BPO contract awards steadily strengthened in value during 2013 with higher levels of BPO contract value awarded in H2 2013 than in H1 2013. Even allowing for seasonality, this amounted to an ongoing strengthening of BPO contract value in 2013 and promises well for continuing strengthening levels of BPO awards in 2014.

On a geographic basis, the value of BPO contract activity rebounded strongly in 2013 in North America, accompanied by strong growth, albeit from a low base, in the emerging markets of Asia Pacific, Latin America, and the Middle East. In North America, the increase in BPO contract value was broad-based across federal government, state government, and the commercial sector, with BPO contract value in the North American commercial sector awarded in 2013 growing by 49%.

Europe also showed strong BPO contract value growth in the commercial sector, up 39%, and some growth in U.K. central government, but a relatively low level of activity in the traditionally strong U.K. local government BPO market leading to some fall-off in overall BPO TCV in both Europe and globally.

The net result was a 4% decline in BPO contract value globally year-on-year in 2013, but in an encouraging scenario for the market where the commercial sector performed strongly. Within the commercial sector, the two most strongly performing sectors in 2013 were the banking sector and the telecoms sector, with the retail banks re-engaging with BPO and being strongly joined by capital markets firms. This contributed to a strengthening of front-office and middle-office BPO relative to back-office BPO.

The top ten vendors in terms of announced BPO TCV in 2013 were Capita, Serco, Maximus, Accenture, Atos, Quindell, Steria, Alliance Data, HP, Convergys, Communisis, and Aon Hewitt,