Tag: GIC

GICs are Evolving from “Delivery Centers” to “Capability Centers” | Sherpas in Blue Shirts

May 8, 2018

Historically, companies have leveraged the GIC model to deliver business process (operations) and IT services. However, as the model is maturing and incremental demand for these services is declining, enterprises are increasingly looking to their GICs to build more strategic Research & Development (R&D) and digital capabilities, drive innovation, and focus more on value-added services. In other words, they want their GICs to be “capability centers,” not just “delivery centers.”

There’s clear evidence that this is happening. In 2017, there was a significant increase in set-up of such capability centers focused on R&D and digital skills, especially in areas such as design, innovation, automation, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning (ML), and cybersecurity. Indeed, our recently released GIC Annual Report 2018 shows that the share of centers supporting R&D/engineering services – including digital services – increased by almost 150 percent during 2017, as compared to 2016. And these centers accounted for more than 50 percent of total GICs setup in 2017.

Breakdown of new GIC setups by services delivered

These capabilities are expected to be the key differentiators and success drivers for global enterprises going forward. In 2017, ~46 percent of all new centers were focused on developing or expanding digital capabilities for the enterprise. There are multiple examples where offshore/nearshore GICs have been given a global mandate to lead organizational initiatives in new and emerging areas such as automation and blockchain.

Related: Simplifying skilling in Global in-house Centers (GICs)

So, how exactly are GICs becoming the global capability centers? What are the key enablers? Another of our recent research studies shows that GICs need to take a FORCEful approach:

FORCEful approach to becoming the global capability centers

  • Foster innovation: GIC leadership needs to invest in developing a customer-centric culture, and test small-scale Proof-Of-Concepts (POCs) to demonstrate end-client value and build credibility
  • Orchestrate transformation: GICs should leverage their well-established foundation by identifying their core strengths and upshifting the value they deliver through improved operational excellence with productivity enhancements, optimized pyramids, and better managed external spend. Simultaneous focus on leveraging these new capabilities to drive both growth and efficiencies will be critical to deliver true value to the enterprise
  • Reskill and upskill workforce: GICs must radically change their reskilling/upskilling initiatives to ensure talent readiness for next-generation skills. They also need to adopt a bespoke approach for specific requirements, and undertake pilots in areas with the highest skills gaps to assess the effectiveness and relevance of the capability centers model
  • Collaborate with ecosystem: GICs should proactively leverage the external ecosystem – specialist providers, startups, educational institutions, etc. – to develop holistic solutions, increase agility, and reduce go-to-market time
  • Expand existing capabilities: GICs have a unique insider’s view that enables them to provide strategic insights to orchestrate enterprise-wide digital/technological transformation, facilitate integration between IT and operations, and break functional siloes to achieve truly breakthrough results

Related: How we support shared services centers (or GICs)

To learn more about the research behind our FORCEful approach, please click here. And if you’ve already established a capability center, or are in the process of doing so, write to us at [email protected] or [email protected]. We’d love to hear your thoughts and experiences!

Global Services Providers in the ‘Right Segments’ Will See Double-Digit Surge in 2018, But Others Will See Revenue Tide Recede—Everest Group | Press Release

April 26, 2018

Everest Group predicts enterprises will express preference for GICs and make significant shifts in their locations strategies in the year ahead.

 Although 2018 will see a modest increase in demand for global services overall, some leading service providers in select segments will experience a double-digit surge in revenues this year, according to Everest Group. Labor-arbitrage focused service providers will continue to create a drag on the market; however, digital-focused service providers will more than offset that, especially in key segments such as engineering services, business process outsourcing (BPO), and consulting and systems integration.

“Throughout 2017, outsourcing transaction activity was driven by an increased adoption of digital services, and this trend will continue in 2018 as more enterprises move beyond exploration and pilot projects to large-scale digital implementations,” said Salil Dani, vice president, Global Sourcing, at Everest Group. “The industry is ready to act: enterprises have undertaken copious research and testing, service providers have invested in acquiring the digital capabilities needed, and the market is being lifted by availability of funding, cheap capital, tax cuts in the United States, and low interest rates.”

Global In-house Center (GIC) setup activity was at an all-time high in 2017, and Everest Group predicts that the Do-It-Yourself, in-house model will become even more popular in 2018, with small and mid-sized enterprises driving Global In-house Center (GIC) setup activity.

Moreover, large enterprise outsourcing adopters will begin to undertake significant, long-term shifts in their location strategies, including the following:

  • Large-scale consolidation of services, as technology takes away huge sections of demand through straight-through processing (STP), self-service and automation
  • Rebalancing of work across locations
  • High-degree of co-location as growing technology and digital adoption blurs the boundaries between IT, non-voice business processes and voice processes
  • Creation of niche onshore and offshore centers of excellence to handle complex, exceptions-based work
  • Increased focus on onshore delivery due to regulatory changes and the need for agile, co-located innovation teams
  • Gradual shift of offshore centers from delivery of transactional to complex work through upskilling and cross-skilling talent bases.

These findings and more are discussed in Everest Group’s recently published report, “Market Vista™: 2017 Year in Review and Outlook for 2018.” This annual report covers the key forces and metrics defining the global sourcing market, including trends in outsourcing, digital adoption, and Global In-house Centers (GICs), as well as insights into location activity in offshore and nearshore geographies. The report also reviews 25 leading service providers on their annual performance, capability enhancements, merger and acquisition landscape, and other key events.

***Download a complimentary abstract of “Market Vista™: 2017 Year in Review and Outlook for 2018”.***

GICs Winning the Analytics Game | Sherpas in Blue Shirts

April 23, 2018

Enterprises are increasingly looking to analytics to achieve top line impacts – think marketing and pricing analytics to support new product launches and better understand consumer behavior – and positive contributions to their bottom line through, for example, risk and fraud analytics. And they’re increasingly favoring GICs over third-party providers to support their analytics initiatives.

Why? By the nature of their engagement model, GICs are tightly integrated with the parent organization, which better enables the high levels of governance and management that are essential to deliver analytics services. GICs also have an edge as they can bundle analytics services into the business process services they deliver to provide integrated solutions.

Real-world Value Examples

Here are just a handful of examples of the types of value GICs are delivering to their parent companies.

  • The India GIC of an European financial services firm helped increase product revenue by 15 percent through analytics on product positioning in the retail market
  • A leading retail company’s India GIC leverages analytics to study the shopping patterns of customers in 20+ countries to predict how the market will grow or decline, understand customer loyalty patterns, etc.
  • By delivering more than 50 percent of a global bank’s consumer business marketing analytics, the India GIC has enabled targeted outreach that has increased consumer card sales
  • The Poland GIC of a leading U.S.-based consumer goods company implemented prescriptive analytics algorithms on its AdWords account to eliminate inefficient spend on paid searches, in turn saving substantial amounts of money.

How GICs Can Jumpstart Their Analytics Capabilities

Of course, the quality of the analytics and the impact of the resulting outcomes are directly related to the analytics talent the GIC employs.

Some GICs have chosen to upskill and reskill their existing workforce. While one has made it mandatory for select teams to undergo analytics courses and training, others have provided monetary incentives to team members who willingly opt into the training. Both approaches make GICs talent-ready to deliver analytics capabilities and face demand fluctuations. GICs are also exploring partnerships with specialist firms that can provide resources for a short duration, as needed.

Upping the Ante

To deliver even greater value, many GICs are proactively identifying areas within their operations to plug-in the analytics layer. To facilitate this, they have established analytics as a shared horizontal capability in their organization structure so that the skills and knowledge attained from one team can be leveraged by others. Further, GICs are heavily investing in training data scientists, and providing them global exposure to understand business needs better.

The days of providing just arbitrage are long gone. If your GIC wants to deliver the value your parent company needs in today’s business environment, analytics capabilities must enter into your equation.

To learn more about our view on GICs’ analytics capabilities, be sure to attend our sessions at the NASSCOM GIC Conclave (note, Everest Group is the Strategy Partner for the event) and visit us at Stall 7.

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.

GICs Accelerating the Automation Gear in Their Digital Drive! | Sherpas in Blue Shirts

March 26, 2018

In the beginning of the digital revolution, GICs were primarily used as hotspots for analytic services. But in their quest to deliver more value-added services to the parent organization, many are accelerating their ability to serve as strategic innovation partners by significantly expanding their portfolio of digital-focused activity. In fact, our most recent Market VistaTM report showed that digital activity in new setups and expansions jumped 900 basis points between Q4 2016 and Q4 2017.

Automation GIC blog_1

Like most organizations dipping their toe into the digital pool for the first time, GICs initially focused on automating processes through technologies such as Robotic Process Automation (RPA). However, in last couple of years, they have also started leveraging Artificial Intelligence (AI) to improve in areas such as customer experience, operational efficiency, risk management, and development of digital products and services for the market. After realizing the benefits of RPA and AI, some of the mature GICs are also now testing the waters for cognitive computing.

Here is a sampling of the digital use cases coming out of today’s GICs:

Automation GIC blog_2

Of course, changes and challenges abound in the rapidly evolving digital environment. Here are several that will impact GICs in 2018.

  • War for talent: Although they’re upskilling/reskilling their existing workforce, GICs will still need external talent for critical skills such as intuition and innovation, design thinking, pattern recognition, leadership, and problem solving. They’ll struggle to find this talent due to demand-supply imbalances.
  • Ecosystem partnerships: We expect GICs to accelerate their technology adoption through increased partnerships with service providers, technology vendors, start-ups, and educational institutions to deliver new forms of value, such as innovation, automation, and speed to market.
  • Delivery locations beyond India: While India will remain a favored location for enterprises to introduce new technologies, our GIC market activity tracking (see our recently released Market VistaTM report) suggests that other locations such as Brazil, Ireland, Israel, Romania, and Singapore may gain traction in near future. Israel is already progressing to support a range of digital functions such as IoT, AI, and data analytics for customer experience and cybersecurity services.

There’s no question that GICs have the ability to drive the digital agenda for their enterprises. To gain a deep-dive understanding of how they’re doing so today, and what they plan to do in the near future, Everest Group is conducting an online survey. This first-ever assessment will be based on our proprietary Pinnacle ModelTM, which identifies what the best performers are doing to achieve strategic business objectives and deliver increased value. We invite you to participate in this survey.

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!

GICs Anticipate Significant Challenges in Hiring Vital Future Skills | Market Insights™

February 28, 2018

GIC skll shrtg

Skills such as intuition & innovation, design thinking, pattern recognition, leadership, and problem solving are likely to become highly critical to GICs for service delivery in the future

  • Most GICs believe that they will face severe shortages in availability of talent for these critical skills

The reason for the widening skills-gap include:

  • Limited supply of ready-to-hire talent for these skills
  • Increased competition among firms to hire the right talent
  • Low propensity to train and lack of effective ways of learning & development / training solutions for required skills

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