Infosys for closer integration of its IT & BPO operations

[gopu]

Infosys Technologies wants to integrate its software and BPO businesses more as part of a strategy to beat the slowdown blues evident from the reduced billing rates and more value that customers are demanding for the same cost.

A report in the Economic Times said the company had started moving senior executives from the tech arm to the BPO arm to facilitate these efforts. For Infosys Tech staffers are at the helm at the KPO, the BPO sales arm and the communication and finance.

It said that the BPO was working jointly with the IT team on solutions, platform-based BPO and transformation challenges. The idea therefore is to move away from the plain BPO services where pricing was based on seats per hour, the new model links firmly to the outcomes and number of transactions.

The article quotes Gopal Devanahalli, VP who heads the Business Unit on Communication Service Provider to state that the company’s strategy was to ensure a closer integration of technology and BPO to make the most of a large opportunity.

And this stems from the belief that real profits for a client comes from areas where there is a direct impact on revenue costs and these usually require not just BPO services, but also technology intervention to improvement fulfillment and assurance.

The company is taking this step despite the fact that transformation initiatives sometimes result in automation of process that could reduce revenues by way of lower number of seats per client at the BPO front. However, the article quotes D Swaminathan, senior VP of Infosys BPO as saying that in the long term this would enhance the breadth of the relationship that the company has with its customers.