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Oct 25, 2024, by Ivan Kotzev
iQor began 2024 with a new CEO, Chris Crowley, and a funding boost by PE Mill Point Capital. iQor is now repositioning for growth, aiming to become a broad partner with existing clients and targeting new verticals. Earlier this month, I attended iQor’s Analyst Day 2024 in Trinidad, where the company is the largest BPS provider and has strong expansion plans.
Solid foundation[...]
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Oct 11, 2024, by Ivan Kotzev
In 2024, WNS rebranded and relaunched its analytics practice to include data, analytics, AI services, and consulting in a unified offering to enable decision intelligence. I spoke with Gautam Singh, the head of WNS Analytics, covering the opportunities and pitfalls of GenAI solutions, the team’s vertical and domain focus, and the company’s vision for productized services.[...]
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Sep 03, 2024, by Ivan Kotzev
In August, NelsonHall spoke with the leadership of Movate AI to discuss the market expectations and challenges of AI integration, their in-house holistic framework, target applications, existing deployments, and how the company plans to build commercial relationships around this AI reinvention model.
From platform to framework to dedicated AI unit
Like most BPS players, Movate [...]
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Jul 03, 2024, by Ivan Kotzev
In July 2023, the U.K. Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) introduced Consumer Duty, a set of rules and guidelines to drive companies to deliver good outcomes for customers. By the end of July 2024, firms are required to ensure the application of Consumer Duty to closed products and services. ArvatoConnect shared its approach to enabling the adoption of Consumer Duty by its clients and[...]
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Jun 25, 2024, by Ivan Kotzev
In May, Alorica announced the appointment of Mike Clifton and Max Schwendner as Co-Chief Executive Officers. Prior, Mike was the company’s Chief Growth and Transformation Officer, and Max was President Business Services and Chief Financial Officer. I spoke with them earlier this month to discuss their vision for the company and its position in the evolving CX services market.
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Apr 05, 2024, by Ivan Kotzev
Populii is Tech Mahindra’s enterprise gig marketplace for data collection, user studies, and microtasks. NelsonHall recently spoke with Populii executives about the platform’s current capabilities and growth plans in support of the exploding AI data training market.
Human annotation and specialized microtasks
Populii is a gig community platform offering data collect[...]
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Mar 15, 2024, by Ivan Kotzev
In February 2024, ResultsCX made its third European acquisition since 2022, adding U.K. specialist BPS and CX services provider Huntswood. This move complements ResultsCX’s roadmap to gain a presence in European markets, diversify offshore delivery, and target the high-growth financial services sectors. I recently spoke with ResultsCX MD & CEO Rajesh Subramaniam about the d[...]
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Jan 05, 2024, by Ivan Kotzev
2023 was a very dynamic year in CX services with large-scale market consolidation, significant growth deceleration, and sizable investment in AI technology, especially GenAI.
In 2024, the role of agent augmentation technology will only increase, talent management will come to the forefront of vendor priorities, and clients will focus on delivery diversification, security, and reve[...]
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Oct 04, 2023, by Ivan Kotzev
I spoke with Bharath Vasudevan, Chief Capability Officer, Tech Mahindra Business Process Services, on the company’s investments in GenAI, the business challenges it addresses, and the longer-term effects on CX services.
What are some of the immediate opportunities for using GenAI?
Bharath Vasudevan (BV): Like every other technology disruption, at Tech Mahindra we look at [...]
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Aug 16, 2023, by Ivan Kotzev
AI-generated text and voice have significant applications in CX services, with multilingual support now offering the most transformative use cases. Transcom has been actively building its capabilities in AI voice with its T:Translate platform and already has live implementations.
Integrating AI translation into the existing CX ecosystem
T:Translate is an automated real-time tr[...]
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Jul 17, 2023, by Ivan Kotzev
The opportunities and applications of generative AI are the most pressing topics for IT and CX managers alike. Movate is moving aggressively in the space by developing a set of offerings and platform accelerators and then piloting with enterprise brands to gain first-mover advantage. I spoke with Movate last week to discuss their generative AI journey and the first business outcomes [...]
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May 05, 2023, by Ivan Kotzev
In the last week of March, Teleperformance made two significant announcements. The first was the planned acquisition of 100% of Majorel shares for a total consideration of €3bn, including €1bn of Teleperformance shares in exchange. The transaction will create a company with $12bn in annual revenue (end of 2023 estimate). The second statement came during the Q1 results, wher[...]
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Apr 26, 2023, by Ivan Kotzev
Travel and hospitality are among the fastest-growing CX services sectors in 2023, with the market recovering to pre-pandemic levels. However, while vendors and clients are trying to adapt to the increased demand, they face higher costs, changing customer requirements, and more IROPs.
In February, Conduent was awarded a CX services contract by Virgin Atlantic to manage rebookings a[...]
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Mar 31, 2023, by Ivan Kotzev
This week, Concentrix announced the planned acquisition of Webhelp in the largest CX services deal yet. The total transaction value for Concentrix is $4.8bn in the form of cash, stock, and a seller note for 100% of Webhelp. Upon closing the deal by the end of the year, Concentrix shareholders will own ~78% of the combined company, with Webhelp shareholders ~22%.
Number 1 CX servic[...]
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Jan 30, 2023, by Ivan Kotzev
Revenue generation services are the fastest growing LOBs within CX outsourcing at over 9% CAAGR through 2026 globally (NelsonHall forecast). While the focus of most new revenue generation programs is on the consumer space, enterprise and mid-market client onboarding, sales, and retention are also becoming highly promising areas and the next growth engine for the leading CX services p[...]
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Dec 21, 2022, by Ivan Kotzev
As we end a relatively successful and dynamic 2022 for CX services, here’s a look at some developments we expect in the new year.
CX services market is slowing down
The CX services market had a strong CY 2022, with most top 10 players registering high single-digit organic growth in Q3. The macroeconomic headwinds already started to impact the second half of 2022, with inc[...]
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Oct 27, 2022, by Ivan Kotzev
In January 2022, Tech Mahindra acquired BPS provider Allyis. Allyis offers digital experience, cloud, AI, & engineering, data & analytics, and technical support services and has actively built trust and safety, content moderation, and content enhancement services. The deal complements Tech Mahindra's strategy over the last seven years to acquire and expand into experience[...]
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Sep 20, 2022, by Ivan Kotzev
In September 2022, CSS Corp announced a new name and brand identity: Movate. "Movate" promotes the company's commitment to achieving outcomes for its clients and co-innovating with them. The brand signifies Momentum and Innovation, the two core themes for the company. A key part of Movate's innovation framework is flexible gig work and work-from-anywhere delivery. I[...]
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Jun 09, 2022, by Ivan Kotzev
Machine translation has been one of the fastest developing areas of AI in the last five years and has quickly become a target investment for CX services players. As the technology evolves from statistical analysis to the use of neural networks, CX services companies start to benefit at scale. Webhelp has been active in the space for several years, initially through partnerships with [...]
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Apr 28, 2022, by Ivan Kotzev
Turkey has been a success story for nearshore European CX services for several years. At the start of 2022, Majorel officially acquired Mayen Telekomünikasyon Hizmetleri A.Ş. (Mayen), an independent Turkish BPO. In this blog, I review the growth of Turkey's CX services and its challenges, Majorel’s expansion in the region, and the opportunities arising from the deal.
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Apr 19, 2022, by Ivan Kotzev
After several months of speculation, Konecta and Comdata announced their planned merger, creating a $2bn CX services provider that positions it in the global top 10. The deal is a strategic move to respond to the growing market demand for CX transformation capabilities, greater technology investments, and a multinational scale.
Konecta-Comdata combined
The merger, subject to ap[...]
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Mar 15, 2022, by Ivan Kotzev
NelsonHall recently published a CX Operations Transformation market analysis, with growth forecasts and highlights of the major client requirements, challenges, and success factors for the adoption of next-gen CX. Here is an abbreviated look at the state of the market in Q1 2022 and several expected short-term scenarios.
2021 was a good year for CX services
After the disruptive first nine mo[...]
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Feb 18, 2022, by Ivan Kotzev
Over the last several years, TTEC has been actively investing in EMEA and looking to bring its technology development and CX transformation services to the region. I spoke with Alistair Niederer, Senior VP, Head of Europe, Middle East & Africa, about the company's growth plans, what's happening in the CX services industry, and best practices for CX leaders.
What are th[...]
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Nov 24, 2021, by Ivan Kotzev
This week, Concentrix announced its agreement to acquire PK, a U.S. CX design engineering firm, for ~$1.6bn from PE Carlyle Group. PK will add significant scale and IT capabilities in CX transformation and will enhance Concentrix’s play in the fast-growing intersection of cloud technology, automation and analytics assets, and digital customer journeys.
Digital and human asse[...]
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Oct 26, 2021, by Ivan Kotzev
Humble beginnings
Tech Mahindra and Vodafone New Zealand began their partnership in 2017 with a proof of concept for leveraging RPA in billing for one customer segment. Following its success, it evolved to a complete revamp of the telecom’s CX operating model using automation.
The two companies created a shared team to discover, perform RPA feasibility checks, justify, an[...]