Skip to Main Content
Close
Access your saved content
As business process outsourcing (BPO) matures, companies are forming collaborative partnerships with their outsourcing providers to use analytics to improve business outcomes.
BPO providers already have a large amount of valuable data about their clients’ processes, and analytics can unlock significant value. We identify three ways in which BPO providers can deliver business value using analytics.
Every day, businesses generate a sea of data. Some have difficulty unlocking the potential of the data they generate. But others take a savvier approach—leveraging the vast quantities of information their business processes generate to not only enhance their operations and drive cost reductions but also—and more important—to strengthen their competitive position and predict future trends. In the realm of BPO, we call this approach “improving business outcomes.”
As the BPO industry has matured, so has its ability to improve business outcomes. Accenture High Performance BPO research revealed that the BPO industry is moving toward a “cost-plus” value proposition that focuses on business impact and not just operational cost reduction. Yet the survey of more than 260 client buyer executives also reveals that a relatively small number of enterprises, also known as the high performers, have been able to extract greater strategic business value through a number of best-in-class behaviors, including their ability to forge relationships with BPO providers that help them make intelligent use of analytics to deliver exceptional business results.
BPO providers that excel at analytics leverage sophisticated tools and techniques for statistical surveying, root-cause analysis and process optimization. But the most potent BPO analytics are built on what’s already a solid foundation of comprehensive data the provider has accumulated about a client’s business processes and how they are performing. Most importantly, the provider must transform that information into a digestible format, and then apply process and industry understanding to identify opportunities for improvements.
Accenture’s use of analytics generates valuable business outcomes for clients in three ways—and all companies should aim for the same results with their outsourcing providers:
Improve operational engines. Our use of analytics gives clients a single source of high-quality data about the performance of a process or function—data that are measured and recorded consistently.
Uncover hidden insights. We generate additional insights by tracking data across different parts of the client's organization, using these insights to optimize business outcomes or to balance competing objectives.
Innovate to drive top-line growth. We help clients manage data—from the front office, back office or both—to generate process innovations or improve time to market to increase revenue.
May 2012