The Outsourcing Week in Review: Tuesday, April 18, 2023

Welcome to Inside Outsourcing: The Outsourcing Week in Review

THE WEEK IN REVIEW

Today is International Jugglers Day! And while we aren’t a circus act, we’re always juggling the hottest outsourcing news to keep you to to date. Welcome to Inside Outsourcing! Enjoy!

More than half of companies outsource their business processes to third-party service providers for the productivity and transformation they bring. In a report by B2B Reviews & Rating platform GoodFirms, 55.6% of businesses outsource their processes, while 18.5% of surveyed organizations are in the initiating stage. Of the three business process outsourcing (BPO) categories, 44.4% of businesses prefer offshoring, 32.1% opt for nearshoring, and 17.6% choose onshore based on their outsourcing requisites. GoodFirms also found that among companies that outsource, 75.5% want to increase productivity, 62.1% want to reduce operational complexity, and 58.3% want access to quality resources and services. GoodFirms added that the world is witnessing increasing robotic process automation in the BPO landscape.

Infosys reported a 15.4% increase in its revenue to $18.2 billion in FY2023. Infosys CEO and Managing Director Salil Parekh attributed this significant growth to the continued focus on digital, cloud, and automation capabilities. Infosys Chief Financial Office Nilanjan Roy added that the firm’s “continued focus on cost optimization and operational efficiencies” helped achieve operating margins of 21 in the recently concluded fiscal year.

Outsource Accelerator’s (OA) performance remained strong in March, with 797,849 page views and 251,474 unique visitors for the month. OA’s latest report shows that the outsourcing platform generated a record 1,961 inbound outsourcing inquiries (+25.38%) from 64 countries, representing 28 sectors. For the first time, OA’s outsourcing quotation inquiries for the past 12 months surpassed the US$1 billion mark, with businesses requesting 35,791 full-time roles for a total value of US$1,073,730,000.

Global outsourcing provider Webhelp expanded its outsourced customer experience (CX) program, The Nest, to Israel. Described as a support to global startups, The Nest offers various services to help scale up their teams internationally and improve their CX operations. The Nest by Webhelp Israel Head Kobi Shmerler added that the program allows startups and scale-ups to leverage “Webhelp’s extensive international experience in customer engagement, support, sales, digital content, and payments.” Launched in France in 2018, The Nest already supports dozens of the most dynamic startups, including Ankorstore, Lydia, Swile, and Dream Games, on all their CX needs in over 80 languages.

Following the launch of its world headquarters, outsourcing provider Tri Source International (TSI) is set to open 250 job opportunities in Valencia, California. According to the firm, these new job opportunities would provide personal growth and economic development within the Greater Santa Clarita Valley as TSI prepares to become one of the area’s largest employers. TSI CEO Matt Reeser added that they are committed to creating an “exceptional organizational culture that inspires our employees to grow and thrive.” At the same time,  IT services and consulting firm Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) onboarded over 44,000 fresh graduates in India for FY2023. TCS Chief HR officer Milind Lakkad said that the firm would also honor all job offers made with further plans to create 40,000 campus offers to freshers in FY2023-2024. As of March 31, TCS’s total workforce had already reached 614,795.

Meanwhile, outsourcing M&A activity continues across the sector.

In Canada, tech provider Supra ITS acquired the managed services businesses of Flexity. This acquisition brings Flexity-trained IT personnel, data centers, tools, and processes to Supra ITS. Supra ITS CEO Sanjeev Spolia added that the deal would allow them to enhance their services and improve efficiencies, delivering more value to their customers. Canada-based Bill Gosling Outsourcing (BGO) also completed a deal with India-based contact center and back-office services provider MattsenKumar (MK). In a press release, BGO said this acquisition would offer clients across various industries a comprehensive suite of Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) services. The move would also combine BGO’s expertise in delivering customer experience solutions with MK’s competence in third-party quality, data analytics, and innovation.

After months of internal audit issues and financial discrepancies, management consultancy firm MJ Hudson agreed to sell its data & analytics and BPO units to capital market corporation Apex Fund. Geoff Miller, MJ Hudson Chair, said that Apex offers the right platform for their teams “to continue supporting asset managers with the right resources, advice, and technology.” The acquisition’s £40 million (US$49.7 million) sum will be used to repay MJ Hudson’s £33.7 million (US$41.9 million) debt to financial services company Santander UK.

China’s IT services provider Beyondsoft recently acquired Brazil-based 4MSTech as part of its global expansion strategy. Beyondsoft Executive Director Christiano Knott said the decision is based on Brazil’s strategic position as the largest economy in Latin America and a huge supplier center of talent. 4MSTech provides Microsoft cloud solutions, code development, cloud security, and data center migration.

Partnerships are also on the rise! Staffing firm Naviga Recruiting & Executive Search is collaborating with tech consulting firm Lockstep Technology Group to accelerate the latter’s hiring and growth plans. Lockstep identified a strong need to outsource its talent acquisition systems following its recent acquisitions of two complementary businesses BridgeTekSolutions and Transformyx. Naviga’s recruitment solutions are designed to help employers solve their talent acquisition resource and process challenges on a large scale. Similarly, BPO company Atento renewed its global agreement with telecommunications firm Telefónica until December 31, 2025. Atento CEO Dimitrius Oliveira said he is “very proud” to ratify Telefónica’s confidence in their services. He added that they would continue working with the sole objective of offering the best service to their customers. Atento is one of the leading nearshoring CRM/BPO services providers for companies in the United States (U.S.).

Meanwhile, managed cybersecurity firm Huntress expanded its operations to Australia and New Zealand (ANZ) to “provide increased security and defense” against local cyber attacks and threats in the region. Huntress Regional Director Reece Appleton said the firm heavily invested in cybersecurity experts from ANZ — particularly across their ThreatOps, product support, and sales engineering teams — to understand the local market. Huntress is a Maryland-based firm that provides an easy-to-deploy, low-noise Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) with 24/7 management ThreatOps teams across the U.S., the United Kingdom, and Australia.

In other news, questions were raised after the think tank Economic Policy Institute (EPI) claimed that U.S.-based outsourcing companies exploit the H-1B visa program to underpay migrant workers and offshore jobs to other countries. In its latest report, EPI revealed that 13 of the top 30 H-1B visa employers last year were outsourcing agencies. However, National Foundation for American Policy Executive Director Stuart Anderson argued that U.S. companies contract with staffing and outsourcing firms because they need the specialized IT services provided by H-1B workers. California Reps. Anna Eshoo and Zoe Lofgren, Homeland Security Sec. Alejandro Mayorkas and USCIS Director Ur Jaddou added that forcing H-1B workers to leave the U.S. harms the country’s “long-run economic competitiveness,” referring to the 60-day limit for laid-off H-1B workers to find another employer.

Meanwhile, 40% of South African (SA) companies need help to hire and retain cybersecurity talent. According to cybersecurity firm Fortinet, many short-staffed cybersecurity teams are burdened and strained as they try to keep up with thousands of daily threat alerts and manage disparate solutions to protect their organization’s devices and data properly. Around 64% percent of companies also agreed that the shortage of cyber security skills creates additional cyber risks for organizations.

On the other hand, U.S. tech job postings rose by 76,546 month-on-month to nearly 316,000 in March. This has been the country’s highest employer hiring activity for the past seven months. According to the non-profit trade association CompTIA, software developers, and engineers positions accounted for the largest share of job postings in March. Employers are also in the market for IT support specialists, systems engineers and analysts, IT project managers, cybersecurity analysts, and engineers.

As they say, technology is the future!

Tuesday, April 18, 2023

NEWS THIS WEEK

17 April 2023

• Questions raised over ‘exploitation’ claims vs. U.S. outsourcing firms – read article…
• Lockstep partners with Naviga for RPO solutions – read article…
• Osigu to enter Colombian market through Servinte acquisition – read article…
• GGA Solutions launches claims services division – read article…

14 April 2023

• Bill Gosling Outsourcing acquires MattsenKumar read article… 
• Webhelp’s outsourced CX expands to Israel – read article…
• Infosys revenue up 15.4% in FY23  – read article…
• Over half of companies outsource, says study  – read article…

13 April 2023

• Beyondsoft acquires 4MSTech – read article…
• Telefónica, Atento extend global alliance until end-2025 – read article…
• TCS hires 44K fresh grads in FY23  – read article…
• Tri Source to open 250 jobs in California – read article…

12  April 2023

• Analytix Solutions bags 2 top awards – read article…
• Rimini Street launches new outsourcing solution  – read article…
• Apex Fund acquires MJ Hudson data, BPO units – read article…
• Cybersecurity provider Huntress enters Australia, New Zealand – read article…

11 April 2023

• Satellite Office among FT’s 2023 High-Growth Companies in Asia Pacific – read article…
• Supra ITS acquires FlexITy’s managed services business – read article…
• U.S. tech job postings up by 76.5K in March – read article…
• 40% of SA firms struggle to hire cybersecurity talent – read article…

Read more Inside Outsourcing Newsletters here:

1. The Outsourcing Week in Review: April 13, 2023
2. The Outsourcing Week in Review: April 20, 2023