Shared Services-COVID-19 Archives - Page 6 Of 7

The Coming of Age of India’s Tier-2 and -3 Service Delivery Locations | Blog

May 12, 2020

India is widely regarded as a preferred service delivery location for global companies, given its attractive low-cost proposition, skills availability and scalability, and mature global services ecosystem. Until recently, the country’s tier-1 locations shouldered the weight of the services delivery agenda. However, with increasing maturity and saturation, enterprises and service providers are expanding their footprints across tier-2 and -3 locations throughout the country to take advantage of lower competition, cost savings, and better living standards, as well as to diversify location risk.

Read on to learn about the tier-2/3 global services delivery market in India and their accompanying advantages and underlying trade-offs, as well as what it takes to successfully operationalize a tier-2/3 delivery center in the country.

Understanding tier-2/3 locations’ value propositions

Tier-2/3 locations currently account for 18-20% of the global services workforce in India. Unlike most European countries, where a small clutch of cities offer services delivery, India offers a plethora of tier-2/3 location options, including: Ahmedabad, Gujarat; Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu; Jaipur, Rajasthan; Kolkata, West Bengal; Kochi, Kerala; Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh; Chandigarh and Thane, Maharashtra; Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh; Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala; and, Indore.

Delivery of global IT services is more mature than is global business process services (BPS) in most tier-2/3 locations, but the share of global voice and non-voice-based BPS is on the rise. Service providers occupy a larger market share than enterprises’ Global Business Services (GBS) organizations in most tier-2/3 locations, facilitating transactional work, servicing incumbent clients and fixed-price projects, and, at times, supporting complex workstreams.

Multiple factors enhance the tier-2/3 locations’ value propositions:

Lower compensation and facility costs translate into considerable cost savings of 10-20% versus a typical tier-1 location
Relatively low competition allows the scope to differentiate, create a better brand image, and attain leadership in talent markets, and provides access to a largely untapped talent pool with relevant skills
Tier-2/3 locations also experience 10-15% lower attrition than tier-1 cities, resulting in better service delivery and lower hiring and training costs
In contrast to most tier-1 locations, which are experiencing increasing traffic congestion, worsening quality of life, and health-related issues, tier-2/3 locations offer a better standard of living at a lower cost, making relocation an attractive proposition
Various state governments have started offering incentives such as single window clearances, ease of land allocation, stamp duty exemptions, Floor Area Ratio (FAR) relaxation, and capex/interest subsidies to further increase the attractiveness and viability of tier-2/3 locations

All these advantages have driven companies already to open centers in tier-2/3 cities or at least to begin to explore the viability and value. For instance, a leading telecommunications services firm employs over 40% of its Indian workforce at its tier-2 delivery center; a leading professional services firm is looking to scale its overall GBS headcount at existing tier-2 locations; and, a leading e-commerce firm is evaluating multiple tier-2/3 cities to support customer services delivery. Many service providers are also showing keen interest in expanding their tier-2/3 footprints to support both transactional and complex workstreams.

But, of course, tier-2/3 cities aren’t panaceas, and both enterprises and service providers must be fully cognizant of the realities of establishing a center in one of them and address challenges quickly to unlock their maximum potential.

Key challenges in supporting service delivery from tier-2/3 locations

Scalability, especially beyond 1,000 FTEs, can be a challenge in some tier-2/3 locations (such as Chandigarh, Visakhapatnam, and Coimbatore) with limited peer presence and better opportunities in nearby tier-1 locations. Given the relatively low market maturity and paucity of adequately skilled talent, companies would have to invest in training recent graduates and/or building a recruitment engine from the ground-up. Additionally, the entry of a few large companies can easily congest the market and increase costs quickly.

Challenges with infrastructure and delivery enablers like utilities, transport, meal/catering, and stationery providers, as well as inferior connectivity to domestic/international locations, also pose hindrances. Thus, it might be difficult to relocate experienced talent at the managerial and leadership levels. Further, most tier-2/3 locations primarily deliver transactional services, and companies that want to support more specialized operations would have to make substantial investments in the talent market.

At the same time, we believe that a sound understanding of the location and its advantages and challenges, coupled with a nuanced strategy, can help companies establish successful delivery centers in tier-2/3 locations and integrate them into their portfolios.

How to successfully operationalize a tier-2/3 location delivery center

To extract maximum value from their tier-2/3 centers, we believe that companies should undertake the following steps:

Capitalize on the early-mover advantage to access benefits beyond cost savings, such as footprint diversification, lower attrition and competitive intensity, and wider access to talent
Create a distinctive employee value proposition, such as defined career paths, exposure to leading technologies, and financial benefits, to ensure better positioning
Invest in talent development and revamp the existing operating model to support complex workstreams. A case in point is a leading BFSI firm, which is betting big on its tier-2 delivery center in Thiruvananthapuram to move up the automation and analytics value chain and support new processes
Play a talent shaper role by working with the local academic and government bodies to influence educational curricula, training infrastructure, and programs, and reskill/upskill talent or seed talent from other centers. A leading service provider, for instance, has opened one of the largest corporate education centers globally in Mysore, Karnataka, helping it attain leadership in the regional talent market
Enhance the relocation proposition for existing talent by providing adequate monetary and non-monetary incentives, especially those that alleviate some of the problems associated with tier-1 locations, such as congestion, pollution, safety, and security

Are you currently leveraging or considering tier-2/3 locations for your service delivery efforts? We’d love to hear your thoughts on including tier-2/3 locations in your portfolio, and/or your views on how the tier-2/3 delivery landscape will evolve in the coming years. Connect with us at [email protected], [email protected], or [email protected].

And keep your eyes peeled for an upcoming blog on how tier-2 and -3 delivery locations can support organizations’ business continuity planning efforts.

Seven Key Global Services Market Developments in 2019 and the Outlook for 2020 | Blog

May 11, 2020

The global services industry saw a dramatic shift in 2019 across multiple dimensions, described in detail in our Market Vista™ Annual Report, which is based on an assessment of 1,800+ annual outsourcing deals, 550+ new delivery center setups, GIC market activity, trends in digital adoption, and other developments across 30 leading service providers.

Our research identified seven key global services market developments in 2019.

After a significant uptick in 2018, the number of outsourcing deals declined marginally in 2019, primarily driven by a decrease in IT outsourcing. Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) deals grew.
Short-term deals rose as a percentage of overall deals, driven by growth in outsourcing among small companies, an increasing share of digital services-focused deals, and global uncertainty resulting in apprehensions among buyers who are now signing smaller contracts.
Global Business Services (GBS) center setups hit an all-time high, driven largely by an increase in setups by small and mid-sized enterprises. We also saw a lot of activity in R&D/engineering center setups.
The share of digital-focused outsourcing deals far exceeded pure traditional services deals, with strong demand for cloud and automation services. GBS center set-up activity was also driven by digital services with automation, analytics, and IoT being the most dominant.
We saw an increase in onshore delivery center set-ups by both enterprises and service providers. While the Asia Pacific region continues to lead in offshore and nearshore location activity, the Middle East and Africa saw significant activity growth.
Tier-2/3 locations experienced rising activity, as both GBS centers and service providers increasingly explore smaller cities, especially in mature markets.
Offshore-heritage service providers saw higher revenue and employee headcount growth than did global service providers.

Turning our attention from the past to the future, let’s take a look at what these shifts may mean for the global services industry – and your organization – in 2020.

Uncertainty will rule in 2020 driven by environmental changes, geopolitical and macroeconomic concerns, business model disruptions, rapidly emerging technologies, and, most importantly, the impact of COVID-19. This uncertainty will require organizations to be increasingly agile in order to be able to respond quickly to changes. Driving agility will require a comprehensive shift across multiple dimensions, such as organization culture and people strategy, and a deliberate change to operating models.
The economic slowdown caused by COVID-19 disruptions will have multiple implications for the global sourcing industry:
1. Weakening financial performance resulting in significant cost pressures across organizations. Rapid and radical cost takeout will become a top priority for enterprises.
2. A new focus on risk, which will force enterprises to reassess their global sourcing strategies and service provider portfolios.
3. Accelerated technology adoption to unlock the next wave of cost savings and drive resiliency.
4. An evolving role for GBS to provide higher value-add services to help mitigate the impact of recession. Simultaneously, financial pressures will result in divestitures of GBS centers that operate as a typical service provider.
The global services market outlook remains uncertain across locations, driven by global macroeconomic and geopolitical concerns and the COVID-19-caused slowdown.
The Center of Excellence (CoE) model will grow within GBS centers as they focus intentionally on building depth versus merely expanding breadth of services. Further, CoEs will act as powerful enablers to revise and execute the required shift in the GBS-parent relationship and help blur the boundaries between the parent and GBS.
As organizations increasingly realize the benefits of various strategies such as offshoring, cost optimization, and automation, they will need to boost their focus on workforce productivity. There are multiple levers organizations can pull to enhance workforce productivity, such as optimizing active time, increasing efficiency, and improving effectiveness/quality.
Customer experience is a key priority for both enterprises and service providers, and they plan to invest in technologies and capabilities to improve customer experience, even during the economic downturn.

For more details on these developments and the 2020 outlook – and to understand the implications for your organization – please see our report Market Vista™: 2019 Year in Review and Outlook for 2020.

6 Innovation Myths Busted by Everest Group Research on Global Business Services | Press Release

April 27, 2020

May 7 Webinar to Address How GBS Organizations Can Leverage Innovation to Prepare for Economic Downturn

For those enterprises striving to create a culture of innovation, Global Business Services divisions* can be an enormous asset, markedly accelerating the innovation journey and driving the enterprise innovation agenda, according to Everest Group research.

In its newly published report, Innovation in GBSs: Pinnacle Model® Analysis, Everest Group examines 51 GBS organizations and identifies Pinnacle™ (best-in-class) GBS centers—those entities that are achieving superior outcomes because of their advanced capabilities.

Collectively, Pinnacle GBS organizations debunk six common myths associated with innovation.

1.    Myth: Bigger and older GBS centers are not agile and lean enough to deliver better business outcomes. Reality: Bigger and older GBS centers deliver better business outcomes.
2.    Myth: GBS centers should not focus on in-house technology development. Reality: Pinnacle GBS centers primarily develop mature technologies in-house while leveraging ecosystem partners for niche technologies.
3.    Myth: Mature GBS centers deliver only high-end innovation. Reality: Pinnacle GBS centers focus mostly on incremental innovation.
4.    Myth: The GBS innovation team should have more leadership members to ensure better outcomes. Reality: Pinnacle GBS organizations exhibit a balanced team structure while other GBS organizations are more top-heavy.
5.    Myth: Centralized innovation teams in GBS centers and parents are essential to deliver business impact. Reality: A hybrid team structure at the parent level and an innovation head or dedicated steering committee at the GBS center level have proved to be more successful.
6.    Myth: Service providers and technology vendors are the most important value creators in the innovation ecosystem. Reality: Pinnacle GBS organizations extensively leverage a mix of service providers, technology vendors, and startups for driving innovation.

“The entities we’ve identified as Pinnacle GBS centers are adept at leveraging their unique position and capabilities to help their parent organizations build truly disruptive innovation capabilities,” said H. Karthik, partner at Everest Group. “This is demonstrated by significantly higher ROI and cost savings as well as operational and strategic impact.”

Pinnacle GBS centers have been able to achieve significant business impact by effectively driving their innovation engines. Here are a few examples:

Cost impact: Pinnacle GBS centers generated 1.5X higher return on investment (ROI) and cost savings than other GBS centers. An example of an innovation initiative with cost impact is identifying potential opportunities to consolidate multiple product lines and processes, thereby realizing the benefits arising from economies of scope.
Operational impact: Pinnacle GBS centers have achieved 1.9X greater operational impact than other GBS centers. For instance, a leading Banking, Financial Services and Insurance (BFSI) GBS organization built a smart contracting platform to seamlessly process unstructured data and automate multiple transactional processes, reducing FTE time.
Strategic impact: Pinnacle GBS centers delivered 1.6X more strategic impact than other GBS centers. An example of a GBS center having significant impact is a leading electronic and hi-tech GBS organization who leveraged next generation technology solutions to revamp its existing cold chain to preserve and increase the shelf life of perishable goods and chemicals, ensuring the quality through last-mile delivery to the end customer.

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

May 7 Webinar: How GBS Centers Can Leverage Innovation to Prepare for the Economic Downturn

Everest Group is hosting a complimentary webinar to assist senior enterprise executives in understanding how they can effectively leverage their GBS organizations for driving the enterprise innovation agenda. The webinar will address these questions:

For what kinds of innovation initiatives are enterprises leveraging the GBS model?
How does the current uncertain environment present a significant opportunity for GBS centers to build and demonstrate innovation?
What business outcomes have Pinnacle GBS centers delivered for their organizations?

The live webinar will be held on Thursday, May 7, at 9 a.m. CDT.

***Register here.***

About Everest Group
Everest Group is a consulting and research firm focused on strategic IT, business services, engineering services, and sourcing. Our clients include leading global enterprises, service providers, and investors. Through our research-informed insights and deep experience, we guide clients in their journeys to achieve heightened operational and financial performance, accelerated value delivery, and high-impact business outcomes. Details and in-depth content are available at http://www.everestgrp.com.

*Note: For the purposes of this report, Everest Group uses the term GBS to include Shared Services Centers (SSCs), Global In-house Centers (GICs) and Global Capability Centers (GCCs), although distinctions in these business models can be made.

Will COVID-19 Ease the Relentless War for Talent? | Blog

April 21, 2020

While some people in the global services industry think that large scale unemployment and the slowdown in growth due to the COVID-19 pandemic may reduce the talent demand-supply gap, we wholeheartedly disagree. Indeed, we believe that strategic workforce planning has become even more critical for the global services industry.

Here are four reasons why organizations need to accelerate their workforce initiatives right now.

Talent shortages will become acute

A survey we conducted in early 2020 found that, even before the COVID-19 crisis, 86 percent of enterprises considered the talent shortage a key barrier to achieving business outcomes. This situation will further exacerbate. It’s true that the impending economic downturn could lead to even more unemployment and oversupply in the talent market. However, the available skills profiles may not necessarily match organizations’ current and future requirements, especially because highly skilled talent is expected to be retained even during downsizing. Increasing focus on automation and digital transformation will further widen the demand-supply gap for skills, making it difficult for organizations to source suitable skills internally or in the open market. The prevailing circumstances (e.g., the lockdown, financial distress, and health issues) may impact overall talent employability in the open market, further compounding the talent availability issue.

Rapid digital transformation is inevitable, and it will intensify the demand-supply gap

COVID-19 has accelerated digital transformation across organizations. It has not only reinforced the utility of tech-enabled platforms and advanced automation for seamless service delivery during mandatory Work-From-Home (WFH) protocols, but also enabled organizations to react to the evolving business environment and customer needs faster. The impending budget cliff and business model changes will further push organizations to prioritize digital transformation, which will have implications on the talent needed both to drive this change and to deliver services after transformation. Demand for emerging skills will spike even faster, again creating the need for reskilling, alternative talent models, and productivity enhancement. We are already seeing a spike in hiring by companies like Amazon and Google. Some firms are seeing this as an opportune time to acqui-hire – or acquire startups primarily for their talent. Leading global banks, healthcare firms, and manufacturing firms are rethinking their talent strategies.

Supposedly foolproof location and BCP strategies did not work in the face of this pandemic

COVID-19 has exposed key issues with enterprises’ and service providers’ existing locations strategy and Business Continuity Planning (BCP) approaches. Nearly three-quarters of enterprises that have offshore/nearshore GBS centers operate in only one location. Even enterprises with multiple GBS centers have a high concentration of talent in their largest center. Others have developed centers of excellence with large portions of their workforce for a specific function consolidated in a few locations. Less than 10 percent of GBS centers were truly prepared for a seamless WFH model. Companies will need to re-evaluate their redundancy matrices and location/portfolio mixes to achieve a more robust BCP. Some seemingly obvious responses to locations portfolio questions may not apply anymore.

WFH is here-to-stay

A 2017-18 survey by the Bureau of Labor Statistics revealed that nearly 30 percent of the American workforce could work remotely. The extended lockdown in the near term and a high utilization, once the COVID-19 crisis has abated, will likely make WFH an integral component of the overall service delivery model. This change will have significant talent implications – motivation, employee engagement, performance metrics, reporting metrics, communication protocols, and collaboration – which organizations will need to proactively address to optimize productivity and enhance output.

COVID-19 has precipitated a fundamental shift in the way we work. There are underlying opportunities for enterprises and service providers that proactively adapt to the new normal. We believe there are four immediate steps that enterprises must take:

Review your enterprise global workforce strategy
Develop a roadmap for skills development initiatives
Review your locations portfolios and BCP strategy
Build a playbook for integrating WFH and crowdsourcing into your services delivery models

We’d love to hear your thoughts on how the COVID-19 pandemic is impacting talent strategies. Please share with us at: [email protected], [email protected], or [email protected].

COVID-19 Post India Lockdown Service Buyers – To What Extent Have You Seen Service Disruptions | Market Insights™

April 3, 2020

Explore our COVID-19 resources

Work at Home Agent Model on the Rise: Impact of COVID-19 | Market Insights™

March 26, 2020

Visit the report page

COVID-19 – To What Extent Have You Seen Service Disruptions? | Market Insights

March 25, 2020

Visit the webinar page

Global Business Services (GBS) Post COVID-19: Blueprint for the New Refined Normal | Market Insights™

March 24, 2020

Visit the report page

A World Caught Unaware: Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery in the Wake of COVID-19 | Blog

March 16, 2020

This is the fourth in a series of blogs that explores a range of topics related to these issues and will naturally evolve as events unfold and facts reveal themselves. The blogs are in no way intended to provide scientific or health expertise, but rather focus on the implications and options for service delivery organizations.

These insights are based on our ongoing interactions with organizations operating in impacted areas, our expertise in global service delivery, and our previous experience with clients facing challenges from the SARS, MERS, and Zika viruses, as well as other unique risk situations.

A virus originating in China has brought life to a standstill around the globe – and that includes service providers and shared services centers or Global In-house Centers (GICs). From delays in procuring office supplies (most of them sourced from China) and rescheduling of important meetings/events to the threat the virus poses to human capital, the risks have pushed most firms to revisit their business plans and potentially prepare for another worldwide recession. The virus spread has also been a wakeup call for providers and shared services centers, testing their preparedness in terms of business continuity and disaster recovery. In fact, it has made some firms comprehend the need to balance their cost-competitive mindset with a risk-competitive one.

Some organizations are well prepared and offer examples for others to follow. In this blog, we take a look at some of these noteworthy business continuity and disaster recovery measures, based on our conversations with more than 20 GICs and service providers globally. Strategies that stand out in particular include:

Site-based strategies for senior leadership – A few firms have balanced their leadership positions across centers and geographies to ensure that all senior roles for critical processes are not based in a single location
Headcount thresholds – Some firms have thresholds on the maximum number of Full Time Equivalents (FTEs) in a particular location – both at a city level and country level
Dedicated resilience management groups – Some firms maintain a full-fledged business continuity team to manage crises and their responses
Robust work placement strategies – A number of firms ensure that critical activities are spread across locations

For example, a UK-headquartered bank (with GICs across multiple locations) has an intra-city, inter-city, and inter-country Business Continuity Planning (BCP) strategy. The bank follows a robust BCP operating procedure by: (A) assessing a service’s/process’ business impact /criticality if work were to stop due to reputational, financial, or customer-related reasons, among others); and, (B) identifying the work location based upon criticality – highly critical services/processes are typically distributed across two countries. To understand this better, the company invokes:

Intra-city BCP for extremely short-term events, such as shutdowns for three to four hours due to maintenance work at a site
Inter-city BCP for short-term or limited impact events affecting a city, for example, transport strikes
Inter-country BCP for critical events such as natural disasters. For instance, during the recent floods in Chennai, India, the bank moved critical processes such as risk and analytics to other GIC locations, such as Poland

In the aftermath of the coronavirus outbreak, we are likely to see significantly strengthened business continuity plans – those that take into account talent availability, work placement strategy, infrastructure availability, and newer metrics to manage performance. In particular, we encourage enterprises to explore answers to the following questions to develop robust business continuity plans:

Can the virtual model emerge as an effective alternative to physical locations? What does it mean from an infrastructure perspective?
How can automation solutions be deployed to manage down time?
What additional features need to be added to office communication tools and applications to enhance collaboration?
Is there a need to adopt new metrics to monitor resources working from home for an extended period of time? What should these metrics be? How will they co-exist with privacy laws?

Visit our COVID-19 resource center to access all our COVD-19 related insights.

Coronavirus Service Delivery Update | Blog

March 6, 2020

This is the third in a series of blogs that explores a range of topics related to these issues and will naturally evolve as events unfold and facts reveal themselves. The blogs are in no way intended to provide scientific or health expertise, but rather focus on the implications and options for service delivery organizations.

Over the past two to three weeks, media focus has shifted away from China, where the growth rate of new infections has slowed markedly. Hubei province remains the epicenter of the disease, but 8 of the 10 provinces that make up that core group of provinces where the disease has been most prevalent, have seen no new cases for several days. Hubei and the coastal province of Zheijang alone among the 10 are reporting new positive cases. There have been no public reports of service delivery interruption from any of the 44 Global In-house Centers (GICs) inside the core group of 10 provinces. Indeed, the last week has seen a steady return to work outside Hubei province.

The new global focus is on a group of high-risk countries including South Korea (Daegu and Cheongdo), Iran and Italy (specifically the whole of the north of the country and not just the provinces of Lombardy and the Veneto), and on a secondary group comprising Japan, Singapore, Laos, Thailand, Vietnam and Myanmar.

Data from Everest Group Market Intelligence (EGMI) shows that there are 470 Global Inhouse Centers (GICs) – or shared services centers – and 196 service provider delivery centers located in China and across these additional nine countries. Based on travel advisory and media reporting of regions that are more or less severely impacted, China still has the greatest exposure to delivery risk, with 73 delivery centers in high impact areas, and a further 272 in areas that are likely seeing little or no impact. Italy has 14 service provider delivery centers in the high-risk Northern provinces. South Korea has one or two GICs in Daegu, the city most affected by coronavirus infections. See details by country and sector in the two tables below.

In view of restrictions imposed by governments, or companies implementing business continuity protocols, or simply out of fear of contracting the virus through proximity to large numbers of people, it is highly likely that most, if not all, of the delivery centers in high impact areas are closed and will remain so until further notice.

Many multinational corporations with offices in China and Hong Kong have imposed either complete travel bans (Amazon, Apple, Citigroup, Credit Suisse, Ford, Goldman Sachs, Google, HSBC, JP Morgan, LG, Salesforce) or have banned non-essential travel (GM, Johnson & Johnson, P&G, PwC, Siemens) to and from mainland China, Italy, Japan, and South Korea. In some cases, cross-border travel has been suspended indefinitely.

The same imposition of a work from home policy for all staff of multinationals in China and Hong Kong, which is beginning to ease, is now the norm for many businesses in Milan, the capital of Lombardy. The cancellation of meetings or conferences involving even modest numbers of international participants is now a daily occurrence.

The outward spread of the disease has also started to impact major service delivery locations, especially India, which comprises 40 percent of the world’s global services delivery capacity. As of March 6, 2020, 30 Covid-19 cases have been confirmed in the country. Initially, only passengers from high-risk countries were being checked at airports, but the government has implemented universal screening for all passengers flying into the country. Multiple companies such as Cognizant, PayTM, Wipro, and KPMG have temporarily closed select offices in Delhi NCR and Hyderabad and stepped up their employee safety efforts. In addition to encouraging the remote working model, these efforts include disinfecting and sanitizing office spaces, putting hand sanitizers at entry and exit points, discouraging staff from conducting physical meetings, restricting the entry of outsiders in office premises and distributing N95 masks amongst employees.

We continue to monitor these locations.