BharathM, Author At Everest Group

Retailers’ Evolving Sourcing Strategy Industry | Blog

January 9, 2020

The National Retail Federation, industry analysts, and economists alike have debunked the idea that the retail industry is struggling, dying, or on the verge of an apocalypse. While some retailers and CPG manufacturers have sung their last swan song, many are dramatically transforming their businesses to effectively compete – and indeed, thrive – in the dynamically changing marketplace.

As part of this transformation, retail and CPG firms are evolving their sourcing strategy for: industry-specific processes including sourcing and procurement, merchandising and inventory management operations, sales and marketing, and customer experience; and horizontal processes like IT services, digital services, compliance and quality, and corporate functions such as F&A, contact center, and HR.

Our recently released Industry Insights – Retail and CPG report looks at the changing shape and flavor of sourcing in the industry.

Here are the four key takeaways from the report.

The in-house model is gaining ground

Historically, retail and CPG firms leveraged third-party service providers to deliver a broad range of services such as IT, F&A, and HR. However, in the past several years, many have invested in building what we call Global In-house Centers, or GICs. These in-house shared services centers (SSCs) give them more flexibility and control over the quality of work and reduce their costs. And they’re not only delivering standard back-office processes; they’re also building strong capabilities in areas such as store layout management, pricing optimization, custom application development, financial planning and analysis, customer sentiment analysis, predictive threat monitoring, and other digital services. For example, a US-based retail SSC in Bangalore, India, is developing a new order management system to scrape competitors’ websites for pricing data.

Service providers are moving up the value chain

Just like SSCs, third-party service providers in the retail and CPG stage are also upping their game. They’re not only delivering rules-based and transactional tasks, but also much more advanced services like cybersecurity, blockchain, ERP implementation and maintenance, and legal services.

Delivery destinations are similar to other industries

Retail and CPG firms choose their sourcing delivery destinations based on their competencies, just as enterprises in other industries do. They typically leverage locations in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), such as Poland, for marketing and analytics, and India for business process services – including those specific to the retail industry – IT and digital services. The Philippines and other APAC countries offer capabilities such as customer service (both voice and non-voice) and regional language delivery of accounting services, while LATAM primarily supports the U.S. market.

As is the case with most industries, India has emerged as the most popular offshore location for retail companies’ SSC setups, delivering both business process services and IT/digital services (product analytics, application design and development, R&D, etc.) to North America and Europe. In fact, a U.S.-based retailer’s GIC in Bangalore, India, provides it a full suite of solutions including technology, marketing, HR, finance, merchandizing, supply chain, property development, and analytics and reporting services.

GICs and providers are building deep domain and digital skills

To help make sure their digital strategies are up-to-date, CPG and retail firms are opening dedicated R&D and innovation labs in offshore locations with the help of third-party providers and GICs to support them in automation, analytics, cloud, and social media services. And with the spread of e-commerce and mounting competition, some retailers have started employing engineering talent in India to build pricing systems that determine how demand would respond to a change in price.

As part of the broader digital agenda, some centers have also started exploring the use of AI for certain activities within operations and sales/marketing, such as store layout and pricing optimization, as well as RPA solutions for automating rule-based processes. For instance, Tech Mahindra signed a contract with a Nordic retailer for end-to-end managed services, wherein it will automate and consolidate the retailer’s existing IT infrastructure and enhance the end-customer experience through digital solutions.

Going forward, we expect both service providers and GICs in the retail space to evolve their capabilities with an increased focus on the use of digital technologies such as analytics, automation, blockchain, augmented and virtual reality, and IoT. These advanced capabilities will help retailers stake their claim in the highly competitive marketplace.

To learn more about sourcing in the retail and CPG space, please read our recently published Industry Insights – Retail and CPG report, or connect directly with the authors Bharath M and Sana Jamal.

Is Your Shared Services Center Driving Automation Across Your Enterprise? | Blog

December 5, 2019

Over the past few years, automation has become an integral part of Shared Services Centers’ (SSCs) growth and evolution. Whether large or small, whether onshore, nearshore, or offshore, SSCs – what we refer to as Global In-house Centers (GICs) – have made strong progress in adopting automation solutions.

Some have only dipped their toe into basic RPA. Others have moved ahead with more advanced automation technologies like machine learning and artificial intelligence. And a handful have started emerging as key strategic and revenue-generating entities for their parent companies. These GICs have built scaled delivery teams with strong domain knowledge around the implementation of automation solutions. There are multiple instances of GICs housing the global automation Center of Excellence (CoE) and driving initiatives across the enterprise. Aggressive adopters have moved beyond automating processes within the center and are now supporting process automation across locations and businesses. And they’re increasingly leading the design and execution of automation strategy, and are influencing decisions on go/no-go opportunities.

Everest Group’s recently published report Scaling Up the Adoption of Automation Solutions – The Evolving Role of Global In-house Centers discusses the key adoption trends and challenges in the GIC and automation space.

Let’s take a quick look at the four key trends.

Solutions and support

Some mature GICs have developed multiple offerings to support different businesses. Typical offerings include advisory support, platform or infrastructure support, and end-to-end implementation support. For instance, the India GIC of a leading European insurance firm provides bot infrastructure support to the company’s Singapore entity. With this set-up, the Singapore-based team didn’t have to invest in its own infrastructure to gain full access to the bots’ capabilities.

The talent ecosystem

From developing in-house automation talent to managing vendor resources, SSCs are making major strides in the talent management space. As part of their talent management strategy, many best-in-class GICs are investing heavily in building in-house talent, especially for AI-based solutions. This includes developers, data scientists, and project managers. These GICs are also investing significantly in upskilling/reskilling programs for their resources, and are strongly emphasizing education and awareness of automation’s capabilities and benefits. Some GICs are also training their business/operations resources on automation skills; this helps them scale-up faster.

CoE roles, governance mechanisms, and structures

Many GICs are upgrading their CoE model, roles, and responsibilities as they progress along their automation journey. Many successful centers are moving towards the federated hub and spoke CoE model, wherein the GIC houses the CoE hub and the functions have their own automation team (spokes.) The federated model enables rapid scalability and better opportunity identification than centralized CoEs. But, with either model, there are some pitfalls to avoid. Our blog titled Four Reasons Enterprises Aren’t Getting Full Value from Their Automation CoEs details what they are.

In-house automation platforms

Building on their understanding of automation capabilities, some mature GICs have started exploring the use of custom-built in-house platforms to run automations. While in most cases these are for attended RPA bots, some best-in-class SSCs have developed platforms using advanced technologies such as interactive virtual assistants (IVA) and machine learning. There are even a few examples of GICs adopting a 100 percent in-house development model, meaning no third-party vendor support. While we expect GICs to continue exploring in-house automation tools, we don’t expect that these will replace the use of third-party vendor products in the near future.

What GICs have accomplished over the past few years in scaling up the adoption of automation solutions across businesses and locations is just the tip of the iceberg. Going forward, they are likely to build on this foundation and penetrate deeper into the enterprise with ever more complex automations.

To learn more, please read our report — Scaling Up the Adoption of Automation Solutions – The Evolving Role of Global In-house Centers – or contact us directly at Bharath M or Param Dhar.

Why Pharma Companies View their Indian Shared Services Centers as Growth Partners |Blog

October 8, 2019

India is clearly becoming the “it” destination for pharmaceutical companies’ shared services centers (SSC) – or Global In-House Center (GIC) – organizations. Why do we say this? Because global pharmas with headquarters in the U.S. and Europe employ more than 11,000 FTEs employees in their India-based shared services centers to deliver not only table stakes transactional finance and HR services but also highly complex processes across all stages of drug development, including drug R&D and clinical trials.

What’s India’s appeal? There are four factors.

Established/Mature Location for Global Pharma Services Delivery

India is a time-tested, proven GIC destination for a wide range of industries. Many of the world’s leading pharmaceutical companies started delivering their global services support operations from India back in early 1990s. Now, pharma majors like AstraZeneca, Eli Lilly, and Novartis are delivering complex, judgment-intensive services such as product R&D, biostatistics, and clinical trials site management from their India GICs. Hyderabad, Chennai, and Bangalore are the preferred locations, housing more than 80 percent of the pharmaceutical GIC talent.

Skilled Talent Pool

Talent availability, at scale, is one of India’s strongest value propositions. In recent years, many pharma companies have been able to successfully scale their delivery teams supporting diverse functions such as R&D, commercials, IT, and finance. For example, a leading pharma GIC houses 2,000+ resources providing IT services for various pharma functions. And multiple other pharma SSCs have scaled teams (400+ resources) that support R&D services, and dedicated resource groups comprised of doctors, PhDs, and biostatisticians, for complex drug R&D processes like development of computational solutions for analyzing clinical trials.

Opportunities for Cross-functional Collaboration

India’s availability of diverse talent profiles at scale allows India-based pharma SSCs to support multiple functions. And because many of them house IT resources with R&D and commercial business teams, they have multiple opportunities to collaborate on and insource IT work for drug R&D (e.g., to build IT platforms for drug development and IT services for lab support), and commercial operations (e.g., IT services for finance.) The value of this collaboration? Tighter integration of functions, better understanding of business requirements, and faster execution.

Mature Market for Digital Services Delivery

Leading India-based pharma GICs are working on digital initiatives including analytics and automation, and some are serving as global automation CoEs for their parent enterprises. Many are developing analytical tools for marketing & sales operations, competitive intelligence, and incentive planning. They are also investing heavily in automating less complex and high-volume transactional processes such as expense management, purchase order creation, offer letter generation, résumé screening, and management reporting, and deploying RPA bots to read files, extract data, and report adverse events. As part of the broader digital agenda, some centers have also started exploring the uses of artificial intelligence/machine learning to recruit patients and select sites for clinical trials, and for channel sequencing and optimization in their enterprise’s sales & marketing function.

Going forward, pharma companies not only expect their India SSCs to grow in scale and expand the scope of their process delivery, but also play a significant role in their digital transformation journeys by leading initiatives across all stages of the product R&D lifecycle. To satisfy these expectations, the GICs need to build deep domain capabilities and acquire or train talent to deliver increasingly complex, higher up the value chain services and next-generation digital initiatives.

To learn more about why pharma companies consider India their preferred service delivery destination, please read our recently published report, “Healthcare and Life Sciences – GICs in India Fast-tracking Enterprises’ Digital Agenda,” or connect directly with the report authors Anish Agarwal, Bharath M, and Rajeshwaran Pagalam.

Four Reasons Enterprises Aren’t Getting Full Value from their Automation CoEs | Blog

April 2, 2019

As we mentioned in our Enterprise RPA Pinnacle report, there are multiple benefits of having an automation CoE:

Facilitates best practices and skill development, which eventually help in faster scaling-up
Provides structure and governance to the automation program, e.g., clarifies roles and responsibilities of various teams involved
Enables optimization of software and license costs
Fosters sharing and pooling of resources
Develops strong cross-functional collaboration among stakeholders.

While many enterprises have established CoEs to overcome challenges and accelerate their automation journeys, not all have been able to extract value from them. Here are some common pitfalls that limit the true potential of an automation CoE.

No Enterprise-level Mandate to Drive all Automation Initiatives through the CoE

Automation CoEs work when there is a clear mandate from enterprise leadership. This directive helps ensure that the operating procedures and governance mechanisms are standard across the enterprise. Lack of it could result in the enterprise driving automation initiatives in pockets, leading to potential cost increases, lower license utilization, lower reusability of automation assets, and increased governance challenges.

Lack of Relevant Capabilities within the CoE

In its true sense, a CoE represents an entity with the capability to drive automation initiatives across the enterprise independently, with minimum oversight from outside. In many enterprises, however, automation CoEs lack the relevant skill sets – such as developers, project managers, solution architects, and infrastructure support staff – that are critical to driving these initiatives. Successful CoEs typically have three focus areas: day-to-day delivery, operational/tactical decision making, and strategic decision making/providing direction. Each layer, or focus area, has a unique set of roles and responsibilities that are critical to a smooth functioning CoE. Successful CoEs have an intentional focus on developing and nurturing in-house talent to strengthen the capabilities across the three layers. Many CoEs also bring in third-party specialists to accelerate learning. Our blog titled Driving Success in Your Automation Center of Excellence provides more details.

Loosely Defined CoE Roles and Responsibilities

The role of an automation CoE goes beyond just deploying bots into production. CoEs in best-in-class adopters of automation have evolved from executing solutions to empowering businesses across locations to drive initiatives on their own. For instance, the automation CoE in a financial services firm has established standard operating procedures (SOPs) for driving automation initiatives which include a well-defined approach for process selection, evaluation of ROI, talent impact, access to a library of reusable assets, etc. The CoE has created a platform through which business leaders can access these SOPs to evaluate opportunities on their own, and provides necessary governance and execution support, including talent and infrastructure.

As highlighted in Everest Group’s Smart RPA Playbook, the typical roles and responsibilities of automation CoEs include:

Providing training and education to develop talent
Approving all automation procedures before they are put into production
Assessing suitability of Smart RPA versus other Smart IT tools for use cases
Ensuring quality and compliance through well-defined standards, procedures, and guidelines owned and developed by the CoE
Driving the roll-out and implementation of Smart RPA projects, and ensuring coordinated communication with relevant stakeholders
Defining the roles, responsibilities, and skills sets required for driving automation across the enterprise, and regularly reviewing and optimizing them
Tracking success/outcomes in collaboration with operational teams so they can build, review, and refine the business case for scaling up.

Disconnect between Automation Strategy and Broader Digital Transformation Objectives

Outcomes achieved through automation initiatives are best realized when these investments are in line with the enterprise’s broader digital transformation objectives. Factors such as investments in other digital technologies (e.g., ERP transformation), changes in leverage of Global In-house Centers (GICs) or shared service centers, changes in vendor roles, etc., can have an impact on automation strategy. Automation CoEs need to closely align with enterprise strategy to realize maximum value.

Pinnacle Enterprises^TM – which we define as companies that are achieving superior business outcomes because of their advanced capabilities – have mastered each of these four requirements for successful automation CoEs. To learn more about how they’re maximizing value from their automation CoEs, please see our Enterprise RPA Pinnacle report.

Feel free to share your opinions and stories on how your automation CoE is evolving in its journey directly with me at [email protected].

Tomorrow’s Talent is Today’s Challenge! | Sherpas in Blue Shirts

May 17, 2018

Advances in new digital technologies, the emergence of new competitors, new sourcing models, and changing customer expectations are dramatically changing the type of IT skills enterprises across industry verticals require. And, with new service delivery paradigms such as automation, agile, and Artificial Intelligence (AI) becoming mainstream, the underlying service delivery models to support the new talent demand profile are also undergoing significant changes. We expect technology themes such as data management and analytics, omnichannel customer experience, and cloud adoption to dominate near-term demand, and cybersecurity, Service Oriented Architecture (SOA)-based application design, and agile delivery methodologies to become mainstream.

So, what does this mean from a talent perspective? Below are four takeaways from Everest Group’s recent research, much of which is detailed in a newly-released viewpoint titled Closing the Gap – The Future of IT Skills in the United States.

1. New Role Creation

To support their business initiatives in the changing technological landscape, enterprises will have to create new roles. Examples of these include:

Chief Digital Officers (CDOs) and digital strategists to drive the adoption of design methodologies
Chief Innovation Officers (CIOs) to source and evaluate disruptive ideas from innovation in technology and business models
Anthropologists and psychologists to help foster human-centered design thinking
Data architects and data scientists to build a holistic data strategy and generate insights to offer tailored experiences
Agile coaches and scrum masters to deliver using the agile methodology at scale
Enterprise security engineers to design and evaluate security measures across all phases of SDLC
Automation architects and Machine Learning (ML) experts to develop automated scripts.

2. New Architecture

The technology revolution is leading to an integrated “thin slice” architecture that is enabled to deliver end-to-end experience transformation. This full-stack structure is a sharp deviation from the legacy silo-based architecture that has fundamentally different attributes for delivery of technology services in enterprises. From a talent perspective, traditional siloed factory models are evolving into smaller teams/pods with capabilities cutting across areas such as application development, infrastructure support, and security. Demand for full-stack engineers will increase significantly as the demand for this future integrated stack becomes more prominent across enterprises. Enterprises will need to invest in upskilling and cross-skilling their existing talent at scale and speed to be able to pivot to this new model.

3. Demand Shift for Tech Skills

Emerging technology themes will increase demand for some tech skills, and reduce demand for others. For instance, we expect demand for emerging skills such as Go and R programming to increase considerably, as enterprises explore the adoption of big data and AI solutions. On the other hand, we expect demand for skills specific to middleware tools, such as TIBCO, to remain low-medium, driven by increased adoption of offshoring and automation. Enterprises must have a good understanding of hard-to-hire skills in order to effectively chart out their talent roadmap. Key decisions such as local hiring versus offshoring will also revolve around expected demand and supply for skills.

4. Non-Technology Industry Verticals Demand Increasing

Demand for tech talent from non-technology industry verticals is increasing. From banks to retail firms to healthcare providers, technology-led solutions such as robust mobile applications and chatbots are being leveraged to enhance the customer experience. With enterprises focusing on building in-house capabilities, competition for tech talent has increased significantly in the past two to three years. Everest Group’s recent analysis indicates a higher demand from non-technology industry verticals for emerging skills such as configuration management tools (e.g., Ansible, Chef), JavaScript libraries (ReactJS, AngularJS), datacenter solutions (e.g., skills in handling VMWare, AWS, Azure), and automation tools, as compared to demand for basic skills like programming languages such as C and SQL.

To learn more about the emerging technology themes, their impact on talent requirements, the skills we expect to gain importance in the future, and their supply outlook, please read our viewpoint on skills of the future in the U.S. And feel free to share your opinions and stories on how you are managing tech-talent directly with us at [email protected] or [email protected].

Enterprises are Betting Big on India GICs for Driving Digital | Sherpas in Blue Shirts

April 2, 2018

The rise of India-based Global In-house Centers’ (GIC) role in supporting enterprises’ digital transformation through digital technologies, such as RPA, mobility, and IoT, has been significant in the past few years. In 2017 alone, over 50 percent of the GIC set-ups in India were focused on building/enhancing enterprises’ digital capabilities.

Indeed, enterprises are making their India GICs the hub for developing solutions and products for next-gen technologies, such as machine learning, NLP, predictive learning, cognitive, and blockchain. Recent examples include Samsung, State Street, and Western Union.

Why India?

Talent availability: The ability to scale next-gen skills at low cost is a key differentiator. For instance, India accounts for 50-60 percent of the talent pool employed for delivery of automation services from offshore/nearshore locations. A strong base of third-party service providers has also established digital and technology labs in India
Mature delivery model: India accounts for 30-35 percent of all nearshore/offshore GIC set-ups, and more than 45 percent of their FTEs. Mature operations and middle-/back-office delivery presence in India give them a strong foundation on which to build their digital efforts. And it allows them to develop more integrated operations, technology, digital, and analytics solutions to address the evolving business needs of their parent organizations
Strong start-up ecosystem: India has one of the most evolved technology start-up ecosystems in the world. As of 2016, it had more than 4,500 tech start-ups employing a pool of around 100,000 FTEs. This situation not only allows enterprises to access next-gen technological solutions, but also to tap into the ecosystem to accelerate progress when additional resources are needed
Economies of scale and cost benefits: While cost may not be the primary driver, it certainly is a key differentiator. Budgets are always scarce, and needs are always plenty. India offers quality talent at lower cost and allows companies to drive low cost innovation and development

Digital Pinnacle™

How are the best-of-the-best enterprises and GICs leveraging India and other locations for digital? To expand our insights beyond the work we conduct with our clients, we’ve launched a Digital Pinnacle™ survey to learn more about successful GICs’ digital journeys. We invite you to participate in the survey and/or to share your thoughts and experiences with us at [email protected] or [email protected].

Watch this space for more insights on GICs and for the deep-dive survey results.

Six RPA Implementation Pitfalls GICs Must Avoid | Sherpas in Blue Shirts

March 22, 2018

Enterprises are increasingly leveraging their Global In-house Centers (GICs) to drive automation efforts across the globe. Per recent interactions with over 100 enterprises, GICs, and technology vendors to develop our new report, “RPA Implementation in GICs – Learnings and Best Practices,” we determined that more than 50 percent of enterprises are already driving or plan to drive their global RPA initiatives from Centers of Excellence in offshore/nearshore GICs.

While GICs are well positioned to drive RPA, the extent of success varies and the journey is not easy. To succeed, GICs need to avoid the following six pitfalls, and follow the lead of best-in-class GIC adopters of RPA.

Driving RPA without Enterprise Support

Successful RPA initiatives are a result of strong collaboration between enterprise and GIC leadership. Best-in-class GICs involve enterprise leadership from the beginning of their RPA journey.

Driving RPA in Functional Silos

Successful RPA initiatives involve stakeholders from relevant functions – e.g., IT, operations, risk, and legal – not just the operations team (recipients of automation solutions.) RPA initiatives in some organizations reside under the strategy and innovation function, rather than being led by IT or operations.

Driving RPA in a Decentralized Manner

Through centralized efforts, GICs are able to document and share knowledge across the enterprise, thereby, reducing cost, effort, and time to implementation.

Relying Excessively on Third-Party Vendors

Best-in-class adopters have a strong emphasis on developing in-house capabilities, for example, product development / customizing RPA solutions to suit process requirements.

Selecting Complex Processes at the Start

Successful GICs have avoided the temptation to automate high complexity processes or explore end-to-end automation, and instead have focused on transactional/repetitive/rule-based processes that are easier to implement.

Viewing RPA as a Silver Bullet

Successful GICs view RPA as one of the tools to improve operations by way of error reduction, productivity enhancement, and SLA compliance improvement. Process standardization and reengineering both play key roles in driving the effectiveness of RPA solutions.

Best-in-class GICs have evolved from execution to enabling business units across multiple locations to implement RPA solutions independently. To learn more about the best practices employed by mature GIC adopters of RPA, read our report, “RPA Implementation in GICs – Learnings and Best Practices.” And if you are driving RPA from your GIC, we’d love to hear your story. Feel free to share your opinions and stories on how your GIC is evolving in its RPA journey with [email protected] or [email protected].

Also, keep a lookout for our upcoming report on Enterprise RPA adoption, which leverages our robust Pinnacle Model™ methodology to compare enterprise performance on RPA adoption.

Finally, we’re in the process of conducting a first-of-its-kind survey, the results of which will reveal the state of digital adoption and what separates Pinnacle GICs™ from others. We invite you to join your peers and participate in this survey, today!

Driving RPA from GICs? Learn from the Best-in-class | Sherpas in Blue Shirts

January 22, 2018

The shift towards a “digital-first model,” in the wake of technology-led disruption, has given GICs an opportunity to become strategic entities that can drive innovation across the enterprise, instead of an arbitrage-first-oriented low-cost set-up delivering back- / middle- office services at scale. A very positive move for GICs and the enterprises they support.

Robotic Process Automation (RPA), among other digital technologies, is gaining popularity across enterprises and GICs thanks to its many business benefits. And enterprises are increasingly leveraging their GICs to drive RPA usage. This is largely driven by factors such as GICs’ tighter integration with the core business, increased endorsement from the enterprise, shift toward insourcing, higher visibility to enterprise leadership, lower costs, and availability of talent.

So what factors enable best-in-class GICs to drive RPA programs successfully? We’ve identified eight:

Successful GICs, through dedicated RPA CoEs, have gone beyond exploring RPA technology for in-house consumption. From educating various stakeholders across the enterprise on capabilities and benefits of the technology, to executing RPA solutions across functions and locations, these CoEs are playing a key role in transforming processes across the enterprise. CoEs in best-in-class GICs have gone a notch higher, and are focusing on creating an ecosystem that enables businesses to independently explore RPA opportunities.

While GICs are well positioned to drive RPA across the enterprise, successful implementation requires dedicated focus on factors including governance and business continuity. They must also be on the lookout for advanced technologies, such as AI and cognitive, that can augment existing RPA technology and enhance overall automation business benefits.

To learn more about the best practices employed by best-in-class GIC adopters of RPA, please read our recently published report, “RPA Implementation in GICs – Learnings and Best Practices.” We developed it based on interactions with 100+ global enterprises’ GICs and a range of automation technology vendors.

If you are driving RPA from your GIC, I’d love to hear your story. Feel free to share your opinions and stories on how your GIC is evolving in its RPA journey directly with me at [email protected].

And/or, join in on our research on how enterprises design their GIC journeys to drive their enterprises’ digital agendas. Click here to take the survey; responses will, of course, remain anonymous.

Announcing our inaugural conference: Everest Group Engage, The Pragmatic Edge: Designing Your Future. Learn more.

Author: BharathM