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
conversation calls made by its agents on behalf of a client. This helps
running.
Mohit Jain bring transparency to its operations. Rangaraj explains,
MS Rangaraj
Chief “The operations manager at the customer site abroad
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.