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Alorica Acquires EGS to Become Global Top 3 CMS Vendor: Healthcare Business Key to Growth
Jun 02, 2016, by NelsonHall AnalystAndy Lee, Alorica founder and CEO, shared with me last summer that his goal was to become the number one CMS vendor (by revenue) serving N. America. Well, now he is closing in on that goal, with Alorica entering into a stock purchase agreement to acquire Expert Global Solutions (EGS). With EGS, we estimate Alorica’s pro forma 2015 North American revenues are ~$1.8bn, closing the re[...]
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The Renaissance of Self-Service: Are CMS Vendors Ready?
Mar 24, 2016, by Ivan KotzevSelf-service has long been part of the customer service mix, dating back to user manuals, and progressing to the first IVRs, website FAQs, and experience sharing communities such as Amazon Help. Even though self-service support has a wide range of benefits and savings for consumers and businesses, its adoption has been slow – due partly to technological limitations, and to a tendency to use [...]
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Wipro’s Marvel CX: Marrying Automation & Analytics to Improve Customer Experience
Jan 11, 2016, by Ivan KotzevThe biggest advantage of automation in CMS has been the ability to simplify, optimize and remove redundant workflow steps in the contact centers’ internal processes with the goal of improving the customer experience, and an end-game for vendors of increasing the number of value-add projects with their clients. Wipro’s Marvel CX is aiming to do exactly that. Marvel CX’s compone[...]
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Minacs’ CRM Ecosystem: Getting Closer to the Customer with ALT CRM
Dec 18, 2015, by Ivan KotzevSince the first customer and marketing databases in the 80s, to the fully-fledged CRM platforms of the 90s, to the cloud-based CRMs of the 00s and the Social CRM of the 2010s, CRM platforms have had the same goal and challenge – to successfully match customers with companies. With the proliferation of more channels, and changing customer expectations for effortless and real-time interaction,[...]
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The Edge of Tomorrow: Automation, AI & IoT in the Contact Center
Dec 02, 2015, by Ivan KotzevThe future of contact centers is in automation, self-learning AI, support for IoT, and engaging customers and agents at a new level. These were the major themes at the fourth annual Customer Engagement Summit in London on November 26th. Close to 700 delegates and 60 speakers met to compare notes and listen to success stories in robotics implementations, results driven by analytics, and connecting [...]
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IBM Cloud Infrastructure Investments Lead IBM Outsourcing Transformation
Feb 04, 2015, by Rachael StormonthOverall IBM Group revenues in 2014 declined 6% (-1% in CC and excluding divestitures). However, IBM is in the midst of a major adjustment of its portfolio. In line with this, the company is reporting $25bn in revenues (and 16% revenue growth) in 2014 (out of a total of $92.8bn) from its "strategic imperatives". IBM's acquisition of Softlayer, where it continues to invest strongly,[...]
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Alliance Data Buys a Winner with Conversant
Sep 11, 2014, by Andy EfstathiouAlliance Data is to acquire Conversant for $23bn to expand its digital marketing services capabilities. The acquisition will be paid for half in stock and half in cash (at tendering shareholders' discretion). Post closing, Conversant will operate as a part of Epsilon, a digital marketing services division of Alliance Data. The transaction is expected to close in Q4 201[...]
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Brazil's Not Playing Ball But Teleperformance Continues to Blaze
May 23, 2014, by NelsonHall AnalystTeleperformance has had an impressive quarter that might have resulted in 9.1% growth if it wasn't for the extremely unfavorable exchange rate fluctuations which resulted in an overall negative impact of €32.7m ($44.2m). Despite this Teleperformance achieved 3% y/y revenue growth in the quarter to €610m. Growth in the English-speaking market & Asia-Pacific SBU w[...]
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Serco's Profits Decline Following its Annus Horribilis
Mar 04, 2014, by NelsonHall AnalystSerco announced its 2013 results this week including: Revenue £4,288.1m up +5.6%, up +6.7% at constant currency (CC) Operating profit was £143.8m, a margin of 3.4%, down 330 bps The decline in profits was anticipated with a warning given by the company to this effect only a few weeks ago. In this period, Serco reported a net exceptional charge of £90.5m, reflecting p[...]
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Xerox Services Q4 2013 Results: Needs to Improve Margin In 2014
Jan 24, 2014, by Rachael StormonthXerox Services financial performance in Q4 and full year 2013 had some clear positives. Looking at signings: Full year 2013 signings were up 20%, with BPO and ITO renewal rate at 92%, above the target range of 85% to 90% and 7 points higher than 2012. And new business signings was up 9% in BPO and up and up 23% in Document Outsourcing (DO) In Q4 2013, overall signings TCV was flat y/y w[...]
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CMS BPO: Vendor Consolidation Kicks Off 2014
Dec 20, 2013, by NelsonHall AnalystCustomer management services (CMS) is no longer the red-headed step-child of the BPO world. In spite of the exit from this area of IBM, most CMS pureplays are currently achieving improving margins and revenue growth. With multi-channel delivery proving crucial in winning new contracts, and the increasing importance of big data and analytics in the value proposition, 2014 is set to be an extr[...]
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LATAM CMS BPO Market: Next Big Wave Forms Around Higher-End Support
Dec 17, 2013, by NelsonHall AnalystLatin America has become an increasingly popular destination for the customer management services (CMS) BPO industry in recent years, outperforming the global CMS market. Will this continue? NelsonHall expects the global CMS BPO market to grow at 3.7% CAAGR through to 2016 with Latin America growing at more than twice that. So what is driving that growth? Much of the growth from this region is [...]
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Evolving a CMS Client Relationship: A Sutherland Case Example
Jun 16, 2016, by Ivan KotzevIncreasing emphasis on improved customer experience is driving customer management services (CMS) outsourcing deals to evolve, with vendors providing domain expertize, analytical insights, transformational capabilities, and access to new channels/technology across the entire contract duration. On the client side, this translates into working with fewer vendors sourcing multiple functions and geogr[...]
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Sitel Chennai: Improving Processes & People for Enhanced Customer Experience
May 25, 2016, by Ivan KotzevNelsonHall recently visited Sitel at their contact center in Chennai to experience operations at first hand and to discuss the evolving CMS outsourcing industry. Only five months ago, in December 2015, the South Indian floods hit Chennai and access to the Sitel center was blocked. Over 70 employees stayed behind in the office at Ramanujam IT Park, where the company provided beds and food, while tr[...]
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Sutherland Labs: Getting Under the Skin of Customer Behavior
Nov 18, 2015, by Ivan KotzevMinutes away from London’s Covent Garden, housed in a five-storey converted banana warehouse, is Sutherland Customer Experience Labs. This is an independent creative agency with its own P&L, offering customer experience mapping, idea generation and solution testing to Sutherland Global Services. However, three quarters of its business comes from external clients: delivering design and cu[...]
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Risk & Reward: The Rise of the Turkish CMS Market
Nov 03, 2015, by Ivan KotzevWebhelp recently entered the Turkish CMS outsourcing market with the acquisition of Callpex, a move that is set to bring an additional €20m (~$20m) in annual revenue against its global revenue of ~$648m (2014 NelsonHall estimate). Callpex has 2,000 employees and 40 clients, and will bring with it logos in the BFSI, telecom, travel and automotive sectors, primarily in the domestic market. Thes[...]
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Capita’s Offer to Xchanging: How it Makes Sense
Oct 19, 2015, by Rachael StormonthOn October 14, the Xchanging board recommended a final cash offer by Capita of 160p per share. The offer, valuing Xchanging at ~£412m, represents a premium of ~44% to the closing price on October 2, 2015 (the last business day before the start of the offer period), 52% to the prior three-month average price and 64% to the one-month average price. Capita states it believes the acquis[...]
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CSS Corporation Looks to Simplify the Customer Experience
Oct 05, 2015, by NelsonHall AnalystAt CSS Corp’s analyst day and OneWorld client conference in Santa Rosa, California, the theme was “Let’s Simplify”. CEO Tiger Ramesh opened the analyst day with a story about his own digital experience travelling to the conference, including buying his airline ticket online, and piloting a hotel phone app he used to select his room and take restaurant recommendations. He us[...]
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Alorica Doubles CMS Business & Enters Global Top Ten with West Acquisition
Aug 06, 2015, by NelsonHall AnalystI recently had the opportunity to meet with the Alorica executive team for an update on the integration of its recent acquisition, West Corporation’s Agent Services business. In March 2015, privately held Alorica acquired West’s Agent Services business for $275m in cash. In 2014, the Agent Services business generated ~$580m in revenue. Alorica anticipates $1.2bn in combined revenue [...]
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Convergys’ IC Division Takes Entrepreneurial Approach to Pricing & Analytics
Jun 03, 2015, by NelsonHall AnalystNelsonHall recently visited one of Convergys’ Intelligent Contact (IC) centers in Belfast, Northern Ireland. IC originally started life as LBM in 1996, then was acquired by Stream in 2013, which was itself acquired by Convergys in 2014. IC is a specialist sales division of Convergys, consisting of agents across multiple centers in Belfast and Greater Manchester, performing a mix of outb[...]
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Analytics & Transformation in CMS: What’s Really Happening?
May 28, 2015, by NelsonHall AnalystTwo common themes in the marketing collateral of vendors providing Customer Management Services (CMS) are the use of analytics and transformation. For analytics, a popular claim is the use of big data for predictive modeling within contact centers. But is it really happening? The reality is that, while certain vendors are using data for simple predictive modeling, this is still a distinct[...]
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HGS’ London Center Focused on Broad Language Coverage & Bespoke Customer Support Services
Apr 30, 2015, by NelsonHall AnalystDuring a recent visit to London I had the opportunity to visit the HGS contact center in Chiswick. The 500-seat center is focused on supporting accounts with broad language capability needs and it also provides specialist client programs beyond traditional customer care support. The industry sectors supported from the center include automotive, consumer packaged goods (CPG), government, and health[...]
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Honduras Making Strides as a Contact Center Delivery Location
Jan 12, 2015, by NelsonHall AnalystI recently visited San Pedro Sula, Honduras, with CMS vendor Alorica. This nearshore America delivery location offers a low cost, educated workforce with strong native neutral Spanish delivery, as well as emerging support for English and Portuguese. The country is in the process of making English its official second language. Honduras, and specifically the city of San Pedro Sula, have battled n[...]
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Serco's Woes Continue Despite Clearance by U.K. Government to Bid for New Contracts
Jan 31, 2014, by NelsonHall AnalystSerco has updated its guidance for 2013 and 2014 following its clearance by the U.K. government to bid for new contracts. Serco expects a mid-single digit percentage organic decline on 2013 revenue due to: Lower levels of incremental work won across the group to date Attrition from contracts lost such as electronic monitoring Volume reductions in its Australian immigration detent[...]
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Will WAHA Come of Age in 2014?
Jan 22, 2014, by NelsonHall AnalystWork at home agent (WAHA) CMS BPO specialist Arise Virtual Solutions announced this week it is hiring 6,500 WAHAs (who will be equivalent to 3,250 FTEs) across Arizona, North Carolina, Texas, Michigan and Virginia. This marks a turnaround for Arise after what was a difficult 2013 marked by loss of volume in some key contracts and delays in new signings. These hires will represent a 26% increase[...]