GICs Archives - Everest Group

Mar 04

Outsourcing Transactions, Global In-house Center Setups Grew in Q4 2018 According to Everest Group Report on Top Trends in Global Sourcing | Press Release

Digital services—especially automation, analytics and cloud—continued to dominate outsourcing activity

The global sourcing industry posted healthy numbers for Q4 2018, marked by an 8 percent increase in outsourcing transactions and a 13 percent increase in Global In-house Center (GIC) setups and expansions over the previous quarter, according to Everest Group.

Digital services continued to dominate the outsourcing activity in Q4, with 74 percent of all outsourcing transactions comprising digital-focused services as compared to 26 percent of transactions focused on pure traditional services. Cloud services were included in 44 percent of all digital-focused transactions for the year.

The majority (55 percent) of offshore and nearshore service delivery centers set up in Q4 were focused on digital services. Fifty-six percent of new centers established in Q4 supported automation and 33 percent included analytics services.
GICs were increasingly leveraged for digital services in Q4, with 59 percent of GIC setups and expansions including digital services in their scope. Automation continued to account for the maximum share (63 percent) of the total digital-based GIC setups during Q4, reflecting the significant degree to which enterprises are seeking to leverage automation to improve efficiency, deliver business value and reduce cost beyond traditional means.

“The global services industry enjoyed a fourth consecutive quarter of growth in Q4 2018, with digital services activity continuing its upward trend,” said H. Karthik, partner at Everest Group. “Two key areas of service provider activity in Q4 demonstrate this strong emphasis on digital services. First, service providers such as Accenture, DXC Technology and TCS announced acquisitions of startups to enhance their interactive digital content capabilities. Secondly, several service providers announced innovative partnerships with educational institutions in their attempts to bridge the digital skills gap. For example, Accenture announced a partnership with Georgia Institute of Technology, IBM is teaming up with IIT Delhi, and Infosys is joining forces with Cornell. We will continue to see service providers investing in acquisition and partnership strategies to strengthen their digital services capabilities in the year ahead.”

Everest Group discusses these and other fourth-quarter developments in its recently released Market Vista™: Q1 2019 report. The quarterly report highlights the trends in the fast-evolving global sourcing market, exploring the key developments across outsourcing transactions and Global In-house Centers (GICs), as well as location risks and opportunities, and service provider developments.

Additional highlights from the Market Vista: Q4 2018 report:

Themes such as design, customer experience, automation and cloud were prominent in Q4 2018.
The uptick in outsourcing activity was led by the Banking, Financial Services and Insurance (BFSI) sector.
Q4 saw substantial growth in adoption of GICs by small enterprises, with a particular focus on specific services rather than multi-functional centers.
The Asia Pacific region witnessed a significant rise in research and development (R&D) GIC setups by manufacturing enterprises, demonstrating a preference to insource next-generation engineering services.
To build niche capabilities, service providers focused on the acquisition of startups as opposed to partnerships. As many as 70 percent of acquisitions in Q4 were startups compared to 50 percent in Q3.
Key location risk/opportunity trends identified for Q4 2018 include South Africa announcing a new GBS incentive scheme to improve the country’s value proposition; Lithuania attracting a multitude of players looking to innovate and deliver FinTech services, increasing competition from service providers for engineering services sourcing, and significant investment from the Canadian government, likely to boost attractiveness of British Columbia for digital services delivery.

Learn More

Download a complimentary 16-page abstract of the report findings here.
In the recent webinar, “The 5 Most Important Global Services Trends for 2019,” Everest Group experts shared the context for many of the highlights of the Market Vista™: Q1 2019 report as well other key market trends. Watch the replay or download the webinar deck here.

Feb 12

Reduced Barriers for Small or Mid-Sized Firms Building Offshore Shared Service Centers | Blog

By Peter Bendor-Samuel | Blog, Shared Services/Global In-house Centers

Since the inception of offshored shared services, sometimes referred to as “Global In-house Centers” (GICs), the underlying assumptions were that (a) size matters and (b) the choice of functions (transactional, scale-driven processes) was a driver for gaining offshoring benefits. But the world has changed. The size and functions constraints no longer pose a barrier to entry when building offshore shared services centers.

The assumption that size matters developed because of the complexities and long learning curves in building centers offshore, including:

Finding leadership
Negotiating for real estate
Navigating complex tax regulations
Understanding cultural differences for talent management
Navigating the complex telecommunications labyrinth
Technology barriers to effective collaboration
Building institutional knowledge about how to transfer work at scale to an offshore party.

These complexities required a minimum level of scale for offshore shared services to justify the investment and deliver value.

In 2019, most of these challenges no longer exist or pose a high barrier for building a new shared service center as they did a few years ago. Several factors evolved to expand opportunities for building shared service centers of all sizes.

For example, sophisticated leadership is readily available. Today, in India or the Philippines, there is a large pool of executives that have successfully built and run shared service units or GICs. When you hire them, they can quickly assemble a complete team across all dimensions to equip a new shared service center.

Likewise, the complexity and difficulty in finding and securing real estate is now dramatically simpler. Offshore facilities today can rely on improved infrastructure and connectivity. Facilities are readily available and often already furnished with real estate brokers ready and able to facilitate the transactions. There is a broad market acceptance that India and the Philippines have good hotels and retail facilities, good food, are safe, and have good air transport.

Advisors now understand the tax treaties. Accountants and lawyers know how to construct the appropriate legal entities (e.g., LLPs vs. wholly owned subsidiaries) and structure them to be tax and compliance efficient. They also understand the government entities and licensing and are eager to assist new entrants.

The services industry’s current level of maturity enables successful practices based on past lessons learned for offshore shared service centers. The philosophies and methodologies to transfer work and run the work effectively are widely available with training available for the uninitiated. Today, we understand the role of the center and how to integrate it with the parent organization. Furthermore, we now have technology tools and collaboration platforms that facilitate remote workforce management.

So, the barrier to entry, which was prevalent earlier, now is dramatically lower. Today, it’s much easier and cheaper to start a new center. This results in two areas of growth for shared service centers:

Small to mid-sized organizations
Larger firms moving away from third-party services

Small to Mid-sized Organizations

In the past, companies needed to spread the learning curve and expense over a large number of FTEs and many functions. In addition, technology platforms enable better collaboration, thus dramatically reducing dependence of colocation. These factors change the return on investment or viability of small entities.

Now that the need to scale is reduced, companies can get a strong return, even for sometimes as few as 50 seats, depending on the function. They can also make a significant impact to EBIDTA for their parent companies, even at a much smaller scale.

The reduced scale factor dramatically changes the landscape in which companies can, and should, consider having an offshore facility. Until now, the prevailing wisdom was that companies sized at $50 million to $2 billion were too small to tap into having their own shared service center and must, instead, go through third parties. Everest Group’s market benchmarking reveals that almost half the new shared service centers set up since 2014 were established by small (<$1.5 billion revenue) and mid-sized (<$10 billion revenue) enterprises. Today, with the lower barrier to entry and reduced scale factor, even a small $50 million firm (depending on what the services involve) could and should confidently look at building its own offshore shared service capability.

Clearly, the economics change significantly, depending upon the function or skill set the company seeks to acquire. The highest return is in IT engineering functions and areas such as analytics. But even the threshold for corporate functions is dramatically shifting for shared services with 100-150 people.

Looking at the relative market penetration of GICs or offshore shared services in the $50 million to $2 billion marketplace, it’s clear that only a very small proportion of these firms are taking advantage of this now-affordable and high-return mechanism. The reduced barrier to entry and reduced scale factor suggests that these firms should now pay attention; as they do, we could well see an explosion of small shared service entities being established offshore.

Larger Firms Shifting Away from Third Parties

The shift in economics also impacts larger firms, leading them away from third-party service providers and opting for the do-it-yourself (DIY) movement. We’re seeing rapid growth of the number of new shared service centers as well as the growing size of the shared service or GIC communities in locations such as India, the Philippines and Eastern Europe.

The offshore shared services market is growing rapidly for companies of all sizes. The earlier constraints for entry and need for large scale are no longer a factor. In fact, the constraint facing firms today is one of mind-set, not of ability.

Feb 08

Video: Shared Services Talent Priorities – Three Takeaways | Blog

By Michel Janssen | Blog, Shared Services/Global In-house Centers

Chief Research Guru Michel Janssen shares a recap below of three takeaways from our recent webinar, “Is Your Shared Services Strategy Future Ready? 5 Differentiating Talent Capabilities“.

Full script:

We just completed our webinar on our shared services or GIC Talent Pinnacle Model. And what were trying to there is understand, what are those key business issues.

So the first thing we looked at is how the talent shortage is becoming chronic. And one of the statistics I used here with clients – I talk about how it used to be that executives were just concerned about the top talent – “how do I get the best talent in the organization” – so they can have an impact on the rest of the organization. But now, as we become more chronic in the numbers – and what I mean by the number is ten years ago, in the US, it used to be 700 people looking for 100 jobs. And right now in the U.S., we have 90 people looking for those same 100 jobs.

And so, what you’re finding is that there is more demand than there is supply in that conversation. But it’s a bit of a tale of two worlds. While you have shortages in the U.S. and Europe you’ve got a very different thing going on in low-cost locations, especially like India. And there, there’s not a shortage of talent, it’s finding the right talent – they’re concerned with, “how do I take the existing pool of people in and upskill them or reskill them into the needed skills for the organization to go forward.

So, what we’ve done is look at the Pinnacle Model, and we have found that there is a very dramatic cause and effect. And what we’re looking at in the Pinnacle Model – the way it works is you’ve got capabilities on the X axis, and you’ve got outcomes on the Y axis. And what you’re looking for is a nice correlation that goes from lower left to upper right. And what we’re trying to do there is establish the things that make a difference. And so, what we did in the rest of the video was talk about those capabilities that made that difference.

So we think those are impactful items, and if people were endeavoring to execute on those items, they got the results they were looking for. So click the link, and take a look.

Jan 28

The Three Components Your Shared Services Center Needs to Include in its Innovation Equation | Blog

By Rohitashwa Aggarwal | Blog, Shared Services/Global In-house Centers

Supporting enterprises’ innovation agendas is no longer simply an opportunity for in-house shared services centers – what we call global in-house centers (GICs); it’s fast becoming a competitive imperative. And, contrary to popular perception, cracking the innovation code requires much more than just novel ideas. Success entails boarding the right people on the bus, gearing them up with the right mechanisms to drive agile decision making, and reengineering the organization’s cultural DNA to foster innovation. We’ve developed a simple approach that will help you solve this complex problem.

Let’s take a look at the three components.

Process

Innovation is not the product of logical thought, although the result is tied to logical structure – Albert Einstein

The first element is formulation of the right mechanisms to evangelize innovation initiatives. It requires the right idea generation mechanisms to harness unique ideas from both internal (GIC and parent company stakeholders) and external (including startups, academia, and service providers / specialists) ecosystems. A critical part of this is evaluating the strategic rationale for the partnership. While some shared services centers partner with third-party providers and start-ups for talent augmentation and skill acquisition, others leverage the connections to develop domain expertise or increase the speed of innovation.

Another essential component, specifically for GICs, is the right funding mechanism. While we see most shared services centers carving out a separate fund for innovation (which is part of the overall GIC CEO budget), we are increasingly seeing them push for a global/centralized fund where the innovation team within the center operates as an extension of the global innovation team(s), and is funded by centralized global venture funds / programs. For select initiatives, we have also seen GICs securing funding from business units and driving project-based innovation initiatives.

The third component here is timely deployment of robust governance mechanisms. Shared services centers need to adopt a disciplined approach to rigorously track performance and incorporate remedial feedback on a continual basis. This not only helps to assess the effectiveness of activities, but also guides allocation process for resources, and helps assign accountability for actions/responsibilities.

People

Innovation has nothing to do with how many R&D dollars you have. When Apple came up with the Mac, IBM was spending at least 100 times more on R&D. It’s not about money. It’s about the people you have and how you’re led – Steve Jobs

Involving the right people in the right team structure is the second critical component. Leading GICs involve stakeholders from different parts of the organization, i.e., functional and business teams, central innovation groups, R&D departments, and corporate teams to invest time in exploring adjacent and transformational opportunities. This helps in cross-pollination of teams and enables development of a holistic solution in an accelerated go-to-market timeframe. While we have seen varied designs for innovation teams (based on organizational fit and business alignment), the common thread is the focused top-driven approach to creating structural changes, supplemented by continuous support from middle management to ensure smooth implementation.

Another key initiative leading centers are taking is remodeling their existing talent practices. They are now shifting their focus from hiring for specific “skills” to hiring for “learnability” / “thinking skills”, i.e., the ability to innovate. They are incentivizing innovation, and providing special recognition for outside- the-box thinking. We are also seeing strong innovators recalibrate their existing performance measurement metrics to align with the impact generated against the business objectives.

Culture

“Innovation is not something you do for one afternoon a week, it’s got to be in your DNA” – Jasper de Valk and James van Thiel, Google

The third principal tenet to ensuring foundational success on the innovation journey is dedicated investment in developing a customer-centric culture with active CXO-level participation. Shared services centers are deploying multiple tools to reengineer their DNA and develop a culture that breeds innovation. Most successful examples include: gamification of programs and distinctive recognition for positive reinforcement; stimulation of an experimentation mindset and instillation of risk appetite; and adoption of flexible employment models, including remote working, crowdsourcing, and open innovation.

Although new technologies are path-breaking, we believe that the key to a GIC’s success is incremental innovation. They should keep testing small-scale POCs to demonstrate end-client value and build credibility. Successful implementation of pilots can help them instill confidence among parent stakeholders, and ensure adequate support and funding for much larger scale initiatives. This process also presents centers with an opportunity to course-correct early and drive/lead enterprise-wide digital initiatives.

If you’d like detailed insights and real-life case studies on how GICs have effectively driven the innovation agenda for their enterprises, please read our recently published report – Leading Innovation and Creating Value: The 2019 Imperative for GICs. And feel free to reach out to us at [email protected] to explore this further. We will be happy to hear your story, questions, concerns, and successes!

Sep 17

Is a Bigger Shared Services Center (or GIC) Always Better Performing? Maybe Not | Sherpas in Blue Shirts

By Parul Jain | Blog, Pricing, Shared Services/Global In-house Centers

We recently conducted a deep analysis of the digital maturity of almost 60 shared services centers, (also referred to as GICs) across diverse industries and geographies, and disseminated summary findings through a series of round tables across different Indian cities, including Delhi NCR, Bangalore, Mumbai, and Pune. You can read the detailed results in our recently released Digital Maturity in GICs | Pinnacle Model™ Analysis.

Here, I want to focus on a question that recurs in most of our conversations: Does the size of a GIC have any implication on its Pinnacle performance on digital maturity? Note that we define Pinnacle GICs™ as those that achieve superior performance because of their advanced capabilities.

The answer to this question is not as objective as it seems.

Related: Commercial Options for India GIC Setups

Our study revealed that scaled GICs (those with 3,000+ FTEs) have consistently delivered better impact across cost savings, operational KPIs, and even strategic metrics such as contribution to revenue growth. It also showed that small (those with less than 1,000 FTEs) and mid-sized GICs (those with 1,000 – 3,000 FTEs) have demonstrated lower improvement across all business outcomes.

Does this Mean that all Scaled GICs are Pinnacle GICs? Not Really

Based on our analysis, less than one-third of scaled GICs have been able to demonstrate Pinnacle performance, while multiple small and mid-sized Pinnacle GICs (~30 percent of the Pinnacle performers) have achieved superior outcomes because of their advanced capabilities.

For instance, a multinational conglomerate’s GIC (mid-sized with 1,000-1,500 FTEs) delivered 20-30 percent improvement on operational KPIs such as process agility and SLA compliance. This GIC operates as the global competency center for IT solutions development with end-to-end ownership across the application development lifecycle, thereby allowing it to drive process transformation changes and yield impressive improvements
A U.S. food & beverages major’s GIC (also mid-sized, with 1,500-2,000 FTEs) is leveraging pricing analytics to drive competitive advantage for its parent. The GIC developed a competitive intelligence and analytics platform, which allowed the firm to view what its competitors are selling and make recommendations on the necessary price changes to its merchants. This platform is tied to a machine learning engine that dynamically prices their products.

Related: Learn more about Everest Group’s Shared Services Center capabilities

Common Threads across all Pinnacle GICs’ Journeys

We believe it is the triumvirate of the approach to demand creation, strategic focus of the digital strategy, and orientation towards cross-functional collaboration.

Demand Creation

A pull-based approach to demand creation – i.e., a proactive approach to creating Proof of Concepts (POCs) and showcasing capabilities – has not only helped shared services centers secure CXO-level sponsorship, but also increase the existing breadth and depth of services to enable end-to-end process orchestration. For instance, a European BFSI major’s GIC currently operates as the RPA CoE, and champions the end-to-end global RPA program for the enterprise. However, this was not the initial mandate for this shared services center. It proactively started developing POCs, capitalized on visits by onshore C-level executives to showcase their capabilities, and subsequently received buy-in from the parent company. The CoE now operates in a hub and spoke model, wherein the India GIC (hub) provides global governance and drives RPA for Europe through the CEE shared services center (spoke).

Strategic Focus of Digital Strategy

While other GICs solely focus on technology adoption, most Pinnacle GICs focus on using technology to enable operational improvement, which consequentially results in employee and/or customer experience enhancement. With achievement of these objectives, financial benefits – both top-line and bottom-line growth – follow suit automatically. Technology adoption per se needs to be viewed as a means to the end, not the end itself. Pinnacle GICs’ more holistic approach allows them to see both higher chances of success and ROI.

Cross-functional Collaboration

The third – and most underrated – differentiator is the focus on cross-pollination of resources by breaking functional barriers. We believe that a siloed approach to digital enablement will not work, and that shared services centers need to break silos and provide employees with wider exposure to functional roles across the firm. This will not only improve knowledge flow and increase productivity, but also stimulate innovation. For some GICs, creating CoEs for select digital capabilities has significantly enhanced the pace of adoption, and sharing of skills and best practices

All these aspects, along with dedicated enterprise leadership, have enabled Pinnacle GICs to champion organization-wide digital services delivery.

If you’d like insights on how your shared services center stacks up against the competition on the digital maturity front, please feel free to reach out to me at [email protected].

Jul 18

Everest Group Identifies ‘Pinnacle GICs,’ Digital Capabilities That Exemplify Best-of-the-Best Global In-House Centers | Press Release

By Staff Writer | Press Releases

Digitally mature GICs vastly outperform others in delivering strategic impact, operational improvements and cost savings.

Everest Group has deemed 11 enterprise Global In-house Centers (GICs) as Pinnacle GICs™—GICs that are achieving superior business outcomes because of their advanced digital capabilities. More importantly, Everest Group has analyzed what these Pinnacle GICs are doing well and is sharing the secrets of their success.

Many GICs are playing a key role in driving their enterprises’ digital agendas, thanks to the rise of next-generation technologies such as mobility, analytics, cloud, automation, and other enabling technologies. While most GICs are in the early- to mid-stages of digital adoption, some GICs have performed better than others by building and orchestrating differentiated capabilities and deriving superior outcomes.

Everest Group’s Pinnacle Model™ approach explores what the very best GICs are doing in terms of real impact and then correlates the capabilities required to achieve those results. By examining what these Pinnacle GICs have in common, others can learn how to succeed, whether they desire to make incremental changes or achieve major transformations.

Everest Group studied the digital adoption journey of 54 GICs, examining five key capability areas—scale of operations and penetration across digital segments, breadth and depth of services, digital talent, operating model and level of influence, and innovation. When those key capabilities were correlated with business outcomes, 11 Pinnacle GICs rose to the top.

As a group, the 11 Pinnacle GICs significantly exceed other GICs in three key outcome areas:

Cost impact: Pinnacle GICs generated 53 percent ROI from digital initiatives, while 44 percent of other GICs are yet to achieve ROI at all.
Operational impact: Pinnacle GICs achieved 46 percent improvement in operational metrics, compared to 19 percent by other GICs.
Business impact: 68 percent of Pinnacle GICs generated significant strategic impact, compared to 37 percent of other GICs.

“We found that Pinnacle GICs as a group are 1.8 times more invested than other GICs in supporting multiple business units with digital capabilities and 3 times more likely to provide end-to-end support within digital segments,” said Michel Janssen, chief research guru at Everest Group. “These discrepancies illustrate in a striking way that the GICs that are investing in and applying digital capabilities with breadth and depth across their organizations are reaping drastically superior outcomes in the marketplace. The bottom line for enterprises is that embracing digital is an imperative, not just an opportunity, and the speed of digital adoption is critical to derive maximum impact.”

Everest Group’s recently released report, “Digital Maturity in GICs: Pinnacle Model™ Analysis 2018” describes the journeys of these best-of-the-best companies, provides insights into the key enablers needed to achieve desired outcomes, and points to the investments required for the greatest speed to impact.

***Download a complimentary abstract of the report here.*** (Registration required.)

“Our Pinnacle Model assessments show organizations exactly who is succeeding and how,” added H. Karthik, partner, Global Sourcing, at Everest Group. “One of the most valuable aspects of this research is that we are able to identify Pinnacle Accelerators™, which are specific methods organizations can use to accelerate their digital transformation journey. Armed with clear points of comparison and insightful recommendations, organizations are better equipped to prioritize where to invest their time and resources and plan their own path to the top.”

About the Pinnacle Model

Everest Group’s proprietary Pinnacle Model™ assessments, which include input from executives from leading Fortune 1000 companies, compare internal capabilities to desired business outcomes, such as disrupting the industry, improving customer experiences, increasing market share, and launching innovative products and services. By highlighting what the best—Pinnacle Enterprises™—are doing, these performance studies help organizations plot a journey from their current position to where they want to go, prioritize investments of time and resources for maximum impact, and accelerate change.

May 30

Enterprises Leverage Global In-House Centers (GICs) to Create Centers of Excellence to Drive Innovation, Digital Transformation | Press Release

By Staff Writer | Press Releases

Growing GIC Center Segment Now Accounts for One-Fourth of $185 Billion Global Services Market—Everest Group

Enterprises are increasingly leveraging global in-house centers (GICs) as strategic partners; GICs are playing a significant role in enterprises’ digital transformation journeys as they move from a “arbitrage-first model” toward a “digital-first model.” According to Everest Group, GICs are perfectly suited to serve as Centers of Excellence, driving innovation for their parent companies. One key way that GICs are accomplishing this is by collaborating with the external ecosystem, such as nimble tech startups.

Three models typically adopted by GICs to engage with external innovation ecosystems comprise:

Startup evaluation: The GIC identifies and shortlists startups for the parent organization. No infrastructure or financial support is offered to the startups, but the GIC typically helps the startups in building domain knowledge.
Project-based engagement: The GIC evaluates startups, which are then hired as technology vendors on commercial terms to implement turnkey solutions. This model offers higher predictability in deriving tangible benefits from the engagement.
Incubation and acceleration: The GIC acts as an incubator and runs the accelerator program: Typically, the GIC engages with three to five startups for a dedicated period, offering infrastructure, technology, financial support and mentorship. This model allows experimenting with future technologies and the bringing in of disruptive innovations.

“GICs typically have an enterprise-wide perspective, deep domain and process experience, and access to niche skills at a favorable cost, and so, for these reasons, GICs are often in a unique position to foster innovation and serve as Centers of Excellence for their parent companies,” said Sakshi Garg, practice director at Everest Group. “Leading GICs are adopting several best practices for fostering innovation, such as dedicated investments for innovation, special recognition for thought leadership, and driving customer centricity to grow beyond the service delivery mindset.”

The global sourcing market continued to evolve and grow rapidly in 2017 to cross US$185 billion, and the global in-house center (GIC) model remains an integral component of this evolution, accounting for one-fourth of the market, according to Everest Group.

The GIC market saw a 10 percent increase in 2017 over 2016 in the number of new GIC setups by companies from technology and communications, manufacturing, healthcare, and energy and utility verticals. The market has grown consistently with more than 2,800 centers set up across leading offshore and nearshore locations, compared to approximately 2,100 about five years ago.

The research supporting these findings is summarized in “Global In-house Center (GIC) Landscape Annual Report 2018 – GICs Emerging as Innovation CoEs for Global Enterprises,” a report recently published by Everest Group. This report provides a deep dive into the GIC landscape and a year-on-year analysis of GIC trends. The research brings out key insights into the GIC market across locations, verticals and functions, and concludes with an assessment of the role played by GICs to drive innovation for the enterprises.

***Download a complimentary abstract of the report here.***

Apr 02

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

By Rohitashwa Aggarwal | Blog, Shared Services/Global In-house Centers

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.

Mar 28

Talent Management in Global In-house Centers: Are You Future-Ready? | Sherpas in Blue Shirts

By Alok Singh | Blog, Shared Services/Global In-house Centers, Talent

There’s no question that digital technological advancements, evolving business requirements such as changing consumer needs and faster time to market, and a heightened focus on customer experience are significantly changing the profile of skills needed to deliver services. As most global in-house centers (GIC) are already facing challenges in hiring people with the right skills for the future, it is concerning that their talent-related preparation for such a tectonic shift is lacking.

Talent Management GIC_1

Here are four talent management imperatives for GICs to develop the workforce of the future.

1. Identification of Skills Gap

As automation and other technological advancements kick in, human skills, such as innovation, design thinking, problem solving, empathy, and ethical thinking will become more critical. Identification of skills gap will be pivotal for GICs’ talent acquisition and development strategy. A recent Everest Group study of 80+ GICs across India, Philippines, and Poland identified multiple, and difficult to hire, skills that are likely to become more important in the future.

Talent Management GIC_2

2. Upskill/Reskill Current Workforce

Firms’ talent challenges will intensify with the automation of transactional services. They will face the dual risks of a large existing workforce with many skills that are likely to become redundant, while struggling to find talent with the right skills for their future needs. Upskilling/reskilling existing talent is an important lever for GICs to address these challenges while preserving their trained workforce with string domain/industry know-how. (See our detailed report on upskilling/reskilling in GICs for additional perspectives.)

3. Evolve Talent Acquisition and Development Strategy

As GICs look to develop a future-proof talent strategy, they will need to think outside the box to tap into alternative sources of talent. Opportunities include hackathons, hiring from startups and other industries, project-based partnerships with specialist agencies, and flexible resourcing. From an L&D perspective, traditional classroom model needs to evolve as learning is becoming more real-time, customized, and digitized, e.g., MOOCs, simulation, and gamification.

4. Agile Human Capital Planning

With a dramatic decline in skills’ half-life, particularly in the technical space, GICs need to identify and focus on skills that are more likely to be critical for their growth. A more frequent approach to human capital planning might be essential to account for rapid changes in these skills.

While many GICs are still taking a wait and watch approach to the talent management issue, some have already embarked on this transformational journey. And those that are proactively addressing it are reaping big rewards.

Watch this space for more insights and success stories. And if you’d like to share your challenges, successes, or questions with us, please feel free to write us at [email protected] or [email protected].

Mar 26

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

By Priyanka Birla | Blog

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 Vista ^TM 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 Vista^TM 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 Model^TM, 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.