'Finding right talent is the challenge'
Global MD for Accenture’s Delivery Centre Network for BPO talks about choosing the right talent for appropriate jobs.
By ET Bureau |
| Pankaj Vaish, MD, Accenture | |
Amid all the talk about these being tough times for the outsourcing industry, technology and consulting major Accenture announced better-than-expected third-quarter results last month.
Pankaj Vaish, global MD for Accenture���s Delivery Centre Network for BPO, attributes the impressive numbers to the outsourcing major���s strategy of not focusing too much on a single market or industry as well as its deep consulting expertise that allows it to work better with companies in troubled times. Excerpts:
What are the broad trends that you see in the outsourcing space today?
Clients are looking for three-four things. They are saying, ���Give me beyond cost savings���. This means creating business value and linking what we do to their business outcomes. For us, that means we have to focus on bringing specialised skills to the table and broaden our scope of work.
Second thing clients are saying is that they want agreements with larger risk-reward trade-off. They want us to share the risk and the rewards for bringing in greater efficiencies. And these are things driving the bundling of services - technology, consulting and BPO. This is largely true for more sophisticated clients who have seen how things have moved in the past and have done life-and-drop kind of outsourcing earlier. They have faced problems with too many vendors because then they are faced with the task of integration and synchronising what different vendors have done.
Accenture has reported Q3 growth across sectors and even in financial services. What do you attribute that to?
The reason we have seen growth with our financial services clients is because we go to them with ideas of cost optimisation and tailor our approach to their needs. We believe that the best time for us is when companies are challenged because their willingness to change things is highest at that time. Our consulting expertise gives us the ���tip of the spear��� approach where we can engage with the clients irrespective of their growth stage.
What role does India play for Accenture and what are the other growing outsourcing destinations for the company?
We recently opened our 13th delivery centre in Noida that will offer BPO services in the areas of F&A, HR, procurement and customer care as well as technology and consulting services to insurance, healthcare and utility industries. However, as we are not overly dependent on one industry or one country, we are not India-centric. We have 53 centres and 77,000 people globally. Though half our delivery network is based in India, we have large operations in the Philippines, Latin America, China and Eastern Europe that continue to grow. We also have very sizeable operations in China. So, things like rupee depreciation and the US slowdown don���t affect us too much.
How does the Indian domestic market look like?
We are using the scale and operations in India to drive innovation through the use of analytics and the information clients trust us with. We want to grow the current operations and do more value-addition to provide end-to-end solutions as well as the underlying technology. The biggest challenge to this, of course, remains finding the right talent and growing leaders.
Pankaj Vaish, global MD for Accenture���s Delivery Centre Network for BPO, attributes the impressive numbers to the outsourcing major���s strategy of not focusing too much on a single market or industry as well as its deep consulting expertise that allows it to work better with companies in troubled times. Excerpts:
What are the broad trends that you see in the outsourcing space today?
Clients are looking for three-four things. They are saying, ���Give me beyond cost savings���. This means creating business value and linking what we do to their business outcomes. For us, that means we have to focus on bringing specialised skills to the table and broaden our scope of work.
Second thing clients are saying is that they want agreements with larger risk-reward trade-off. They want us to share the risk and the rewards for bringing in greater efficiencies. And these are things driving the bundling of services - technology, consulting and BPO. This is largely true for more sophisticated clients who have seen how things have moved in the past and have done life-and-drop kind of outsourcing earlier. They have faced problems with too many vendors because then they are faced with the task of integration and synchronising what different vendors have done.
Accenture has reported Q3 growth across sectors and even in financial services. What do you attribute that to?
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We are present in 49 countries and we are not excessively dependent on any one country. Less than 50% of our revenues come from the US. We service 30 industries so that risk due to a particular economic event is limited. About one-sixth of our revenue comes from financial services. Some of our key clients are in the oil & gas and utilities space and those companies have never had a better time. The reason we have seen growth with our financial services clients is because we go to them with ideas of cost optimisation and tailor our approach to their needs. We believe that the best time for us is when companies are challenged because their willingness to change things is highest at that time. Our consulting expertise gives us the ���tip of the spear��� approach where we can engage with the clients irrespective of their growth stage.
What role does India play for Accenture and what are the other growing outsourcing destinations for the company?
We recently opened our 13th delivery centre in Noida that will offer BPO services in the areas of F&A, HR, procurement and customer care as well as technology and consulting services to insurance, healthcare and utility industries. However, as we are not overly dependent on one industry or one country, we are not India-centric. We have 53 centres and 77,000 people globally. Though half our delivery network is based in India, we have large operations in the Philippines, Latin America, China and Eastern Europe that continue to grow. We also have very sizeable operations in China. So, things like rupee depreciation and the US slowdown don���t affect us too much.
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When it comes to servicing in the English language, Philippines is a hidden crown jewel which continues to be a large delivery network for Accenture. Clients who are doing a lot of work in India are now looking at diversifying to another location. We expect Europe to grow strongly. Latin America is another great place to service Europe. In China, we see growth accelerating. We see China as a great place to service Japan, China���s domestic market as well as the Asia-Pacific region.How does the Indian domestic market look like?
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We started servicing the domestic market 5-6 years ago, with finance & accounting work for textiles firm Indo Rama. Currently, we do applications outsourcing and F&A outsourcing for Indian clients and some customer support work. Emerging markets like India take time to use outsourcing effectively. We are using the scale and operations in India to drive innovation through the use of analytics and the information clients trust us with. We want to grow the current operations and do more value-addition to provide end-to-end solutions as well as the underlying technology. The biggest challenge to this, of course, remains finding the right talent and growing leaders.
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