The Mid-year CXM Checkpoint: Key Learnings and What’s to Come
The Customer Experience Management (CXM) industry has experienced incredible growth over the past several years. But what are the challenges it faces now due to the impending recession, the inflationary environment, and the increasing need to provide differentiated experiences to customers?
In this webinar, our analysts will examine the major events affecting the CXM industry in the first six months of 2023, how these events have shaped the industry, and what we can expect for the rest of the year.
Our speakers will discuss:
The CXM industry’s performance in the first half of 2023
The potential impact of next-generation technologies, such as Generative AI, on CXM
Major M&A activities in CXM
Key considerations for enterprises and service providers in the current market scenario
In late March, CX giants, Concentrix and Webhelp informed of plans for an acquisition agreement valued at US$4.8 billion. Less than 30 days later, Teleperformance and Majorel announced their own intentions of merging, with the value of the buyout estimated at US$3.3 billion.
“This provides an attractive proposition to global buyers of these services who are looking to consolidate their provider portfolio and work with fewer but more strategic partners,” pointed out Sharang Sharma, VP at Everest Group. Upon the mergers, Shirley Hung, Partner at Everest Group, underscored that “the global outsourced CX market is a highly fragmented one.” While big-time players exist, smaller organizations manage to survive and even compete by offering a more personalized, premium style of service.
David Rickard, Partner, Everest Group will join industry experts to discuss how contact center leaders can redefine customer experiences while optimizing costs. Learn how to navigate through economic uncertainties and deliver results in this LinkedIn Live event.
Teleperformance, a global leader in the Customer Experience Management (CXM) industry, has announced its proposal to acquire Majorel, another large rival in the industry. This move is set to reinforce Teleperformance’s position as a dominant force in the market and expand its reach even further. With both companies known for their excellence in CXM services, this acquisition has the potential to deliver an even greater level of innovation to clients worldwide. Read on for more details on the impact of this deal on the CXM industry.
While there is increasing appreciation for the strategic impact to businesses of delivering great customer experiences, a large part of the market is still managing Customer Experience (CX) as it has always done, which is to drive down costs and focus on operational efficiencies. Consequently, Customer Experience Management (CXM) provider margins tend to be lower than in other Business Process Services (BPS) segments, and it is not surprising that in the current uncertain economic environment, providers are focusing on tried and tested strategies such as consolidation to deliver on growth objectives.
Teleperformance further augments its leadership position by scale
The latest in the wave of mergers and acquisitions (M&A) in the CXM industry is the largest CXM services provider, Teleperformance, announcing its intention to acquire Majorel, another sizable competitor, for a total consideration of €3bn. Subject to regulatory approvals, the combined entity will result in revenues of more than €10.2bn and EBITDA of more than €2.2bn if it closes as expected between Q4 2023 and Q1 2024, resulting in Teleperformance achieving its 2025 revenue goal of €10bn two years in advance. The merged entity will be the largest CXM provider both in terms of revenues and FTEs, with nearly half a million employees worldwide.
With Concentrix’s recent announcement to acquire Webhelp, these two CXM behemoths will be more than twice the size of their next largest competitor, Foundever, which itself resulted from a merger of two significant entities (SYKES and Sitel Group). Given their global reach and ability to cater to almost all regions and languages, they will naturally be in consideration by any global buyer of these services that is looking to consolidate its provider portfolio and work with fewer but more strategic partners.
What this means for the CXM and BPS industry
As we have mentioned in our recent blog, we are seeing the rise of global Titans in the CXM industry. While this might mean less choice in service providers or strategic transformation partners for global buyers, it will also lead to cost synergies, operational efficiencies, and enhanced digital capabilities. Adding more scale allows these providers to make more concerted investments in a space which is already seeing the entry of Big Tech and hyperscalers such as Microsoft and Google into CX technology. A greater focus on innovation by these Titans will result in better products, solutions, and services in the industry.
The global outsourced CX market is a highly fragmented one, with the 10 largest providers holding a total of ~30% share of the $100 billion+ market and hundreds if not thousands of other providers making up the remaining 70%. In addition, our estimates put penetration of this market between 30-35%, indicating significant room for growth in the future. Therefore, smaller providers can continue to thrive if they are successfully able to articulate and deliver upon differentiated value propositions such as offering superior products and services, aligning more attentively to their clients’ needs, or specializing in niche areas, whether that is in a particular industry, region, buyer size, or service line.
Within the broader BPS environment, the combined entity of Teleperformance and Majorel will have a stronger Trust and Safety (T&S) portfolio and will become one of the top three T&S providers (with Accenture and TELUS International) in terms of revenues. This, along with deep digital CX expertise, Teleperformance’s recruitment process outsourcing and finance & accounting services, and Majorel’s vertical BPO solutions in banking, insurance, and retail industries, make the new entity a force to be reckoned with in the BPS world, becoming one of the top three providers by revenues in BPS. However, it will continue to remain a CXM specialist primarily as more than 80% of its revenues will be CXM-oriented, at least for now. It will be interesting to see if the combined entity will accelerate the growth of its non-CXM revenues to become known as a broader-based BPS provider in the future.
What to expect going forward
Recent economic headwinds have provided an excellent opportunity for M&A in this market as valuations are once again becoming attractive for a lot of providers. With an enormous push towards digital CX capabilities, service providers are looking aggressively to plug capability gaps, and firms that can help them achieve these objectives are becoming hot acquisition targets. We expect further M&A activity in the next 12-18 months, both big (scale-focused) and small (capability-focused).
However, it will be a mistake for providers to allow M&A and, subsequently, integration activity to distract them from focusing on how generative AI such as ChatGPT can be applied in the contact center environment. This disruptive technology is already showing great promise and has the potential to level the playing field between big and small providers if leveraged responsibly. Despite believing strongly that there will always be a need for human interaction and involvement within CXM, the contact center of today should be quite different from the contact center of the near future, as early as two years from now.
AWS has joined the generative AI march, recruiting third parties to host models on its cloud. Also, Bandwidth has released its Maestro platform, positioning it as the connectivity fabric that allows businesses to bridge the gap between best-of-breed CCaaS and UCaaS tools. And recently, Concentrix announced its plans to roll up fellow BPO Webhelp. Everest Group estimates that the Webhelp acquisition will result in Concentrix enjoying a market share of between 6-8%.
Heightened momentum for technology-first and automated operations is elevating customers’ need for greater convenience, instant gratification, faster turnaround time, and more self-service options. Today’s digitally-immersed consumers have grown accustomed to doing business anywhere, at any time, and with any device, and this is shaping up the new normal of the insurance industry; transforming the insurance claims journey becomes a pivotal priority for Property and Casualty (P&C) carriers to meet demands for a customer-centric hyper-personalized experience driven by digital technologies. Read on to learn more about the zero-touch claims of the future vision and how to achieve it.
Leading InsurTechs with pure-play digital models are heating up the competitive landscape, making it imperative for traditional insurers to optimize their claims functions. An insurer can achieve future goals by accelerating the adoption of next-generation capabilities.
Amid the digital shake-up and rising demand for delivering an “Amazon-like” experience, insurance operations are plagued with workflow complexities caused by multiple intermediaries and legacy systems. Digital and emerging technology solutions can help insurers reshape the customer claims journey and improve turnaround time while reducing information leakages and fraud and delivering a superior customer experience.
Foundational pillars of a digital-claims future
To embark on a transformational claims journey, insurers need to go beyond traditional after-the-fact claims management, tap into the plethora of available data to unlock immense value, and focus on offering omnichannel experiences powered by intuitive digital technologies. P&C carriers will need to excel at the 3Es: experience, efficiency, and effectiveness.
Winning P&C digital claims offer a compelling digital experience and strengthen customer loyalty. Insurers can differentiate themselves by supporting each touchpoint in the claims journey – starting even before an incident occurs – with data, artificial intelligence (AI), analytics, and other emerging technologies—all while retaining the human touch.
By offering seamless omnichannel customer experiences across claims registration, disputes, timely process updates, final settlements, insurers can improve customer satisfaction and retention rates. This is crucial given that Everest Group’s research shows ~35% of P&C insurers’ priorities across claims management are focused on enhancing customer experience (based on an analysis of 60+ case studies involving claims modernization/transformation).
Insurers also need to drive superior efficiency by enabling data-driven and analytics-driven claims processing. This ensures focus on effective service delivery to reduce claims expenses, while improving claims handling accuracy and ensuring greater customer satisfaction.
Bridging the gap between current and future digital claims-processing
With innovation growing throughout the P&C insurance industry value chain, AI/Machine Learning (ML)-enabled tools eventually will help insurers redefine their roles from claim handlers to claims preventers. P&C carriers flourish when they embrace this mindset shift from a risk transfer to a risk mitigation model.
Insurers can unlock value in the claims industry by employing the internet of things (IoT) and telematics capabilities combined with the connected devices ecosystem and third-party data to identify red flags and alert customers of risks before any loss occurs.
Insurers need to look beyond mere cost-savings, accurately utilize the wealth of data they possess, and transform claims from a necessary back-office function into a source of competitive advantage and market differentiation. Below is a look at the key steps to reach a seamless claims settlement:
Exhibit 1:
Source: Everest Group
Rigid legacy systems for claims processing can present challenges for insurers and prohibit them from adapting to the evolving customer requirements and optimizing their operations. Legacy IT processes slow progress and innovation, eventually affecting the end-user experience that holds the potential to make or break insurers’ reputations. Taking a one-size-fits-all solution approach for different business lines, failing to adopt modular design principles, and having limited advanced systems skills add to the overall complexity and further weaken the ability of insurers to thrive in today’s competitive environment.
To attain a competitive edge, insurers require instant resolutions and digital experiences on the go. Leading insurers are harnessing the power of unified and custom low-code/no-code platforms with advanced AI and analytics tools to streamline claims processes, modernize systems, and build modern layers on top of existing legacy systems or other core platforms without involving time-intensive and expensive upgrades. This allows insurers to build reusable codes and design “plug and play” environments to deliver enterprise-grade solutions at speed and scale. Low code makes it easy for carriers to simultaneously focus on profitability, enhance customer experience, and fulfill the vision of balancing quick wins with strategic initiatives.
The need for digitalization of workflows and customer interfaces, convenient user journeys, reusability of components and faster configurations, cost optimization, and skill management are the top drivers fueling the demand for low-code/no-code technology for insurers in modernizing the claims process.
For instance, a leading global insurer used a low-code platform to create an intuitive and dynamic first notice of loss (FNOL) prototype application in just 90 minutes and transformed it into a fully functional mobile application for 2,000-plus users in four weeks, delighting customers.
Where do the opportunities lie?
A combination of agile insurance claims process/operating model transformation, adoption of advanced technologies and telematics, a skilled workforce with technical and domain expertise, and a connected partner ecosystem are the fundamental facilitators for the probable future of zero-touch claims.
In the future of claims processing, P&C insurers will be able to facilitate touchless claims decisions, accelerate payment settlements, assess indemnity obligations accurately, prevent fraud, and mitigate claims litigation losses.
Exhibit 2:
Source: Everest Group
Below are the key elements needed to move from the current state to claims of the future:
Acting quickly and flexibly: The rapidly changing environment is compelling insurers to keep up with the pace. Incumbents need to act fast, develop and launch new products, accelerate FNOL processing, and streamline claims management quickly to stay relevant. The need for agility is greater than ever. Adopting the latest technologies and processes will propel P&C carriers to move faster and separate leaders from laggards
Adopting advanced analytics and AI: Real-time sensor and IoT data coupled with AI and ML-backed algorithms will enable insurers to process claims efficiently and manage fraud without any human intervention. For instance, leading insurers are using an AI model embedded within the claims workflow to assign a complexity score to each claim based on multiple parameters and process all low-risk claims under a certain threshold. Low-complexity claims are routed for straight-through processing while high-complexity claims are sent to the right team depending on the claims adjuster’s specialization and availability, thus ensuring speed and accuracy
Transforming talent management strategy: Modernizing the claims journey requires relying on advanced technologies and a skilled workforce to manage emerging risks. Insurers need to enhance their long-term value proposition to attract skilled workers with technical and domain expertise
Partnering with digital claims solution providers: Building partnerships with solution providers can support carriers in extracting maximum value by utilizing the provider’s end-to-end digital claims solutions portfolio. Advanced capabilities across core functions include claims notification, adjudication, and settlement to fulfill P&C carriers’ needs across the claims value chain
To achieve the zero-touch claims of the future vision and keep up with leading competitors, insurers will need to invest in advanced technologies and drive value creation by taking a more proactive and customer-centric approach.
Successful insurers who can deliver a hyper-personalized experience will generate superior efficiency and leverage data and ecosystem insights to proactively detect fraud. Above all, this transformation improves the claims ratio by building predictive and preventive capabilities. Insurers who take these steps will emerge as industry frontrunners.
Customer Satisfaction Sacrifice? Balancing CX Against Cost reduction Pressures
Thursday, March 30, 2023
12:30 PM EST | 10:00 PM IST
David Rickard, Partner, Everest Group will join Dan Reed, Chief Customer Officer, [24]7.ai, on a LinkedIn Live event to discuss maintaining customer experience quality while optimizing operational costs.
The ideal customer experience has shifted as customers opt for more effortless self-driven digital interactions💻. To meet this need, organizations must eliminate hurdles within the customer experience, making it seamless, simple, and frictionless.
In this LinkedIn Live session, Everest Group analysts will be joined by Bill Price, co-author of the recently published book 📕, “The Frictionless Organization: Deliver Great Experiences with Less Effort.” Bill will define the frictionless organization and how it can deliver smoother customer experiences, save money, and increase revenue 📈.
Together, the speakers will discuss key insights from the book, provide real-time analyst reactions, and offer recommendations for organizations.
What questions does the event address?
➡️ What causes friction in customer experiences? ➡️ What are the benefits of removing friction? ➡️ How can friction be removed?
