Business Platforms – BPO meets Technology

The ongoing sluggish economic revival has resulted in dilemma to the organizations – whether to be on a full state of alert to thwart any further downtrend or to be in a position of readiness to capture any uptrend in economy.  This sort of conflicting situation demands upon organization to redraft their existing business model and bring in increased element of ‘agility’ and ‘flexibility’ as core to its supply chain gene. Organizations are increasingly looking at alternate business models which can help them in rapidly scaling up or down their cost structure in line with varying business situation and also at the forefront of cutting edge technology coupled with best-in-class processes without going through the conventional pain of multi-year transformational programs with unpredictable outcomes. The next generation of business models necessarily needs to be redrafted in such a way that organizations should achieve higher growth, higher profit and higher asset efficiency. Business Platforms delivered through a managed services model would be a key choice in building the foundation of agile businesses.

Posted by Gurjeet at 2:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

While it might sound basic, every employee within a company clearly wants information about himself/ herself at the stroke of their finger tip. Not only is this information precious but it is the ability to access, change and analyze which is crucial. The ability to service your own rudimentary needs like changing attributes like address, taking leave and looking at leave history, accessing training charter and training history, having access to one’s past and current performance, even to pull down and look up one’s pay slips, carry out updates on tax related savings and perquisites, etc., all these transactions create a feeling of enabled empowerment.

Employee self service along with managerial self service (the ability to seek slice & dice and get information pertaining to subordinates) are core & critical ingredients towards creating employee empowerment and engagement.

Business Platforms in the HR space are clear winners in building the foundation for employee self service and creating an enduring employee empowerment. Self service is the best service!!!                                               

Posted by Anantha Radhakrishnan at 10:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Some of the paramount reasons that why IT and business process owners are disjointed and are not aligned at the time of outsourcing are:
-          Business outsourcing decisions are typically taken by business units which are decentralized and IT is normally owned by corporate
-          Outsourcing normally focused on cost reduction and process performance with - IT as a constant in the cost equation - thereby missing opportunity on automation and process redefinition
-          Typically BPO service provider puts more effort on standardization from outsourcing perspective and system takes the lowest priority.

Most of the IT organization never kept ‘offshore enablement’ in mind while devising its technology landscape resulting in suboptimal efficiency even in the beginning of outsourcing which is extremely difficult to be realized later due to creation of silos – ‘technology owned by organization while processes outsourced to the service provider’.  Some of the ‘missed opportunities’ due to fragmented IT landscape while clearly evident after outsourcing are difficult to be addressed due to this silo and this actually reminds me of a decade old dilemma organizations faced  – should you reengineer before ERP implementation or vice versa? In some way this dilemma is haunting organizations today also and the emerging managed services or platform service model clearly addresses this aspect to a great extent wherein service provider will take the end-to-end responsibility of both process and technology thereby effectively address any ‘change’ with agility.

Posted by Gurjeet at 3:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The business platform model is clearly emerging as the front runner choice for client corporations to manage their outsourced services (IT & Business Process). There is still a considered and well thought through shift which customers need to make. Continued incremental approach and getting wedded to the sunk cost is indeed a hurdle to jump over. This would need a mindset change, the ability to look ahead, see the curve coming and the ability to change lanes to make the shift without business discontinuity.

I am reminded of the elevated expressway (to Electronic City - the Silicon Hub of India) of 9kms which is now operational and is used by us

to commute to work. Of course, this has significantly reduced commute time by more than 60 to 70 % while having to pay toll for the usage. The infamous hosur road below the elevated expressway has also benefitted from this as many more users are using the elevated toll expressway, decongesting the hosur road somewhat.

The analogy is very relevant as the elevated toll expressway is equivalent of the business platform model which promises speed, agility and sustenance while having to pay for outcomes or transactions. The old hosur road is like the sunk cost of legacy systems and processes which many of us were wedded to just like client corporations are to their legacy baggage.

The key shift and turning point was when the decision was taken to shift all further investments towards the elevated express toll way rather then spend incrementally on the approach of patch work expansion and widening of the old hosur road.

It is this key shift which was made 3 years back, which is benefitting multiple commuters today to electronic city (Silicon hub of India). The benefits of reduced commute time, ease of travel and pay for usage are very same principles of the business platform model. Yes, during the transition of 3 years it did seem that the life was more difficult, trying to balance the build out of the elevated expressway on the already cramped sunk baggage of the old hosur road.

It is for client corporations to see ahead, make the shift and get on to the elevated expressway of Growth & Agility leveraging Business Platforms which will also have the added advantage of easing the commute and mangement of their current sunk cost of legacy processes and systems.

Business platforms is all about making the shift and now is the opportune time…………

Posted by Anantha Radhakrishnan at 1:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)