'India will continue to be BPM industry leader'

The $534-mn, NYSE-listed business process management (BPM) company WNS Global Services was recently included in the much coveted ‘Winner’s Circle’ of the HfS Insurance As-a-Service Blueprint report. In an interaction with Deccan Herald’sN V Vijayakumar, Group CEO of WNS Keshav R Murugesh explains what sets the company apart.

Can you explain the trajectory of the Indian BPM industry?

India had been widely considered as the cost arbitrage centre for its global BPM industry. But to stay relevant in the industry, we have to bring in value addition and innovation. BPM is no longer about working in graveyard shifts and taking umpteen number of calls, but more about how employees can directly make a business impact when servicing their clients. India will continue to be the leader of this industry. It will be an exciting destination area of BPM globally. We will provide quality people for this industry and 40 per cent of the talent in BPM are women. This is ample proof of how inclusive our workforce is.
 
What are the technologies which will impact the industry?

Nasscom has stated that automation and Robotics Process Automation (RPA) are expected to impact around 6-8 per cent of the overall BPM spending by 2017 compared with less than one per cent now. Indian companies will be moving towards RPA soon. Its impact will go up further by 2025 when as much as 30-40 per cent of the overall BPO work will be driven by RPA, states a report prepared by Nasscom and Everest Group. The industry is witnessing these developments at a time when the BPM sector has seen revenue growth of 10-12 per cent. Nasscom has also set an ambitious revenue target of $50 billion by 2020.

What should India do to retain its edge in the industry?

It is imperative that India is looked upon as a destination that can do value-added work, instead of cost arbitrage.  The BPM sector’s overall value has grown by 15 per cent and the number of deals have dropped by 25 per cent, as clients are opting for bundled offerings that combined IT services and BPM. The industry is witnessing attrition rates around the 18-20 per cent mark. In FY15, the sector added 43,000 employees, of which 60 per cent were recruited from tier-1 cities.

Can you share your experience in WNS?

WNS is proud to be part of the ‘Winner’s Circle’ in the recent HfS Insurance As-a-Service Blueprint report. We believe that this report serves to highlight our core differentiators in the BPM Insurance space, which include deep domain expertise to handle complex insurance processes, technology-enabled services and solutions, embedded analytics, and one of the BPM industry’s largest actuarial practices. WNS offers business value to 200-plus global clients by combining operational excellence with deep domain expertise in key industry verticals.
WNS delivers an entire spectrum of business process management services such as finance and accounting, customer care, technology solutions, research and analytics and industry-specific back office and front office processes. As of June 30, 2015, WNS had 29,672 professionals across 37 delivery centers worldwide including China, Costa Rica, India and the Philippines, among others.

How does WNS differentiate itself?

Our important focus area is how digital disruption is impacting end-customers. Before that we focused on how to reduce cost and worked on a model of putting people in the back-end.

Now customers are working with WNS to help them navigate the course, to understand how new disrupters will impact business.

Since we have invested in varied technologies, our understanding of market intelligence is immense. For the past five years, we have invested time to know the differentiators in business domains. We have invested in technology vertically to understand business. This has helped us to provide value at the high-end. Hence our revenues are far higher and relationship with customers is strong. We are giving thrust on outcome-based solutions. In every vertical we have our own proprietary platform and tools which will enhance efficiency and enhance  profitability.

There are three key differentiators which WNS offers to its clients. First is the end-to-end vertical knowledge. We have gone to the market fully vertically aligned. Second, we have invested massively in technology to drive in nonlinear model of growth where revenues and number of employees are de-linked. Third, our client- centric approach.

How are you looking at research and development in this segment?

WNS has decided to set up two R&D  centres in India to gear up for its next level of journey. These centres will highlight the technology prowess of the company. As a company, we have a capex of $25 million to $30 million this year, which includes R&D spend also.
 
Can you comment on your new solutions?

WNS has recently announced the launch of a new technology solution for the travel and leisure industry. The technology leverages high-end embedded analytics, automation and Web-based ‘on-demand’ infrastructure to address real-life business challenges such as travel disruption, revenue recovery, interline fare audit and queue management. These solutions cut across multiple sectors of the travel and leisure vertical.