point solution tool is that all hierarchies and

rules set can be modifiedwith limited efforts.

WHAT

CREATES

THE

ADVANTAGE?

Illustrated with

example of how

typical spend

analysis solutionworks.

For example, with the set of data available through the

repository generated from enterprise resource planning

systems the procurement leaders would need an analysis of

their spend for a period. Special purpose tools can help

facilitate the tasks to collate, organize, classify, analyze &

summarize spends for each category or commodity, by various

dimensions. The base data will be obtained from the enterprise

resource planning databases, processes & analyzed in the

special tools. Generally, you may find the special purpose tools

a better option to use, because of their concentrated focus,

the tools have built in niche functionalities to address varied

issues involved (tactical or transactional). They are often

resorted to in areas where general end to end solutions are

(enterprise resource planning or legacy applications), or data

may not be adequate, or capability to conduct the analysis

may be limited. Then again, the humungous information may

first require DATA CLEANSING, issues arising from the

DATA CLEANSING

Special data integration tools can facilitate

review of the data from various systems,

analyze issues, and clean data based on

defined data quality rules


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existing junk or duplicate data or availability of data in

different formats. So, there will be efforts required to carry

out data rationalization, data enrichment and organizing to

a standard data schema - perhaps both at transactional and

/ or master data level. Special purpose tools can serve as

process accelerators here.

The cleaned data can be analyzed by various dimensions,

using the SPEND ANALYSIS tools, a combination of process

accelerators and decision support. The resultant output

enables visibility of spend patterns. One may even need to

enrich the existing spend data set by adding external valuessuch as data or supplier codes, from external sources, to

permit better classification and analysis. For sourcing, the

spend view can provide an enhanced understanding of the

spend requirement and its patterns. The enhanced spend

data reports, amongst others, can thus be used for reviewing

or developing and deciding on spend strategies.

As we go downstream in the process, there are other e-

SOURCING tools that well serve collaboration with suppliers,

which we find useful. During the sourcing strategy execution,one may need to invite request for proposals (RFPs) or

information or quotations (RFIs/RFQs), to allow various

suppliers to bid and compete. This may be a time consuming

process, if we leave it as manual paper based or simply email

based enabled. Collaborative tools for such request can be

used. These tools permit online contact, submission of

requirements and terms, with response from suppliers and

creating comparatives. These special tools or applications

can create reduced cycle times and processing efficiencies.

Moreover, sourcing tools have also been found to be useful

to negotiate, with short listed suppliers invited for on-line

reverse auctions. Such on-line auction tool can be used well,

with variance of what data we want the suppliers to know.

These indeed have led to cost savings, by the sheer visibility

of, and increased competitiveness amongst suppliers. And

it creates transparency in purchasing and supply process!

But, does all procurement take place as per contract terms

and conditions? Is there any chance of cost leakages due to

say, incorrect prices being levied or in appropriate

implementation of the terms? Such conditions could exist in

many organizations, and many times trying to keep track of

all of these can be quite challenging. Two such instances

are keeping track of use of software licenses (SOFTWARE

ASSEST MANAGER) and managing telecom spends

(TELECOM EXPENSE MANAGER). Suffice to say, each have

own set of challenges. There are tools to accelerate the

process of compliance and control for such special cases.

It usually is in the interest of procurement to ensure that the

organization pays only for the software licenses actually

used, and to identify license reallocation opportunities. One

needs to evaluate compliance of software license terms.

But again, the use of licenses may be decentralized, with

many points of use. Tools can be deployed on servers, to

gather the license usage data from various systems, which

can then be analyzed for deployment patterns, and identify

areas for rationalization and changes. Surely, preventing over

utilization, in many cases, means preventing penalties.Under-utilized licenses can perhaps be discontinued. But

deploying this tool needs some specialist understanding and

then, there is manual effort in conducting the compliance

review once the inventory is generated.

In the second case, telecom expense is generally a large chunk

of the spend portfolio given the ever increasing dependence

of electronic means of communication. Each region may have

its own set of service carriers, who are contracted with, andneed to be managed. The new connection requests, old attires,

requests, call reports and invoices all of them arguably deserve

scrutiny, as the sum of errors may prove to be a large hole in

the pocket. The solution, as do others, needs combined set of

SPEND ANALYSIS

Based on OLAP technology, these tools can

port spend data sets from different systems,

permit classification at different levels of

data, defined analytical reporting templates

and generate multi-dimensional spend reports.

Standard and ad-hoc reports can be thus

generated in a speedy manner, with spend

patterns made visible with high and detailed

level views available

SOFTWARE ASSET MANAGER

Such tools can generally easily be ported on

to organizations' servers, under secure

conditions, and can inventories the usage of

specified high costing software licenses. The

software license can be monitored


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tool and services, that can establish a cost effective and

scalable network, improve transactional service efficiency and

reduce cost of operation.

These are some examples of special purpose tools, which

can add value to the sourcing and procurement processes.

In some cases, ERP vendors may include them as part of

their offerings, or organizations may need to source it fromother vendors. Having said that, in certain cases, one may

develop it! But all in all, such special purpose tools have

been found useful for decision support or as accelerators to

the processes or as collaborative tools.

Advantages of engaging a business process

outsourcing partner

Traditions change. And so has what a good business processoutsourcing partner can do for you.

There may be little doubt regarding the advantages that such

tools offer. But there can be implementation challenges and

extensive manual efforts. Given the challenges related to

systems and data, there are enormous manual activities

involved in this processes, generally because large

companies require handling huge volumes.

Business process outsourcing / off shoring units are in a

position to specialize in providing the comprehensive

solutions to complex spend data harnessing and analyzing

issues. It can combine service with special purpose tools, to

provide the overall solution, based on the client's strategy.

Firms can take advantage of these since:

Clients can gain not just on labor arbitrage, but also

from the expertise gained through varied experiences.

And from comparative speed of implementation when

handled by such experts

With extensive experience, one tends to have a well

developed methodology to handle such complex issues

The methodology, coupled with the solution tool,

provides a unique opportunity for clients to outsource

such strategy and procurement support and focus on

sourcing strategies for high end products and services

Furthermore, any existing tie ups by the BPO for the

solution tool can reduce the effort on tool selection

and training process

Creating the initial set ups, indexing, mappings, templates and rules for

data porting or analytical models etc., in various tools (CPO Dashboard,

Data Cleansing, Spend Analytics, Software Asset Management)

Data profiling, rationalization, enhancement, enrichment, and

maintenance (CPO Dashboard, Data Cleansing, Spend Analytics)

Capturing data not available in the systems, from various manual & non-

manual sources (CPO Dashboard, Data Cleansing, Spend Analytics,

eSourcing, Software Asset Management)

Order provisioning, inventory management, invoice reconciliation &

dispute management, usage management (Telecom Expense

Management)

Setting up requests for information/quotations/proposals, bids and

reverse auctions based on defined criteria ( eSourcing)

Conducting compliance reviews and audits, based on defined criteria

(Software Asset Management, Telecom Expense Management)

Generation of related analysis and reports (perhaps all above)

In deployment

of solutions

with special

purpose tools, abusiness process

outsourcing unit

can provide

services, in the

areas of

(examples of

solutions

discussed above,

where these

may be relevantare given in

brackets):

TELECOM EXPENSE MANAGEMENT

Such tool can automate telecom related

inventory, order tracking, call detail reporting,

auditing. The tools can link to various known

applications systems.


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Conclusion

Traditional data BPO services were enabled by end to end platforms, owned and managed by clients and used by the outsourcer.

The current trend is moving to BPOs investing in development of specific point solutions, which combine service and niche or

special purpose tools. It creates advantages for clients in terms of improvements in cost and effort investment -comparatively

reduced implementation time, benefits arising from not just labor arbitrage, but from ready expertise and centralized focus

services, and possible available tie ups for such tools.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Ravi Panchanadan - Heads the Global Sourcing & Procurement Practice at Infosys BPO. Ravi has over

18 years of rich experience in Global Sourcing with Intel Corp and in overall Supply Chain Mgmt with

Unilever. He has been instrumental in setting up International Purchasing Office for Intel in India. Ravi

has a Post Graduate Diploma in Management from Xavier's Institute of Management.

Bipin Wadhwa is part of Global Sourcing & Procurement Outsourcing practice at Infosys BPO. He has 14

years of diversified experience in the area of Operational Process Consulting & Risk. Bipin has been

instrumental in setting up Center of Excellence for Sourcing and Procurement at Infosys BPO. He has

conducted process consulting & discovery assignments involving solutions design and feasibility

assessments, including centralization of processes in a Shared Service Center Model. He is a Chartered

Accountant, Cost Accountant, and certified MBA from Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore with

specialization in Supply Chain Management.


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"Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place.

If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!"

Red Queen to Alice, 'Through the Looking Glass' by 'Lewis Carroll'

Winning the Red Queens Race Redoing the math ofvalue creation for Communication Service Providers

Gopal Devanahalli, Harry Jose, Vinay Peshwa


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The Red Queen might as well as have been talking about

the Communications Service Provider (CSP) marketplace

of today. Entry of nontraditional entities like Cable and

Utility companies and resultant competition, dwindling of

customer base and obsolescence of business models (e.g.

wire line voice) are making CSPs strive twice as hard tomaintain their ARPUs (average revenue per user), let alone

grow it. Getting ahead in this 'Red Queen's race is possible

only if CSPs are able continuously exceed the expectations

of their customers through the launch of new products and

services- even if it comes at the cost of Capex intensive

network/technology upgrades such as 3G,4G,FTTX rollouts,

femtocells etc. CSPs have responded to these changed

realities in the market place by chalking out detailed

product portfolio expansion plans in both wireline and

wireless space and have committed significant investments

running in to billions of dollars.

Challenges in keeping Customers 'satisfied'

While launching new products and services will enable

CSPs to meet customer expectations, ensuring that they

remain satisfied is possible only if operational process

metrics (fulfillment, assurance and billing metrics) arealigned to the customer experience drivers (ease of

installation, quick and painless complaint resolution, single

bill for multiple services etc.). This is an area where most

CSPs are facing challenges. The fact that most CSPs have

retained their legacy systems and process frameworks for

the fulfillment, assurance and billing of newer products

and services have not helped their cause, either.

Operational inefficiencies are resulting in revenue and cost

leakages as well. Consequently most CSPs today are

grappling with a number of challenges in their existing

operations framework. For eg

Product failures- incomplete analysis of supply chain at

the time of product launch have caused product

failures due to supplier lead times being longer than

committed installation SLAs.

Customer dissatisfaction/ attrition due to installation

delays- improper logistics management have resulted

in issues like delayed installation due to CPE(Customer Premise Equipment) being unavailable at

the time of installation engineer visit/ loss of CPE etc.

Revenue Loss-Though revenue assurance systems have

been set up for most of the existing portfolio of products,

CSPs are still struggling to addressing leakages in

revenue for their newer products such as IPTV.

If done right Business Process Outsourcing can enable CSPs

overcome these operational challenges.

Unlocking the value gained from Business

Process Outsourcing - the concept of Value

Multipliers

The initial business process outsourcing value proposition

was one of cost arbitrage. Over time BPO firms have built

upon this value proposition and enhanced the value they

provide to CSPs by undertaking process improvements

through reengineering and six sigma techniques. However,

today a combination of two contrasting factors is compelling

CSP firms to reconsider their engagement models and the

value they derive from their outsourcing partnerships.

changed market conditions and challenges faced on

the operational front by CSPs - cost reduction

perspective

the competency demonstrated by pioneering BPO

firms in moving beyond the traditional SG& A focus

and developing solutions addressing the Cost of

Service & Sales portion and Operating Revenues in

P&L - value creation perspective

The question CSPs are now posing to their BPO partners is

whether, by leveraging on their CSP operations expertise

gained over the last few years, they can move beyond

process level improvements and create value at an end-to-

end value chain level.

The implication is that the BPO firm needs to be able to

deliver not only on the CSP operations metrics but also on

the CSP business metrics as well. This calls for a deep

business driver level understanding of the CSP's line of

business, understanding of how the operational metrics

affects these business drivers as well the expertise to

positively impact the identified business drivers by

eliminating systemic inefficiencies through utilization of a

core organizational competency such as the ability to do

customized technology interventions. A BPO will then be

able to create a value multiplier for the CSP rather than

merely provide a process level savings.

According to us a Value Multiplier is a combination of two

competencies


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Business Process Outsourcing firms leveraging on their understanding of complex CSP operational and

business drivers and technology capabilities can multiply the outsourcing value gain for CSPs with out the

need for substantial Capex investments. Such an approach enables CSPs to optimize their operational

costs and focus their Capex investments on new product/service development and technology changes/

network upgrades.

As the pace of global business continues to accelerate, the ability to align with a partner who has the

deep -rooted understanding of industry business metrics and the capability to positively impact them will

be a key to success. Only this will ensure that the CSP will win the Red Queen's race. CSPs need to include

this capability as an important item on their checklist when they are evaluating outsourcing partners.

of information can be created which can be mined to get

customer insights by a team of experienced BPO professionals.

The insights gained can be used in two ways by the

operations team:

Target a customer segment, eg. fine tune market

offerings for a customer segment based on real time

customer feedback gained through this type of

analytics tool

Target individual customer, eg. Enhance Upsell/ cross

sell opportunities during interaction of the customer

with a customer care representative, create Just-in

time marketing campaigns, etc.

Here the value multiplier effect is created by creating a

technology intervention to pick up hitherto unidentifiable

customer data points and interpreting them to develop critical

insights which positively impact a key business driver - the

ability to upsell /cross sell, creating a level of value which

would not have been possible to create by the current wayof operations within a CSP.


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ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Gopal Devanahalli - Heads the Communication Media and Entertainment (CME) unit at Infosys BPO. He

leads the M&A activities undertaken by Infosys BPO. Gopal also was with Corporate Planning, responsible

for strategy development, earlier to that was based in the US in a sales role, also as the Sales Head for

the Retail & CPG Business Unit. Prior to Infosys, he spent 7 years in the financial services industry

working with Kotak Group in different roles in corporate banking, investment banking and retail banking.

Gopal has a PGDM from IIM, Calcutta, M.Sc (Tech) Computer Science from BITS, Pilani.

Harry Jose - handles the domain competency enhancement initiatives of the Communication Media and

Entertainment (CME) practice at Infosys BPO. Harry has over 7 years of experience, 5 of which has been

in the area of training and competency development. Harry holds an MBA from Nirma Institute of

Management, Ahmadabad.

Vinay Peshwa - Heads the Transformation Office within the Communication Media and Entertainment

(CME) practice at Infosys BPO. Vinay has over 14 years of IT experience most of which was in providing

consulting and technology solutions to Communication Service Providers around the globe. He holds an

engineering degree from Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur.


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ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Sean Kracklauer - is the President, Advisory Services and Research, and Practice Leader, Finance Executive

Advisory Program at The Hackett Group. Over the past 20 years, Sean has advised Global 1000 businesses

on strategy, organizational structure and process redesign. He has worked extensively in finance strategy,

business performance management, planning and budgeting, financial reporting compliance, and functional

design for business intelligence systems. His fields of expertise include leading large-scale cross-functional

projects to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of general and administrative service delivery by identifying

the optimal strategy, structure, sourcing and enabling technologies to achieve the business objectives.

Michel Janssen - is the Chief Research Officer at The Hackett Group, and is responsible for analysis,

thought leadership and research activities for The Hackett Group's advisory programs. In addition, he

leads the firm's efforts in advising clients on world-class sourcing and outsourcing. During a career

spanning over two decades in outsourcing leadership positions, he has been a major contributor to the

industry's development and has designed strategies for creating effective relationships between service

organizations and their clients in a wide range of industries and business processes. Prior to joining

Hackett, he was president of Supplier Solutions for Everest Group, a consultancy specializing in strategic,

management and transactional advice to buyers and suppliers of outsourcing services, and co-founder of

the Everest Research Institute.

Gene Sheikh - is the Senior Research Director, Finance Executive Advisory Program, at The Hackett

Group, and is responsible for leading The Hackett Group's finance executive and research agenda across

a range of issues in finance, including transformation, business insight, globalization, partnering andtalent management. Prior to joining the Hackett Group, Gene spent a number of years in strategy consulting

at A.T. Kearney and Bain & Company as well as in industry with GE Healthcare and United Airlines. While

at Bain & Company, he developed corporate and growth strategies for Fortune 100 clients in the US and

Asia, advised private equity firms on M&A strategy and performed strategic due diligence.


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Infosys BPO Ltd. (www.infosys.com/bpo), the business process outsourcing

subsidiary of Infosys Technologies, focuses on integrated end-to-end

outsourcing and delivers transformational benefits to its clients through

reduced costs, ongoing productivity improvements, and process

reengineering. It has been recognized as one of the leading BPO providers

in the world by The International Association of Outsourcing Professionals,

NASSCOM, Dataquest, Red Herring, FAO Today, NelsonHall and others.

Infosys BPO operates in India, Czech Republic, China, Philippines, Poland,

Thailand, Mexico and Brazil.

Questions? Opinions?

Please visit

http://www.infosys.com/bpo

BPO Future Forward IV

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