Hear how some of world’s leading enterprises have leveraged a blend of domain knowledge, process re-engineering expertise and technology solutions to significantly enhance the way their organizations manage financial information and processes.

You will explore how to leverage intelligent automation and active dashboards to:

• Minimize delay penalties and improve early payment discounts on your accounts payables
• Eliminate risk of duplicate invoice payments, fraudulent invoices and overpayment due to human errors
• Enjoy real-time view of operational data on interactive dashboards
• Improve accounts receivables recovery with better visibility of receivables data
• Minimize idle cash with efficient cash flow forecasts
• Streamline F&A processes across geographies and business units and also across organizations in case of M&A

Who should attend:

• Chief Financial Officers
• Chief Operations Officers
• VP of Finance/Controller
• Director of Accounting/Finance
• Company Secretaries/CPAs
• Accounts Payable, Purchasing and Accounting Managers/Supervisors
• Business Process Managers, Finance and Accounting

Presented by:

Mr. Sunil Dixit
Vice President, Datamatics

Dennis Winkler
Director, Alsbridge

REGISTER NOW

I speak at conferences all over the world including world-class events hosted by Sourcing Interests Group (SIG) and IAOP. All three organizations are doing great work for their memberships on both the buy and sell side of the outsourcing transaction.

Here are my observations from this interesting event in New Delhi; they are a guide to today and a prediction for tomorrow.

First, the composition of the attendees at NASSCOM was breathtaking. NASSCOM is all about power networking with provider players who are currently in the glow of 18%+ growth. Almost all India-based providers had their CEOs for BPO in attendance or, in some cases, their CEOs. All stayed for the full event and spent tons of time briefing consultants such as Alsbridge and networking with each other to cross promote and drive the India brand. I never see this type of concentration anywhere else in the world. I think this may be one of the hidden drivers to India, Inc. growing from the force of the invisible hand of NASSCOM.

Also in attendance was an adoring India press that sees outsourcing from the opposite side of the world. They published huge columns all week focusing on NASSCOM predictions and growth issues.

No one seemed to care that no enterprise buyers were in attendance; in fact, the attendees seemed oblivious. If I went to one of the U.S.-based events and it had this attendee mix, the event owner/organizers would be in the restroom committing Seppuku ritual suicide for the shame of it all. Their direct reports would be waiting outside to follow them. At the U.S.-based events, attendance from enterprise buyers is key because provider attendees care for one thing – the opportunity to meet clients. A lack of such attendees would be a death knell for the event. In a surreal contrast, at NASSCOM the provider attendees took no notice – they were there to discuss macroeconomic issues, ways to work together for mutual gain and how they could improve service delivery to their clients. The dynamics of NASSCOM are truly impressive, and western providers would do well to take note.

Focus on Value and Rapid Growth

Industry legend Vikram Talwar (founder of EXL and one of my former E&Y partners) gave an amazing keynote speech. He pointed out a number of issues the sourcing industry must contend with, which included an exhortation to “stop the price wars” and focus on value.

Alsbridge’s analysis is the Indian providers will have trouble doing this because they rely on their own “experience-based” price benchmarks that are flawed and will result in constant low-ball pricing ahead of market need. Buyers, however, will gain from their passion for costly 18% growth.

Matching the current 16-18% growth rate in BPO and slightly lower for ITO was a huge topic for the attendees. Failure here is 12-15% growth. (!!!) Some providers with specialization by industry or function are optimistic that they can beat this year’s market prediction. Those without a specialization seem to be replacing the head of BPO and retrenching their strategies.

Benchmarking 2012 Pricing Changes

Alsbridge was the featured speaker on predictions for price changes in 2012. Our keynote slot was well attended, and everyone took copious notes. Providers were there to get a grip on where prices will be over the next 18 months. Alsbridge, through our ProBenchmark database, has seen FAO prices reduce by five-seven percent on a like-for-like basis over the last 12 months and forecasts this rate to slow to three-five percent over the next 12 months. However, the range of current prices for individual roles varies greatly, reflecting the lack of market standards for labor rates (see the recent ProBenchmark pricing trends webinar for more information). It was clear that Indian-based providers are struggling to control their constant price war mentality due to their reliance on internal price benchmarks. At this point, under pricing is their biggest challenge.

Some niche BPO providers are starting to gain scale in focused segments such as healthcare, analytics and knowledge management. Look for interesting value propositions in 2012 for segments of BPO not fully addressed in the past.

Account leadership gaps were one rumble I heard at NASSCOM. It sounds like many major providers are starting to have trouble staffing leadership positions as fast as they are selling new business. Training the next generation is now a significant problem that they need to address or India, Inc. will run out of steam.

Service management remains a challenge for many providers. With the 800-pound gorilla of growth and an amazing pool of India-based talent, you have to be inept not to make money in BPO. The economics are too overwhelming to not turn a profit. But as costs slowly creep up, providers could be looking at a less rosy picture by 2013, especially if currency exchange rates materially go the other way and there’s real local salary inflation.

How should you prepare for the future?

What does this mean for enterprise buyers? The India-based providers remain high quality and are focused on winning your contract since their business development efforts will remain strong for the foreseeable future. If you engage properly, you can plug into a great wealth of talent at an effective cost point. Fail to engage right and you take unneeded risks.

Western-based providers are facing a determined competitor intent on continuing that 18% growth. Given the western-based locations for your front offices with their infrastructure and sales costs, you need a competition strategy that is focused and differentiated.

India-based providers: It warms my heart to see intensity, passion and commitment result in high growth. But you could be entering an era similar to EDS in 1995, where talent development began to fall behind their years of growth, account management shortages developed quickly and the buzz reputation of über deliver no matter the cost quickly cooled and stalled. Talent growth in complex areas of need and a variety of other factors slowed and then stopped EDS’s unstoppable freight train of growth. HP acquired the provider in 2008. How will you prevent repeating history?

Stay tuned for our next Alsbridge ProBenchmark update.

The difficulty becomes geometrically more challenging for corporations with thousands of phone lines, data lines, switches, cell phones and tablets for which it now must pay.

“The current economy is forcing many companies to focus on expense control management on a heightened level,” says Phil Hugus, vice president, Network Services Group at Alsbridge. In today’s connected world, companies are dialing into Telecom Expense Management (TEM).

Here’s how one company took a call for action.

Books-A-Million’s situation

Books-A-Million is the third largest book retailer in America. Its staff has over 2,000 phone lines in over 200 stores in 23 states and the District of Columbia. Jamie Witter, service manager for the Alabama-based company, realized the company had neither the staff, the time nor the expertise to scour its numerous phone invoices to determine if the book seller was really paying the proper amount to its telephony providers. “We just looked for variations from month to month,” she explains. With $2 million in annual spend, she suspected the savings could be significant.

In addition, the company needed advice so it could negotiate the best rates with its vendors.
Books-A-Million, which also sells books on the Internet at www.booksamillion.com, decided the best way to improve this business situation was to outsource. In 2008 it selected Telecom Expense Management (TEM) services from the Alsbridge Network Services Group.

A short transition

The service provider’s first step was to gather the inventory information that would be used to build Books-A-Million’s TEM inventory. Then the Alsbridge TEM team developed and provided the Books-A-Million staff with a user guide. “It described the new process step-by-step, which was helpful,” Witter reports.

Within a few months the book seller was able to run all its telephony bills through the TEM system. “This is a remarkably short time line since we started from scratch,” Witter says.

How telecom expense management works

Before the automated TEM system was installed, Books-A-Million staffers in the finance department would look at an invoice “searching for something glaringly obvious,” says Witter. “Our process was all manual and all paper.” If they found nothing, employees inputted the invoice into the company’s accounts payable system. Payments from then on were automated.

Today, invoices come into the TEM system daily through either EDI or OIR (Optical Invoice Recognition). “No more paper. We can review the invoice online through the app,” she explains. Books-A-Million worked with the Alsbridge TEM team to set specific parameters in the application. For example, one parameter is exceptions, which include things like charges higher this month over last.

If there are no exceptions, the system automatically saves the invoices for approval. If there are exceptions, it’s ready for reconciliation with the exceptions highlighted.

A number of business benefits

Witter could write the book. While the company certainly appreciates the cost savings (tens of thousands of dollars in year one, thousands of dollars every year afterwards), she says the biggest benefit has been the in-depth inventory the Alsbridge TEM team completed. Identifying the phone numbers and circuits the company no longer needs has translated into significant savings.

The system tracks important metrics like cost avoidance. “We asked for credits, which we now can track through our TEM system. Now we know the vendors are charging us the correct rate or in the correct month,” says Witter. If the system discovers an error, the application makes sure the vendor doesn’t keep charging Books-A-Million for it month after month even if it’s corrected after the initial complaint.

Witter says the system saves time “because now we only have to reconcile exceptions. And it’s easier to find errors.”

The system also tells Books-A-Million if a vendor forgot to send an invoice or if it got lost in the mail. “This helps us avoid late charges,” she explains.

She also appreciates the business intelligence and analytics the TEM system provides. “We can pull reports that analyze our spend. That helps us make wise decisions about our technologies,” Witter explains. She adds the reports are especially useful in analyzing new technologies.

Two growth areas in telecom expense management

The Alsbridge TEM system also aids Books-A-Million in dealing with the increasing complexity of its telephony bills. For example, the TEM system has a tool specifically for wireless bills “which arrive in excruciating detail. We feel better equipped to track any changes to make sure the bill is correct,” Witter says.

Hugus says wireless use is growing so fast “companies have to devote more and more time deciphering their wireless spend.” The TEM wireless tool eliminates much of the complexity, he says.

The other growing area is international telephony. “More and more companies are going global today. They need to analyze bills in multiple languages and currencies,” he reports. The TEM system can also handle these requirements.

Once upon a time, there was one phone company and all the rotary dial phones came in one color: black. Back then it was easy to decipher your Bell telephone bill. Today, however, few companies have the time, expertise, specialized systems, applications or processes to handle their ever more complicated telephony bills, which have become an important place to save money. As Witter notes, “Now it’s easy to stay on top of our telephone vendors to make sure they are honoring their rates.” And companies get the complete 411 on their inventory too.

Debra Floyd, COO, Outsourcing Center; Bob Pryor, Executive Vice President - Sales, Marketing & Business Development; Joe Hogan, Managing Director, Alsbridge

Outsourcing Excellence Award – Service Provider Excellence Award: Most Consistent Business Impact: Genpact

“Genpact and the bank’s relationship has really matured over the last couple of years and we are truly partnering to achieve the right outcomes for our business and customers.” – Top Four Australia Bank

Criteria: The service provider had to:

1. Consistently meet or exceed customer expectations
2. Produce outcomes that increased customer satisfaction among the buyer’s customers
3. Help the buyer grow its business
4. Consistently achieve outcomes across three or more industry verticals
5. Create deals global in scope
6. Have an effective change management methodology to minimize disruption when transitions or changes occurred.

The seventh requirement came from buyers: They had to renew the contract and increase scope.

“Consistent business impact is part of our GE heritage,” observes Bob Pryor, executive vice president and head of sales, marketing and business development for Genpact. He reports in 2010 Genpact generated $2.4 billion of business impact for its buyers. “This figure goes way beyond profit and loss impact or cycle time improvement. It represents a substantial impact on the business,” he points out.

Pryor says Genpact looks at five things:

1. How can we free up cash?
2. How can we improve working capital?
3. How can we intelligently manage costs?
4. How can we help our clients improve customer loyalty and satisfaction?
5. How can we drive business impact well beyond our current contractual commitments?

The service provider combines Lean, which eliminates waste, with Six Sigma, which focuses on quality and eliminates errors. But its secret element is a time-honored tool —observation — coupled with sophisticated analysis.

Here’s how it works in real life.

Saving a buyer millions

Pryor tells the story of one buyer, a manufacturing distribution company. Genpact only handled its accounts payable process. The team noticed the days sales outstanding (DSO) number was increasing. DSO measures the average number of days it takes for a company to collect its revenue after it makes a sale. A low DSO number means it takes fewer days to get the payments into accounts receivable. A high number means it takes longer or has to sell to its customers on credit.

Especially in this economy, companies need cash to run their businesses. So it’s in a company’s best interest to collect its cash as quickly as possible.

Genpact performed a root cause analysis to determine why the DSO was rising. First it discovered the company’s customers were paying at the same rate. So the DSO was not going up because its customers need more time to pay. What was having such a huge impact on working capital?

It turned out the head of distribution noticed that the company’s tractor-trailers were heavily utilized the first two weeks of the month but were only partially utilized the last two. He figured he could save $2 million a year if he readjusted the load factor by moving more goods to the last two weeks for transport.

What he didn’t realize was that the company’s billing process closed on day 17. Everything billed after that went to the next month. This move increased the DSO by $100 million. The carrying cost on the postponed invoices was $5 million, more than twice his savings from optimizing the fleet utilization.

“The distribution manager was trying to optimize his operations, which is his job. But he didn’t realize delaying the shipments would have such a huge impact on other parts of the business, particularly DSO,” says Pryor. In today’s economic climate, everyone is focused on optimizing their individual business unit or siloh. “But this can have unintended consequences. Someone has to look at the overall process,” he adds.

The manufacturer was concerned about the increase in DSO but couldn’t understand why it was happening. “We ask the questions and perform the root cause analysis they sometimes miss,” says the Genpact executive.

Helping a bank simplify its loan process

A retail bank was making both commercial and residential loans. It was losing business because it took too long for its underwriters to review the loan applications and make a decision. Management asked Genpact to speed up the loan cycle time.

Genpact analysts discovered the bank had 25 different forms for one residential loan. There were even more for commercial loans. Each form was difficult to understand; it took a while to fill out because the borrowers were confused about what information they really needed to share.

Genpact streamlined the forms. This decreased cycle time. Voila! The bank was able to close more loans.

“We look at the whole process to see where we can have an impact,” explains Pryor. “Often we generate savings outside the process they outsourced to us.”

Debra Floyd, COO, Outsourcing Center; Colin T Blakey, Account Delivery Management – Carillion, Accenture Finance Solutions; Beth Ellyn Rosenthal, Senior Editor, Outsourcing Center

Outsourcing Excellence Award – Best Global Services: Carillion PLC and Accenture
Carillion PLC is a leading support services company. It operates in a highly competitive industry where achieving its margin targets demands a rigorous approach to controlling costs and delivering profitable growth. Carillion’s disparate processes and underlying systems were a potential obstacle to that growth.

Carillion, which last year had annual revenues totaling £5.1 billion, has been on a major business transformation journey with a number of significant acquisitions and major contract wins over the last five years. The company had an internal onshore shared services center that ran multiple legacy HR and finance systems. Craig Brebner, eXcel program director for Carillion, says that as part of our transformation program the initial thinking was to implement an ERP system to enable the business strategy and achieve three goals:

1. Reduce cost
2. Provide greater transparency
3. Enable rapid growth

But during the business case development, it became clear the best way of achieving those goals was through outsourcing, according to Brebner. “In addition to enabling us to streamline and standardize our processes, the outsourcing cost savings also allowed us to invest in the new ERP system. The business case was compelling,” he says.

On the BPO side, Carillion outsources both HR (from recruiting through learning) and F&A using Oracle as its preferred ERP platform. Also, under a separate agreement, Carillion outsources application and infrastructure management. Accenture provides these services globally from the UK, India and the Czech Republic.

After Carillion signed the contract in 2005, it more than tripled its size through organic growth and acquisitions, which Accenture helped Carillion rapidly integrate. The majority of the UK Carillion organization now operates on an integrated Oracle ERP solution.

Moving the work offshore

Accenture and Carillion worked together to optimize the process for offshoring roles. For example, the two companies adapted their model to incubate work in India until fully stabilized. Brebner says Carillion “managed the offshoring process closely and the two companies worked together on the change management aspects of the deal. We only committed to offshoring roles and releasing people when we were confident that we could maintain our service levels.”

Like any outsourcing contract, this has been a journey. “The Carillion and Accenture teams have worked well together. Over the course of the contract we have taken on higher-value activities such as financial accounting. This is a reflection of the work Accenture delivered and the confidence in the teams,” says Steve Marsh, Accenture’s outsourcing account deliver manager for the Carillion BPO contract.

Marsh, based in the UK, is the primary Accenture executive with whom Brebner interfaces. And then Marsh and his team of service leads handle all interactions with the offshore delivery centers. Each center has a specialty; for example, Mumbai is the center of excellence for HR, Chennai is the expert in F&A and Bangalore is the technology center. “Delivering from multiple sites allows us to provide a high level of expertise,” says Marsh.

Accenture uses the time zone difference to its advantage. For example, the Mumbai office receives the time sheets and starts the payroll. When they leave, the UK center is ready to finish the work.

The Mumbai contact center answers a large majority of the calls on the first contact, according to Marsh. But if the caller has a more complex situation, the call goes to the UK team. “There’s no language barrier and they have great knowledge of Carillion’s corporate terminology,” the Accenture executive continues.

Ease of integration as a result of the outsourcing arrangement has been fundamental to Carillion’s successful growth. When Carillion acquired Alfred McAlpine plc in 2008, it asked Accenture to integrate the business on a tight timeline. “Getting this completed on time was a key milestone in developing confidence in Accenture’s people and their approach to offshoring,” says Brebner.

Today, Brebner says “all our offshoring locations are invisible to users. Most people at Carillion really don’t care where the service is coming from as long as it is on time and right the first time.”

Accenture’s services

Currently Accenture:

• Generates more than 350,000 paychecks annually. The service provider runs five different pay frequencies that include 15 different payrolls
• Administers 45,000 HR transactions annually across recruitment, benefits and employee lifecycle services
• Processes more than 360,000 supplier invoices, fuel cards and employee expense claims annually
• Completed 26,000 balance sheet reconciliations across 60 legal entities last year

The outsourcing agreement also has financial incentives. The two companies have a 50-50 gain/pain sharing arrangement depending on whether the actual costs fall above or below the baseline targets.

Carillion found Accenture’s value proposition “compelling.” Leadership liked the fact that Accenture “was willing to put skin in the game.” Brebner says Carillion executives felt they “could work effectively with the people we met and that the two organizations could work well culturally.”

Business results

Business results include:

• Produced a standardized set of processes and underlying systems. “Standardization allows us to more rapidly integrate new acquisitions, mobilize new contracts, transform business processes and reduce back office costs,” says Brebner. “This is an imperative to support Carillion’s growth agenda.”
• Provided a cost-effective means to finance the business transformation.
• Reduced cost by an average of 30 percent thanks to offshoring.
• Helped executives make better business decisions because of better knowledge. “We now have the ability to see rapidly across the company,” says Brebner.

“Outsourcing our finance and HR together with the implementation of an Oracle ERP platform has been an enabler of our business strategy. This allowed us to concentrate on what we are good at while Accenture focuses on running and optimizing these processes. We now are much closer to one version of the HR truth. It is debatable whether we would have been able to grow and change as rapidly without making this outsourcing work,” concludes Brebner.

Mountain View, Calif,-based Global Upside, Inc. provides services with a U.S. team in California and Florida serving as the customer service contacts while highly educated U.S. GAAP-trained professionals in India perform the assigned tasks overnight with measurable accuracy and a cost savings of 40 percent or more. The one-year contracts are flexible, with monthly fixed fees based on a per-hour rate.

Global Upside’s model is particularly beneficial and affordable for small companies and startups that have difficulty scaling their resources up and down to meet fluctuating needs as their business grows and for companies that are hesitant to outsource.

That was the situation online music subscription service Rhapsody International, Inc. faced when RealNetworks spun it out as an independent company in March 2010. Rhapsody is an online on-demand digital music service serving more than 750,000 subscribers in the United States. RealNetworks previously handled the accounting, and Rhapsody suddenly had a short time line – one month – for building an accounting organization from scratch.

But Michael McGinn, Rhapsody’s VP of Finance, decided it made more sense to outsource to an expert with the resources to quickly ramp up for implementation and then scale back later, if necessary.

McGinn recalls, “If we had built the accounting organization ourselves instead of outsourcing, we would have over-hired or under-hired. We were guessing how much staff we would need. In retrospect, we underestimated and would have found ourselves in a tough situation – either stretching the folks to an extent of their not being reliable or having to hire additional staff. So Global Upside’s ability to flex their workforce to meet our needs has been terrific.”

The cost picture was also a strong draw for outsourcing, McGinn says, “The savings from the outsourcing funded an additional full-time person with analytical capabilities for our business, which was a nice win for us.”

McGinn soon recognized two other benefits. “Because they are overseas, we interact largely through e-mail. It forces us to be much clearer and more disciplined in both our communications and our procedures. And it prevents a marketing person from walking down the hall with an invoice and asking somebody to put it in a drawer for a couple of weeks because they don’t want to pay it yet. There’s a much more systematic process that is very good for internal controls.”

The 12-hour difference in time zones is also a benefit. During a financial audit, the auditor can request information by mid-afternoon and Global Upside in India has the information ready in Seattle the next morning.

Rhapsody now has a controller and one accounting clerk on site; the resources doing all the transaction accounting are in India. Rhapsody retained responsibility for closing the books, financial reporting, and writing and mailing checks.

Customer service issues when outsourcing offshore

The RealNetworks controller recommended Global Upside, but McGinn was hesitant at first to outsource. “The idea of handing over the keys, so to speak, to a team of folks that are halfway around the world is something you have to think through to understand the operational implications,” he says. Bhargava and McGinn talked through the issues until McGinn was comfortable.

When issues arise, communication is not a problem even though the people doing the work are 12 hours away. Global Upside’s clients can call customer service – which is totally based in Florida and California – during the daytime, and they coordinate the issues with the resources in various geographies. This is a differentiation from many larger BPO providers that usually accommodate only a two-hour overlap for real-time communications.

Global Upside’s customer service approach is one-on-one relationships rather than a call center, and the customer service contact person knows a client’s business. “Honestly, I don’t know if I would have been comfortable with going down the outsourcing path if not for that. Having a local U.S. presence as a bridge between here and India has been great,” says McGinn.

Global Upside’s customer service reps also went to RealNetworks to help with the procedures-gathering activities in the transition. The transition included the challenge of moving from the prior Oracle-based accounting system at RealNetworks to Rhapsody’s new Microsoft Dynamics (Great Plains) system, which involved re-doing the account structures.

In addition to the approach to customer service, Bhargava points out another difference between Global Upside and larger BPO providers. He says his company is happy to accommodate the needs of smaller companies, startups and companies that are new to outsourcing and hesitant to outsource more than one function at first.

Industry complexities in F&A are a driver for outsourcing

The trend of shifting from in-house to outsourced F&A services is not entirely due to the need to reduce costs. F&A is becoming increasingly complex. Companies that decide to outsource their F&A work are looking for value – not just a company to do transactions but a service provider with a high level of expertise in all functions, regulatory compliance and across global operations.

Royalty complexities. In the music business, for instance, the process of managing the royalties due to rights holders is complex.

There are a number of different rights holders (to the sound recording, the musical composition, etc.), and Rhapsody has agreements with hundreds of rights holders. McGinn explains that at the end of each month Rhapsody must process the royalties to the rights holders for every piece of music Rhapsody played for its online customers. “We have a massive computer system that calculates the royalties we owe to the various rights holders and churns out reports that we need to provide to them and then make the appropriate payments,” he says.

Revenue-recognition complexities. Bhargava cites another example of F&A complexities, this one centering on clients in the high-tech industry. “Revenue recognition is a really complex issue for software companies. With sales occurring through indirect channels, a software firm may lack control over the accuracy and timeliness of information. Also, revenue-recognition rules and when to record revenue differ among US GAAP and international accounting standards.”

The Software-as-a-Service, on-demand, and cloud-computing models increase the complexities of revenue recognition. Stock compensation is another challenge that impacts software companies.

Investors, along with auditors and regulators, focus on revenue, as it’s often the source of errors that leads to a need for revenue restatements. For public companies, this information is also important to their customers. Fiscal-year revenue restatements are a time-consuming, labor-intensive activity; and most companies lack the resources to handle this in house. For example, Global Upside recently conducted a revenue restatement for a company that required reviewing 8,000 contracts.

Globalization complexities. It’s not unusual, even for small and midsize companies, to have operations in several geographies. For their payroll function alone, they need resources to convert compensation in U.S. dollars to local currencies – sometimes in more than 15 countries.

Bhargava says startups and smaller companies sometimes have only a nominal understanding of global business issues such as the differing requirements for licenses to operate in various geographies. Taxes and regulatory compliance are also complex in global operations.

Tips for F&A service provider selection criteria

Smaller U.S.-based F&A outsourcing providers such as Global Upside can bring the same level of resources and expertise as larger BPO providers. Beyond the expertise and global resources, buyers should include the following factors in their provider-selection criteria:

• Proven track record of protecting data confidentiality. The provider should also conduct regular, ongoing training of employees regarding confidentiality.
• Demonstration of responsiveness in customer service issues with the provider’s other clients. Services should happen like clockwork; but where issues arise, the provider’s customer service team must have a proven track record of quickly and effectively resolving issues.
• The provider should not be a signer on the client’s bank account; it should not be able to touch its clients’ cash.
• Although some smaller companies in various industries rely on their outsourcing partner to provide an individual who takes on the role of CFO, this practice could jeopardize the buyer’s business or the provider’s business. The best practice is for both parties to understand the level of trust necessary and to recruit someone external to the provider’s company.
• Measurable accuracy at a level of 99 percent or better.
• The provider’s staff should hire only degreed accountants, and they should also have several years of experience before joining the provider’s firm. Even so, people make errors. Select a provider that ensures all of its work is reviewed on a daily basis by chartered accountants.

As the second largest BPO company based out of India, WNS “extends the enterprise” of some of the world’s best brands. WNS provides industry-focused and cross-industry solutions in key industry verticals that include Travel, Insurance, Banking and Financial Services, Manufacturing, Retail and Consumer Packaged Goods, Shipping and Logistics, Healthcare and Utilities. WNS delivers an entire spectrum of business process outsourcing such as finance and accounting, customer care, technology solutions, research and analytics and industry-specific back-office and front-office processes. We offer decision-support services through our Research and Analytics capabilities. Our Business Transformation Outsourcing enables the client organization to outperform as a highly efficient, productive and dynamic organization.

We enable clients to outperform with our passion for service and innovation. Clients benefit from our global delivery network and a comprehensive outsourcing services offering. Deep industry knowledge and expertise, a partnership approach, comprehensive service offerings and a proven track record enable us to deliver business value to many of the world’s leading companies. We are passionate about building an organization that is valued by our clients, employees, business partners, investors and the community at large. Our management team comprises accomplished professionals from leading global organizations. Each member brings deep business acumen and outsourcing domain expertise, ensuring a strong growth curve.

Service Lines

Banking and Financial Services – WNS has end-to-end capabilities in the banking and financial processes. We support diverse segments, including banking, asset management and brokerage. To offer a glimpse of our services across the value chain in a year, we process over five million checks, manage over one million customer and broker calls, and process more than three million back-office transactions. Our resources are certified professionals in public accounts, underwriting and SAS programming. WNS offers a proprietary software for lending management called Digital LoanTM.

Insurance Services – WNS offers end-to-end solutions across the entire spectrum of life, property and casualty, and health insurance processes. The quantum of our operations across the value chain is significant. In a year, we process over 20 million claims transactions, handle over one million customer transactions and over two-and-half million calls, and perform over 250,000 life and pensions transactions. Our resources in insurance are trained professionals with AICPCU (IIA) /IF-1 of CII / CPA / CFP and AAPC certifications. WNS offers clients its proprietary auto-claims management software, ProClaimTM.

Travel and Leisure Services – With over 30 clients in airlines, travel agencies and GDS providers, WNS has a deep understanding of the Travel and Leisure industry. Our services across the value chain include over 140 processes, many of which are end to end. WNS manages in a year over eight million customer interactions, 20 million flight coupons, five million passenger requests and cargo operations for 1,900 flights. Our resources are IATA and UFTA certified.

Finance and Accounting – WNS has a comprehensive service offering that supports end-to-end functions in a Chief Finance Officer’s office. In a year, WNS manages over 62 million transactions with a value of over USD 70 billion, delivers transactional to high-end F&A and supports transactions in over 25 major global currencies and multiple ERP applications. We have been consistently delivering over 40 percent annual savings to our clients and taking our relationships further through continuous process improvements and service levels. Our resources are CA / CIMA / CPA qualified. WNS has a global partnership with CIMA.

Research and Analytics – WNS has a rich pool of domain consultants who offer knowledge-intensive services that support executive decision-making. Our 1,500+ analysts with advanced qualifications, such as MBA, Chartered Accountancy and PhD (statistics), and service more than 45 clients in the United States and Europe. Our KPO services are spread across industry verticals such as CPG and Retail, Financial Services, Media and Entertainment, Professional Services and Emerging Verticals. The high-business-impact WNS KPO solutions come with multilingual capabilities.

Contact Center – As part of WNS Customer Care Outsourcing, our contact centers handle 20 million calls, two million e-mails and one million white mail in a year. The calls range from query handling to rules-based response and judgment-based decision-making. The WNS contact center handles scripted and unscripted calls, with an average handling time of eight minutes for unscripted calls. We run 35 different voice processes with 95 percent inbound calls and five percent outbound calls.

Legal Services – WNS offers legal processing outsourcing to clients that include the UK’s leading conveyancing law firms, personal injury litigators and global insurers. We have a resource base of over 400 skilled lawyers, legal graduates, paralegals and case handlers. We manage robust data and inbound/ outbound voice processes. Our service offering includes property law, personal injury claims, law firm back-office operations and corporate legal support services.

Transformation Solutions – WNS Transformation Solutions are geared towards aiding organizations to achieve sustainable business transformation through operational excellence. The three-pronged strategy includes operational transformation by leveraging our global operations with lower-cost operating models, process reengineering, benchmarking and best practices, and domain and technology innovations; sustainable change where we architect a transformation vision and road map that incorporates organizational change and enables the realization of sustainable business results; and actionable insights that leverage the WNS strength in analytics to drive direct business impact. Our service offerings include consulting and program management services, process and quality services and technology services.

Emerging Businesses – WNS has over the years effectively tapped into the emerging business opportunities in sectors such as Shipping and Logistics, Healthcare, Retail and Consumer Packaged Goods, Manufacturing and Utilities. Across the value chain, we process over two million customer transactions and manage payrolls for over 200,000 retail employees annually. WNS clients include several Fortune 500 companies.

Distinctive Capabilities

The WNS key differentiators “extend the enterprise” of our clients and are geared to help businesses outperform. The following distinctive values power each client relationship that WNS builds:

• Business Transformation: WNS recognizes the need for outsourcing to drive strategic change in an organization and create business value year-on-year. WNS looks beyond delivering operational efficiency, service level agreements and lowering costs and transforms the client’s business.
• Partnership Approach: WNS works seamlessly with clients through complete alignment of interests. We structure financial models that best respond to the stage of the relationship – transition, stabilization, continuous improvement – and our clients’ goals for the relationship.
• Deep Domain Expertise: Outsourcing services impact business performance when they are combined with industry intimacy. Our strong capabilities in each industry vertical we operate in, coupled with our endeavor to constantly upgrade the skills of our employees, ensure we deliver service with a distinctive edge.
• Global Delivery Capability: We offer global delivery capabilities to support our clients’ global enterprises. The WNS Global Delivery Network gives clients access to a scalable and flexible infrastructure with the desired skills, services, cultural alignment and language capabilities at the right price at onshore, nearshore or offshore centers.

WNS at a Glance

• Year founded: 1996
• Revenues: USD 616 million (2011)
• Employees: 21,000+ (2011)
• Service lines: Banking and Financial Services, Travel and Leisure Services, Insurance Services, Finance and Accounting, Research and Analytics, Contact Center, Legal Services, Transformation Solutions, Emerging Businesses
• Headquarters location: Mumbai, India
• Locations of global delivery centers: 23 delivery centers across India, USA, UK, Australia, Costa Rica, the Philippines, Romania, Sri Lanka and UAE

For More Information

Corporate Offices Telephone Nos.:

• Mumbai: +91 22 4095 2100
• New York: +1 212 599 6960
• London: +44 207 440 0800

Fax Nos.:

• Mumbai: + 91 22 2518 8307
• New York: +1 212 599 6962
• London: +44 207 440 0808

E-mail: info@wns.com

www.wns.com

Certifications

• ISO 9001:2008 – Bureau Veritas Certification, Moody’s International
• ISO 14000 – Bureau Veritas Certification
• ISO 27001:2005- British Standards Institute
• PCI DSS – Control Case
• SAS70 – Type II Attestation by Ernst & Young

Awards and Recognitions

BPO Leadership:

• Dual Recognition at the BPO Excellence Awards 2010-11
• Best New Outsourced Services Delivery by Shared Services & Outsourcing Network (2010)
• Best New BPO Locator of The Year by Business Process Association of Philippines (2010)
• Industry-specific multi-year winner – IAOP Global Outsourcing 100 (2010)
• Special Award at the NASSCOM Corporate Awards for Excellence in Gender Inclusivity in the Best BPO

Company category (2010)

• Dian Masalanta Award of the Year for being a dynamic new partner of the National Voluntary Blood Services Program by Govt. of the Philippines (2010)
• Best New Outsourced Services Award by SSON (2009)
• Among the Top 3 BPO Companies in India for six consecutive years (NASSCOM)
• Among the Top Ten BPO Companies to Work for in India (Business Today)

Domain Leadership:

• In the Top Five FAO Market Star Performer for the second consecutive year by Everest Group (2010 / 2011)

Quality and Technology Leadership:

• Golden Peacock National Quality Award for Overall Business Excellence and Quality Standards (2011)
• IDG Media CIO 100 Special Category Award in recognition of WNS’s Infosec architecture and implementations (2010)
• NetApp Enterprise Innovation Award (2010)
• Maharashtra State IT Award (2010)
• Best Project Achievement in Green Six Sigma Award at WCBF, USA (2009)
• Golden Peacock Eco-Innovation Award for Green Lean Sigma Program by The World Environment Foundation in association with the Institute of Directors (2009)

Case Studies:

• How WNS increased conversion rate by 50 percent for Travelocity’s inbound offline sales:
  http://www.wns.com/Resources/Case-Studies/Case-Studies-Detail/entryid/3.aspx
• Finance and Accounting: End-to-end consolidation of the order-to-cash cycle for a global air delivery and freight services provider:
  http://www.wns.com/Resources/Case-Studies/Case-Studies-Detail/entryid/30.aspx

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