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Through multiple waves of changing consumer behavior, what did 2012 teach us about how contact centres are changing? More importantly, where will 2013 take the contact centre and customer service industries?

While some 2012 predictions have proven more fiction than fact, the commoditisation of contact centres, the rise of multi-channel, multi-device demand, home agent rise, social media and others have conspired to increase the importance of the contact centre. Still, “Customer Experience,” “Voice of the Customer” or “Customer Relationship Management” has lagged for many industries in effectively establishing the contact centre at the forefront of its delivery strategy.

Managing Shared Services

Shared services remain a hot topic in both the private and public sectors, as organisations struggle to cut costs and drive improvements in efficiency. This standalone report gets into the real nitty-gritty of managing shared services within every type of organisation, examining the lessons learned in the public sector locally and nationally, while also looking at best practice examples of governance, pricing and service level agreements in the private sector. Plus: A look inside a shared service in one of the most sensitive area imaginable: MoD human resources.

Chris Middleton

Scottish Development International – Lead Sponsor

Scottish Development International (SDI) is the international economic development agency of the Scottish Government.

We are able to provide advice and practical support for companies looking to invest in Scotland. Since 2001 we have significantly increased the level of inward investment into Scotland.

SDI provides a wide range of support services including advice, access to specialist expertise, market information, financial assistance, business location information, investor aftercare and specific services covering each phase of international trade activity.

Scotland is an internationally recognised BPO location with an impressive track record and distinguished pedigree. Some of the largest global and European BPOs are based in Scotland, including Teleperformance, HEROtsc, Response, Stellar, Logica, First Data, Capgemini, Vertex and Sykes Enterprises.

There are over 90,000 people employed in 400 BPOs – one in every 30 employees works in a BPO.

Much of our growth and success can be directly attributed to a flexible, stable and motivated workforce with highly developed skills in a mature sector. Overall 400,000 people are employed within finance and business services of which 359,000 are located within Scotland’s central belt ensuring a steady supply of highly skilled staff for the BPO sector.

Additionally, many global and pan European BPOs are attracted to Scotland due to the wealth of multilingual skills. Current BPO’s and contact centres offer a mix of 26 different languages.

According to recent independent research, the majority of BPO operators in Scotland anticipate a rise in staff numbers over the next two years – testament to the strengths of Scotland in this sector.

www.sdi.co.uk

WNS

WNS (Holdings) Limited (NYSE: WNS), is a leading global business process outsourcing company providing agile and innovative solutions to leading brands across the globe. WNS was founded as British Airways' captive in 1996; and today, we have risen to a leadership position with more than 200 global clients, serviced by over 25,000 professionals across 30 global delivery centres world-wide, including Costa Rica, India, the Philippines, Poland, Romania, South Africa, Sri Lanka, UK and US. We deliver over 600 processes across industry and functional domains.

WNS is the first organization in the outsourcing world to take a vertical approach to delivery, which implies industry-specific solutions for industries, including Banking & Financial services, Consulting & Professional Services, Healthcare, Insurance, Manufacturing, Retail and Consumer Packaged Goods, Shipping & Logistics, Telecommunications, Travel and Leisure, and Utilities. Our cross-industry solutions include Contact Centre, Finance & Accounting, and Research & Analytics.

We enable clients to outperform with our passion for service and innovation. 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.

www.wns.com

Finder Financials

THE STANDARD IN AP/AR ANALYSIS

Finder Financials brings new aspects to the traditional analysis of accounts payable and accounts receivable.

We not only look at purely the financial aspects of your AP and AR departments but also at other factors that influence your results.

Finder Financials works together with her clients to meet their KPIs, improve their processes and reduce their financial processing costs. 

Finder Financials offers a fully secure way of providing analysis services for her clients. All of our work is custom and can be performed on site. Our clients do not need to export their sensitive data and documents out of their own secure ICT environment, therefore guaranteeing 100% data security.

In addition to our unique services, Finder Financials also offers her client’s fault prevention options. Through the implementation and integration of state-of-the-art software solutions, we allow our client’s to focus on prevention and real-time reporting. Finder Financials carries out all the training needs on location and to a high standard.

Our services include:

• AP/AR Analysis
• Statements
• VAT
• Fraud
• Unclaimed Property
• Custom Reports
• Internal Benchmarking
• Master Data Cleansing
• Process Improvement
• Training
• Prevention
• AP/AR back-office support

We currently work for a large selection of worldwide clients in all the areas of industry and government.

If you want to find out more about our services, we invite you to contact us.

www.finderfinancials.com

Serco

Serco Global Services is a world leading Business Process Outsourcing (BPO)  organisation set up to add value to its customers’ business by helping them deliver ever greater service to their customers. By combining its existing BPO and world class frontline service capabilities with expertise from its recent acquisitions of Intelenet, The Listening Company, Excelior and Vertex’s UK public sector BPO operations, Serco believes it has a unique proposition that sets it apart in the BPO market.

Serco’s global Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) business has over 60,000 employees across over 100 locations, with a presence in 12 countries providing the complete spectrum of business services to customers in the public and private sector around the world.

As a dynamic global service organisation its people have the expertise and intimate knowledge of their customers’ markets as well as best practice processes and technologies to exceed expectations.

Serco has the vision, agility and determination to deliver cutting-edge business process solutions and set ever higher standards in the markets it serves.

Serco is a FTSE 100 international service company, which combines commercial know-how with a deep public service ethos. Around the world, it improves essential services by managing people, processes, technology and assets more effectively. Serco advises policy makers, designs innovative solutions, integrates systems and – most of all – delivers to the public

www.sercoglobal.com

South Africa

South Africa has world-class infrastructure, exciting innovation, research and development capabilities and an established manufacturing base, with a  sophisticated financial, legal and telecommunications sectors, and a number of global business process outsourcing (BPO) operations are located in the country.

The success of South Africa in attracting leading international BPO investors was recently recognised by the UK NOA National Outsourcing Association, by being awarding the prestigious Overseas Outsourcing location of the Year 2012 to South Africa and further being nominated for the European Outsourcing Association Awards.

The factors contributing to that success are:

Skilled English-speaking talent in scale, sustainable cost competitiveness and incentives to benefit investors

• Savings of 50% plus on a steady-state operating basis from UK Tier-2 locations
• Salaries and real estate costs have remained more or less flat since 2010
• Up to 20% reduction in operating costs resulted from BPS incentives (~GBP 3.5 per FTE)
• BPS incentives of ~ GBP 13 million committed for offshore jobs created in 2011

Fast paced industry momentum

• 14,000 existing offshore jobs, 18% growth year-on-year between 2010-12
• Clear successes in serving the UK market with recent marquee wins and spate of inbound M&A activity
• Western Cape ( ~50% share of offshore jobs) followed by Gauteng and KZN key BPO locations

Business friendly enabling environment

• Robust telecom infrastructure with rapidly decreasing telecommunication costs (90% reduction since 2003)
• Monyetla talent development program generating pool of industry employable talent; 4,500 learners employed

South Africa is an internationally recognised BPO location and hosts some of the largest global BPO service providers, which includes Teleperformance, Aegis, Genpact, Serco, Fusion, Merchants, IBM, GlobalTeleSales, CSC, Accenture and WNS. Additionally to this, the current BPO clients sourcing services from South Africa range from the likes of British Gas, Shell, ASDA, Amazon.com, Old Mutual, Cap Quest, Swiss and Virgin Mobile.

Northern Ireland

Northern Ireland is now a well established location for shared services and outsourcing with proven expertise across a range of functions including finance and accounting, human resources, marketing, legal services and IT support.  Global companies are attracted to Northern Ireland primarily because of its pool of well-educated people who have a professional attitude and strong work ethic. Universities and further education colleges are responsive to business, creating over 4,000 graduates annually with skills, competency and acumen in business relevant areas.  High levels of collaboration between industry, academia and government mean that the development of talent continues to be a priority. In addition to financial assistance, a range of tailored and flexible government-funded support measures are in place to ensure that companies can access the skills they need in the region, both at set up and for future expansion.

The availability of skilled people is complemented by competitive costs, favourable macro-environment, sophisticated infrastructure and an existing cluster of inward investors. Companies who have discovered the benefits of setting up in Northern Ireland include Allen & Overy, Capita, Caterpillar, and Terex.

www.investni.com

Manchester

Manchester has a proven track record as a centre of excellence for business services and a low risk location for Business Process Outsourcing

The city region’s scalability and international connectivity along with next generation digital infrastructure and up to 30% cost reductions compared to London, guarantees operational efficiencies.   That’s why over 30 shared service operations including SPX and Etihad Airways’ European Headquarters are here, in addition to service providers like Aegis, Steria, LBM, Capita and Serco all having offices here. 

MIDAS works closely with businesses to secure significant levels of new investment and employment for city region and provides free, confidential support including: 

• Comprehensive commercial property solutions
• Relocation advice, research support and business case development
• Recruitment and training support
• Introductions to professional networking organisations
• Post-investment PR and marketing support

We have a reputation for understanding diverse business needs and help to remove any barriers for companies looking to locate or expand within Greater Manchester 

For more information on how MIDAS can support your organisation, please contact us on +44 (0)161 875 2239.

www.investinmanchester.com

Shared Services

Shared Services Forum UK – your VIP invitation.

Join the UK’s number one Shared Services not-for-profit community today and you’ll be in excellent company. Our members include Rolls-Royce plc, The Co-operative Group, Bupa Health and Wellbeing, Enterprise Plc and Canal & River Trust to name but a few.

Your annual membership fee is inclusive of all events ranging from our Annual Conference and Leaders’ Meetings and Lunches through to Practitioner Network meetings focused on Lean, Purchase to Pay, Helpdesk, Payroll, Credit Control, HR and the Public Sector, to our Summer Social at the races.   Plus, you can take advantage of as many website log-in’s for the members’ only area of our website as you wish as well as limitless inspiration for you and your team.  We’ll support you with knowledge-sharing, benchmarking, thought-leadership as well as access to over thirty events during the year, a vast online library of presentations and hundreds of new contacts.

Visit www.sharedservicesforumuk.com or call 0800 334 5031 today to find out more.  Plus, if you are a senior SSC leader register at events@sharedservicesforumuk.com and you’ll get a complimentary invitation to attend one of this year’s Leaders Meetings.  Past speakers include Sir Ranulph Fiennes, Michael Portillo and Roger Black MBE as well as a host of SSC experts.

www.sharedservicesforumuk.com

ReadSoft

ReadSoft is leading global provider of software solutions for Document Process Automation. With over 7,000 customers worldwide, ReadSoft has expert experience with SAP, Oracle, Microsoft, and Enterprise Capture business lines. ReadSoft delivers large-scale document automation solutions to some of the world’s largest corporates, Shared Service Centers and Business Process Outsourcers. 

With a focus on BPOs’ specific requirements, our solutions enable you to: 

• Quickly and easily integrate new services and technologies
• Quickly set up or modify processes and customers through an easy-to-use graphical interface
• Seamlessly integrate existing technologies into the solution
• Employ best-in-breed technology, including various capture technologies within a single process
• Constantly monitor your production performance in real time, making sure you meet or even exceed Service Level Agreements
• Scale your costs per document

ReadSoft solutions cater to health care, banking and insurance industries, among others, and automate a range of processes; from Human Resources to Finance and Accounting. 

Since it was established in 1991, ReadSoft has grown to become a worldwide group with operations in 17 countries on six continents and a network of local and global partners. The headquarters are located in Helsingborg, Sweden, and the ReadSoft stock is traded on the NASDAQ OMX Stockholm’s Small Cap list.

info.readsoft.com

Large BPO enterprises can benefits from fast on-boarding and easy process development thanks to modular operation and an open SOA architecture: Find out how one customer saved 50% on-boarding time,  thanks to reusability and standardization of processes.

The world of sourcing is complex and fast-changing. This 36-page, standalone report unveils the whole world of BPO and sourcing, from offshoring and shared services to more innovative and unusual models, such as crowdsourcing and microsourcing in a unique refernce guide provider by Professor Julia Kotlarsky and other leading commentators. Plus this hard-hitting report explores the challenges facing offshoring as political and economic pressures combine to make domestic employment in the UK, the US and elsewhere a hot and controversial topic. We also gain a privileged look inside emerging BPO models in China with Professor Ilan Oshri, while NelsonHall CEO John Willmott looks ahead at emerging BPO trends for 2013 and beyond.

Chris Middleton, Managing Editor

Scottish Development International (SDI) is the international economic development agency of the Scottish Government. We are able to provide advice and practical support for companies looking to invest in Scotland. Since 2001 we have significantly increased the level of inward investment into Scotland.

SDI provides a wide range of support services including advice, access to specialist expertise, market information, financial assistance, business location information, investor aftercare and specific services covering each phase of international trade activity.

Scotland is an internationally recognised BPO location with an impressive track record and distinguished pedigree. Some of the largest global and European BPOs are based in Scotland, including Teleperformance, HEROtsc, Response, Stellar, Logica, First Data, Capgemini, Vertex and Sykes Enterprises.

There are over 90,000 people employed in 400 BPOs – one in every 30 employees works in a BPO.

Much of our growth and success can be directly attributed to a flexible, stable and motivated workforce with highly developed skills in a mature sector. Overall 400,000 people are employed within finance and business services of which 359,000 are located within Scotland’s central belt ensuring a steady supply of highly skilled staff for the BPO sector.

Additionally, many global and pan European BPOs are attracted to Scotland due to the wealth of multilingual skills. Current BPO’s and contact centres offer a mix of 26 different languages.

According to recent independent research, the majority of BPO operators in Scotland anticipate a rise in staff numbers over the next two years – testament to the strengths of Scotland in this sector.

www.sdi.co.uk

WNS (Holdings) Limited (NYSE: WNS), is a leading global business process outsourcing company providing agile and innovative solutions to leading brands across the globe. WNS was founded as British Airways' captive in 1996; and today, we have risen to a leadership position with more than 200 global clients, serviced by over 25,000 professionals across 30 global delivery centres world-wide, including Costa Rica, India, the Philippines, Poland, Romania, South Africa, Sri Lanka, UK and US. We deliver over 600 processes across industry and functional domains.

WNS is the first organization in the outsourcing world to take a vertical approach to delivery, which implies industry-specific solutions for industries, including Banking & Financial services, Consulting & Professional Services, Healthcare, Insurance, Manufacturing, Retail and Consumer Packaged Goods, Shipping & Logistics, Telecommunications, Travel and Leisure, and Utilities. Our cross-industry solutions include Contact Centre, Finance & Accounting, and Research & Analytics.

We enable clients to outperform with our passion for service and innovation. 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.

www.wns.com

Capgemini BPO has a new approach for managing Governance, Risk, and Compliance (GRC) at the enterprise level. This new platform-enabled service takes an integrated and centralized approach to GRC that breaks through traditional functional silos to deliver effective enterprise risk management and compliance as a continuous process.

Many companies continue to spend large sums of money on periodic audits that are conducted independently for IT, finance and accounting, operations, and regulatory compliance. As such, the audits tend to look at what happened in the past, and it is often too late to take action. What’s more, the siloed methodology makes it difficult for executives to have a uniform view across all functional areas and business units, which can hinder decision making.

Our service allows companies to replace their fragmented and periodic audit projects with a continuous service that provides real time visibility to risk and compliance. The service is enabled by a centralized GRC control center which continuously monitors transactions and controls while applying data analytics to detect control failures and identify potential risks on a real time basis.

The outcome is lower risk with improved controls and compliance at a fraction of the cost.

www.capgemini.com

ReadSoft is leading global provider of software solutions for Document Process Automation. With over 7,000 customers worldwide, ReadSoft has expert experience with SAP, Oracle, Microsoft, and Enterprise Capture business lines. ReadSoft delivers large-scale document automation solutions to some of the world’s largest corporates, Shared Service Centers and Business Process Outsourcers.

With a focus on BPOs’ specific requirements, our solutions enable you to: * Quickly and easily integrate new services and technologies * Quickly set up or modify processes and customers through an easy-to-use graphical interface * Seamlessly integrate existing technologies into the solution * Employ best-in-breed technology, including various capture technologies within a single process * Constantly monitor your production performance in real time, making sure you meet or even exceed Service Level Agreements * Scale your costs per document

ReadSoft solutions cater to health care, banking and insurance industries, among others, and automate a range of processes; from Human Resources to Finance and Accounting.

Since it was established in 1991, ReadSoft has grown to become a worldwide group with operations in 17 countries on six continents and a network of local and global partners. The headquarters are located in Helsingborg, Sweden, and the ReadSoft stock is traded on the NASDAQ OMX Stockholm’s Small Cap list.

info.readsoft.com

HP is one of the world’s leading BPO providers.

We provide business process services tuned precisely to meet the needs of private and public sector organisations with complex, mission critical or transaction intensive requirements.

Driving outcomes for our clients:

• Improved business and public outcomes
• Reduced cost of the shared service organisation through leveraging best practices
• Improved efficiency through focusing on standardisation and core competencies
• Increased agility to bring new services and products to customers more quickly
• Enhanced innovation and analytics through technology
• More positive customer and public perception of the organisation through improved controls and transparency

• Increased flexibility, access to skills and free up scarce capital resources.

  By leveraging

• more than 30 years business process outsourcing experience

• the expertise of more than 50,000 professionals in industry services and BPO
• a global delivery footprint with 65 shared services centres and multiple fulfilment centres
• contact centre services from 147 locations in 51 languages
• significant expertise in Six Sigma plus with 4,800+ Green Belts and 150+ Black Belts

• our continuing investment in technology and our global BPO platform.

  HP’s solutions

• Finance and accounting

• Procurement Services
• HR & Payroll
• CRM Services
• Document Management
• Industry Solutions for government, financial services and commerce

www.hp.com/go/bpo

Malaysia has a vibrant ICT and Services industry that is world-class, confirmed by the AT Kearney 2004 to 2011 Offshore Location Attractiveness Index, which ranks Malaysia as the world's third most attractive Shared Services & Outsourcing (SSO) location.

The services sector is a major contributor to the growth of the Malaysian economy and functions include IT services, shared services and business process outsourcing (BPO), regional headquarters, research and development (R&D), training and environmental management. The new emerging trend of Knowledge Process Outsourcing (KPO) is also booming as Malaysia positions itself as a high value delivery center. Within the region, Malaysia is seen to be strong in Finance and Accounting sector and is currently providing high complex task rather than just a call center.

Malaysia`s attractiveness as a regional/global SSO hub is evident by the many world-class companies like AMD, BMW, DHL, HSBC, IBM, Intel, Motorola, Nokia, Shell, Unisys and many others that have set up their base of regional and global operations here. To date, there are over 220 Shared Services & Outsourcing companies in Malaysia ranging from major local players to multinationals. Malaysia is also home to 250 call centers.

The pulling factor has been contributed to the core competencies of Malaysia such as a well-educated and multi-lingual workforce, a world-class infrastructure at lower cost, as well as a conducive business environment. Malaysia is an ideal location for most offshoring activities ranging from the back office operations to upstream activities such as research, design and development to downstream activities such as marketing.

www.outsourcingmalaysia.org.my

Parseq is an organisation offering Next Generation Contact Centre and Finance and Accounting Back Office Processing services to organisations who wish to work with a trusted partner who can offer scalable, agile solutions to specific business issues. Parseq has the scale and capability to meet the needs of organisations both large and small through the delivery of discrete services via our four UK based shared service centres. We are trusted by our customers to process over 75,000 items of incoming mail (both paper and electronic) every day, £2 Billion pounds worth of electronic payments every month, and make and receive over 9 million calls per annum on behalf of our Contact Centre clients

Parseq provides outsourcing services to over 60 clients in the UK and Europe, in the Financial Services, Utilities, Retail, Not for Profit and Public Sector Industries. Many of our clients have had a relationship with Parseq for over 30 years, built upon the following key principles :- * Trust – In our ability to deliver business critical financial transaction processes, on time, accurately & securely. * Value – In our commitment to continually improve processes & technology, driving improvements * Openness – In our engagements to develop long-term, trusted partner-based relationships

www.parseq.com

Teleperformance is the global leader in customer experience and transactional management, as recognised by leading BPO analysts. It has over 135,000 people in 49 countries and handles over 1.5 billion transactions annually for high profile projects that are often characterised as multi-disciplinary and complex.

Our clients choose us because they want a level of service that is exceptional, to protect their reputation and improve their customers’ experience. We understand their markets and the have the deep experience to provide the solutions they need; offer the financial stability of our global Group and have the ability to invest in our services and partnerships.

Our business objective is to productively deploy top quality, well trained people in the optimal geographic delivery location supported by world class business solutions, so as to exceed client expectations and continue reaffirming our position as market leading provider. In doing so, we take fullest advantage of our position of global leader and of the people excellence, processes and technologies available throughout our UK and worldwide network to drive sustained growth within our business above the forecast market rate.

www.outsourcingmalaysia.org.my

Readsoft, the leading global provider of automation through technology for businesses that wish to manage and improve back office processes, has published a White Paper to help Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) companies consider how to develop their business through technology to offer enhanced service to customers.

The White Paper enables BPO providers to consider the key issues when looking to develop technology solutions that ensure they remain competitive and add value to their customers in a climate of global economic uncertainty.

Customer behaviours are changing and becoming increasingly difficult to predict. The rise of social media and the ubiquity of internet enabled mobile devices are eroding the dominace of voice as an interaction channel. As customer behaviour changes, the organisations that serve them must change too.