Hinduja Global Solutions

Hinduja Global Solutions: A legacy expanding horizons and transforming businesses with its global delivery network

Our journey has just begun, asserts CEO Partha DeSarkar

Indian Business Process Management (BPM) industry has notably catered a multifold contribution to India's growth and development with its tremendous expansion and transformation in a very short time.

Not only has it balanced local development but benefited the country's vast pool of talent, created an innovation platform, and put India on the global stage as a big BPM hub.

The industry accounts for 37% of the global outsourced Business Process Management (BPM) market, earlier referred to as the Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) market.

With the largest BPM base of over 2,500 companies in the world, the sector totaled US$30 billion in revenue in FY2017, a growth of 7.4%. NASSCOM has projected that the BPM sector in India is expected to reach $54billion in revenue by 2025.

Today, organizations embark on the BPM journey for greater business agility that can help them respond quickly to evolving customer demands or competitive and environmental threats with new products/ services and enable changes to their business strategies.

They need the ability to expand quickly or to restrict their networks of business partners. In this context, BPM is seen as an effective business agility enabler.

Amongst the leading BPM companies driving agility for clients is Hinduja Global Solutions, a $555-million subsidiary of the multi-billion dollar Hinduja Group,with more than four-decades of experience in BPM globally.

The company is contributing to the prosperity of notable Global 500 as well as Fortune 1000 brands worldwide by optimizing the customer experience through consumer interaction solutions, platform-based back-office services and digital enablement solutions and shaping their competitiveness.

Hinduja Global Solutions:  Innovation, Value and Growth

Since its incorporation in 2000, HGS has been delivering expertise avant-garde outsourcing solutions for its clients worldwide. What started from Bangalore as a 23-member team supporting one healthcare client has now grown organically and inorganically to over 44,200 employees spread across 68 delivery centers in seven countries and supporting 180+ BPM clients and 614 HRO clients.

By instilling analytics and interaction transformation design to deliver growth, innovation and thought leadership, HGS increases revenue, improves operating efficiency and helps to retain valuable customers for its clients worldwide.

HGS' expertise spans the telecommunications and media, healthcare, insurance, banking, consumer electronics and technology, retail, consumer packaged goods industries and the public sector.

In the last two years, HGShas focused onthree big solution areas to drive growth: HGS RPA, DigiCX and Analytics, and has made good progress across all the three.Under the DigiCX suite, HGS has launched new service offerings across various digital channels that can help clients deal with today's digital challenges.

DigiCXsuite of solutions was recently recognized by Frost and Sullivan in the category of new product innovation.

HGS has set up an Automation Centre of Excellence (CoE), which supports several client engagements in healthcare and BFSI today. This CoEis helping provide value addition to clients through RPA, artificial intelligence and analytics to drive cost takeout and higher customer experience transformation.

The work involves automating several large and routine processes like claims and contract transactions, data verification through chat BOTS and virtual agents etc.

Revenue Mix & Business Highlights

HGS has been witnessing a scintillating growth right from the time of its formation. Since last five years, the company has a CAGR of almost 20% in revenue.

HGS finished FY2017 with a robust performance, growing by 11.5% led by strong volumes from existing and new clients, and acquisitions. In terms of revenue by origination, the US is the biggest market while India is growing fast.

In FY2017, the company signed 15 new clients across different channels of customer experience. During the year, HGS opened seven new centres: two in Jamaica, one in Philippines and four in India, of whichone each is in Chennai and Raipur, and two in Bangalore.

Healthcare continues to be the biggest vertical focus for HGS, which has developed holistic lifecycle management expertise to build long-term relationships for healthcare clients and their customers (members and patients).

With a concierge approach and 24x7x365 service, the team of 15,000+ healthcare professionals help simplify the coordination of care and flow of information among patients, insurers, and physicians by integrating the healthcare front office with the claims and back office.

HGS' Core Expertise

• Voice Contact Center Services which includes Sales, Marketing & Growth, Customer Care & Retention, Product Support & Resolution

• DigiCX Services catering its clients' growth with DNA, DigiWEB, DigiCHAT, DigiTEXT, DigiSOCIAL, DigiINSIGHT, DigiAMBASSADOR and DigiEMAIL

• Marketing and Digital Enablement Services including CX Management, Digital Enablement, Social Media Engagement and Digital Marketing

• Business Services together with Transaction Services, HRO Solutions, and B2B Sales Support 

Why Clients Come to HGS?

Today, change is the only constant in the business world. Enterprises across industries are increasingly looking for partners who can be transformation catalysts in helping them cope with change. HGS is seen as a facilitator who can deliver higher quality capabilities and have strategic impact on a client's business.

HGS creates sustainable competitive advantage for its clients by enabling them to sell and procure better, leveraging its expertise in process re-engineering, technology, analytics and knowledge of markets.  72% of the firm's clients have been with the company for more than a decade and have achieved their business goals with the support of HGS.

The company's long tenured relationships across the entire consumer channel suite, allow HGS to act on their clients' behalf to resolve and support their clients with deep industry insight in all methods that the consumers desire – voice, web, email, paper, SMS, Social Media, video, IVR and self-service.

Apart from innovative solutions and partnerships, HGS drives a unique operating model in the UK, Canada and USA, wherein the company's local CEOs and leadership teams operate their business with complete P+L accountability and empowerment. 

These teams are from the local markets with intimate knowledge of these markets and provide extensive local client insight. The BPM major's onshore strategy and investments has paid off, with 60+% of revenue being delivered domestically.

This has enabled empathy and consumer centricity to effectively support the company's clients and their customers.

CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY

HGS' fundamental approach to business is to create long-term sustainable value for its clients, employees, shareholders and society. The company believes in being locally relevant and is committed to making a positive contribution to the communities in which it operates and thrives.

Across the globe, the regional offices play an important role in designing, implementing and monitoring community outreach programs through active collaboration with universities, charities, NGOs and clients to promote education, fund cancer research, stimulate entrepreneurship, provide disaster relief, create employment opportunities for military veterans in the US or improve life for under privileged children.

The community engagement programs also reflect elements of HGS' global sustainability strategy, which maintain a firm focus on carbon footprint reduction, local sourcing and elimination of energy/water wastage.

In India, HGS focuses on four areas – education, healthcare, skill development of underserved youth and empowering Persons with Disabilities (PwDs) – that it believes will impact India's future growth and prosperity.

HGS has partnered with several renowned NGOs with different work areas in the past few years, who share a similar vision to achieve a positive impact on society holistically.  Over 2.2 lakh people will directly benefit from these programs.  

MILESTONES  IN HINDUJA GLOBAL SOLUTIONS' JOURNEY

*No of clients include in BPM and Payroll/ HRO

Owing to its growth in recent times, HGS has moved up the NASSCOM listing of Top 15 ITeS BPO Exporters and Top 20 IT BPO Employers.

Other recognition include winning the Gold Stevie®Award for Best Use of Technology in Customer Service in the 12th Annual International Business Awards, 2016 and award for Outstanding Partnership of the Year in the Best Self Service Technology at the Contact Centre World Awards.

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In a conversation with The CEO Magazine,Partha DeSarkar, Global CEO of HGS, spoke on a wide range of issues concerning his company.  Here are the excerpts…

The CEO Magazine: Where does HGS stand in the global marketplace?

Partha:  We are a truly international business.  HGS operates on a global landscape with 44,000+ employees in 68 locations delivering localized solutions to 180+ global brands.

Our strong expertise in voice and non-voice interactions, led by technology-based solutions, help us to deliver innovation quality service to our clients and their customers every day.

At a conservative estimate, we handle over 250 million interactions and 50 million data transactions per annum across 37 global languages.

TCM:  How does HGS retain uniqueness despite being diversified on the basis of segments and geographies? What is the secret formula behind this?

Partha:I think the critical ingredients behind our success has been our domain expertise and commitment to quality, and we proudly demonstrate this via our assorted products and offerings.

We are good at what we do and that has led us to have long-term business associations of 10 years, 15 years and even 20 years with many of our clients.

We keep our values globally local. We deep dive into geographies to study the core business trends there, invest in local leadership and infuse our rich expertise to stand as a truly international brand.

TCM: Was venturing into various geographies across the globe  a corporate challenge?

Partha: Initially it was, but with time it has turned out to be an opportunity to open doors and expand HGS globally. Getting into anew market is challenging; you might have to make changes in your business strategies and even solutions too. But our operating principle of being 'Globally Local' has crafted out our presence more strongly in the international market.

TCM: What route map has been laid for Hinduja Global Solutions for its future voyage?

Partha:We started from one center in Bangalore and have now expanded to 68 locations globally.  Life and business are all about learning new visions and creating new versions. We don't want to leave any stone unturned.

We are focusing on three different areas: First is to drive higher growth in our healthcare vertical through organic route as well look for acquisitions. We expect growth coming from India, Philippines and Jamaica operations. Second is to expand our geographical presence.

We have recently opened new centers in Raipur and Indore, and want to further outline our presence in South America and Europe, keeping up our long-term plans and potential clients in mind.

We also expect to reap the benefits of significant investments made in organic expansion and ramp-ups, acquisitions and the launch of innovative solutions in FY2017.

The technology-led solutions under our Unified Customer Experience Strategy are resonating with clients, leading to a strong pipeline. We are focusing on innovation, product development and digitization as well as enhancing operational efficiencies to further improve overall profitability.

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As the Global CEO, Partha DeSarkar leads the organization across all its geographies. DeSarkar has more than 25 years of experience in customer service and operations across industries like Banking, Financial Services and Health Insurance.

Prior to joining HGS, Partha has worked with Deloitte Consulting, GE Capital International Services and Bank of America. Partha holds a post-graduate degree in Management from the Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Bangalore, and a Masters degree in Technology from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Chennai. He has also done his PhD in Strategic Management at IIT Delhi.