Dynamics of doing business in the BPO world are fast changing. Clients are increasingly seeking –
· Global delivery with emphasis on near, mid and offshore locations comprising both established and new geographies,
· Solution driven approach that requires a platform play in lieu of the classical lift & drop approach,
· Combination of services covering different spectrums of BPO and KPO.
Given these requirements, it is impossible for several service providers to offer the same on their own, except for the few fortunate large service providers who possess Consulting, IT and Process Design & Delivery capabilities.
If this is the case
Should the new versions of BPO and opportunities there upon a prerogative of only the large and full service players?
Do the small and medium players invest substantial resources in time and money to develop these capabilities organically?
Or, do these players invest capital on inorganic pursuits to fulfill the requirements.
No doubt the options mentioned above are valid. In addition to these, an important option could be BPO Collaboration. Some possible collaborations could be
1) Niche IT companies with out BPO play collaborating with K/BPO providers. This will help IT companies introduce annuity revenue streams over the existing revenue streams that may be primarily project based and also help them deepen their client engagements. Collaboration with K/BPO service provider can also help IT companies pioneer services model (SaaS) which seems to be finding favor with the buyers of software services
2) BPO service providers with delivery centers in a particular geography aligning with the BPO service providers in other geography to expand / create a global footprint on a win-win basis. This will also help BPO service providers to introduce new language capabilities in addition to the existing ones
I have listed just couple of possibilities above and there could be several others. Also, if we look at any IT company a small one though, they talk of partnerships either for system integration or software implementation etc. It is not uncommon too see a very large / marquee IT company collaborating with a small IT company for mutual benefit. This leaves me wondering why the same concept cannot be applied to the K/BPO companies.
Is the revenue potential a limiting opportunity or are there other compelling reasons? It will be interesting to obtain views from the readers of this post.
