Peter Bendor-Samuel, CEO, Everest Group, an outsourcing consulting and research firm, said: “What Vishal has brought to the table is focus, urgency and a relentless drive to turn Infosys into a customer-centric organisation.” Read more.
Adoption of social media as a commercial interaction channel continues forward at a rapid pace, both among consumers and the companies they engage. Nowhere is this impact felt more profoundly than in the contact centers charged with supporting these customers. One of the advantages, and some would say disadvantages, of social media is the vast amount of data generated by every click and every keystroke. A potential treasure trove of information about consumers and their behavior, the social media channel offers the chance to apply analytics to volumes of information only dreamed of in the past. So why aren’t more organizations actively leveraging social media analytics in their contact centers? Why are only a small number of mature social media adopters figuring out how to leverage this channel proactively instead of reactively, to drive their own business agenda? Everest Group research shows there are five main obstacles getting in the way:
Stakeholder alignment: Unlike past interaction channels, interest in social media cuts across various internal department, including marketing, customer care, and IT. Each department has its own objectives with social media, measures success by different metrics, and often funds and budgets for social media investments independently. These dynamics create complexity and misalignment in how social media is managed.
Immature social media adoption: Where companies stand on the social media adoption continuum greatly impacts the nature of their investments. To date, the more mature social media adopters looking to leverage existing pools of data have implemented the most advanced analytics capabilities. To date the majority of companies continue to focus primarily on their fundamental social media capabilities of interaction, monitoring, and brand perception, with a lesser focus on the associated analytics.
Lack of adoption roadmap: Getting off the social media analytics block is easier said than done for many organizations. Identifying where to start and how to implement analytics effectively to drive business and process value often creates hesitation in some organizations, slowing adoption timelines.
Channel integration challenges: Consumer expectations about an integrated interaction experience continue to grow. Integrating various interaction channels (voice, e-mail, chat, web self-service, mobile) is already high on the corporate priority list for many. However, the public dialogue nature of social media combined with the high volume of data captured create a situation where social media implementation cannot be separated from the corresponding analytics components.
Shortage of social media and analytics skills: The successful implementation of social media and analytics require specialized skills in two distinct categories: the IT professionals that implement and maintain these technologies and the customer care services staff that engage customers via this channel. In both cases, organizations often experience a lack of internal skills and find a shortage of experienced people in the broader market. Again, another obstacle slowing the social media analytics adoption timeline.
No doubt organizations are working their way through these challenges and developing the internal resources to support their social media and analytics strategies. Compared to other interaction channels, social media not only requires analytics to effectively utilize the channel, but also offers the greatest potential for impacting the consumer experience, whether positive or not. We will hear about this topic for quite some time to come. In our next piece on social media analytics, we’ll explore how some organizations are turning to contact center outsourcing providers to shorten their learning curve and get them out of those starting blocks more quickly.
“Aftersales services: Leveraging BPO to maximize the cost+value proposition. Aftersales services can contribute as much as 75-80% of an organization’s core business profits, and BPO has emerged as a viable option to tap into its cost-plus-value proposition.” Read More.
“Everest Group said the market grew by 12 per cent last year, reaching $2.2 billion (£1.4 billion), and could grow by the same amount in 2015. It said while cost and spend reduction are still important, buyers are increasingly seeking new value metrics, such as operational excellence, market intelligence, and supplier relationship management.” Read More.
Tuesday, August 18, 2015 | 9 a.m. CDT, 10 a.m. EDT, 3 p.m. BST, 7:30 p.m. IST
The services industry is at an interesting inflexion point with disruptive models. Service delivery automation being deployed alongside traditional models is one growing example.
In the first half of this year, we also saw significant interest in nearshore European locations as Europe overtook Asia for the first time in location activity.
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On July 27, Israel-based Teva Pharmaceutical announced the acquisition of Allergan’s generics business unit for US$40.5 billion in cash and stock, consolidating its position as the leader in off-brand drugs. The deal which becomes the latest in a wave of high-profile consolidation in the pharmaceutical industry, combines Teva, the world’s largest generics drug company with its third largest competitor. The acquisition gives Teva enhanced scale in the intensely competitive generics market (over 20% market share) with cost savings potential due to product overlaps and economies of scale (through operating synergies of nearly US$1.4 billion) as it looks to cope with end of patent expirations. The deals comes at a time when the entire healthcare and life sciences continuum is witnessing rapid consolidation moves including large payers teaming up.
The deal is another indication in a long line of recent transactions as life sciences firms undergo a realignment of strategic focus and choose to concentrate on business of core competence. Following the big bang “acquire all” days of Big Pharma, pharmaceutical firms have realized that they need to reorient strategic goals and narrow down their focus to specific service lines and markets. This was the principal driving factor in the seminal Novartis-GSK asset swap announced in April 2014, which typified the new normal.
For Teva, this wraps up an increasingly messy four-month long pursuit of another generics rival, Mylan. The company withdrew its latest US$40.1 billion hostile offer to acquire Mylan as the deal prospects became bleak. Mylan itself is busy chasing rival OTC drugs company, Perrigo, which has so far snubbed Mylan’s attempts. The deal also has interesting implications for Allergan. The company has been at the center of major M&A activity in the last two years. This sale allows it to pay off debt from the US$70.5 billion integration with Actavis in 2014. That deal also signaled the end of one of the intense takeover struggles as Actavis beat Valeant Pharmaceuticals for Allergan. The sale to Teva allows Allergan to focus on building its branded drugs business. It could also mount an effort to purchase large peers such as Amgen or AbbVie.
As with any major consolidation exercise, the primary beneficiaries will be service providers with exposure to both merging entities and account-level relationships as they help with the integration initiatives. A natural consequence of such an exercise is the tendency to go for vendor rationalization as enterprises look to trim the sourcing pie. Demonstrating value across the life sciences value chain will emerge as a crucial differentiator in retaining presence across accounts. Given the diversified operational footprint of pharma firms, global presence becomes an important qualifying criteria for large scale deals, especially when it comes to areas such as infrastructure management. As the spotlight shifts on pockets of core competence, mapping enterprise-specific business outcomes and challenges to technology/process solutions will be key in getting management buy-in for forthcoming sourcing initiatives. The following image illustrates the current exposure of key service providers across major life sciences firms. As you can see, these mergers will lead to overlapping accounts for several services providers.
Life sciences buyers stand at interesting crossroads right now. They seek technological preparedness to tackle multi-faceted challenges arising out of stifling R&D efficiency, dwindling margins, increasing M&A/restructuring, and evolving customer profile. Blockbuster-drugs-led growth has paved way for more pragmatic business models in this new reality. While the digital Kool-Aid continues to sweep the landscape, life sciences firms tend to struggle with digital enablement due to factors such as fragmented service provider landscape and non-standardized internal structures. How they navigate this challenge while digitizing operations will be crucial. Our recent report on IT Outsourcing in the Life Sciences Industry focuses on how global life sciences organizations need to enable their systems for digital enablement through a well-thought out services integration strategy. Pharma is in a continually evolving state of flux and these changes are only going to intensify. Service providers need to up their game to ride this wave.
The Digitization of the Life Sciences Industry
Service providers seek to optimize delivery mix by exploring new locations while also developing onshore capabilities
The tumultuous healthcare market, particularly in the U.S., is compelling buyers to take measured steps when engaging with service providers
Healthcare ITO buyers show affinity for shorter duration contracts
Life sciences ITO service providers looking near and far to optimize delivery
The digitization of the life sciences industry
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