‘We can never be what we were’

The ebullient Keshav Murugesh, Group CEO of WNS, is in many ways the archetype of the Indian IT-ITeS success story. Right from the time he took advantage of a truckers’ strike in Visakhapatnam to scale his father’s freight clearing and forwarding business to leaping into the BPO business from selling gensets, he has displayed a remarkable eye for the next opportunity, and an even more impeccable sense of timing.

Today, as head of the NYSE-listed WNS Global Services, he heads one of the world’s leading business process management (BPM) companies and, as chairman of software body Nasscom’s BPM Council, has a unique helicopter view of the sector. He spoke to Businessline on where the BPM sector stands today, and where it is headed. Excerpts:

Is BPM at its most mature stage ever? Can there be more to what we see than what we already do?

The answer is very simple. The beauty of BPM is that it is closely aligned with the client’s business. Every player in the BPM industry is almost like the backbone to the business it supports… therefore, if the client evolves, BPM evolves.

A few years ago, were driverless cars ever considered a reality? Today they are… so, what does a BPM player have to do? I can give you a WNS example. We are constantly thinking about how driverless cars and a world free of accidents would disrupt the insurance market. We work with some of the largest insurance clients in the world. Our thinking caps are on to discuss the changes in policy and support in such a world.

Another recent example, the case of AirBnB; while homestays have been around for a while now, no one thought that such an organised disruption could happen to the hospitality market, like the one AirBnB has brought. A BPM player has to reinvent solutions and services to cater to such an audience. So long as evolution in business in whatever form, small or big, is a reality, the evolution in BPM will also be a feature. We can never be what we were yesterday!

The growth of the IT-ITeS-BPO sectors essentially laid the foundation for the surge we saw in the last decade. But can the sector sustain the pace? Where are the next million jobs coming from in this space?

The sector is most certainly going to maintain its momentum. Despite political and socio-economic headwinds, this sector has continued to perform steadily. With specific reference to BPM, growth was over 12-13 per cent with India retaining its leadership position in the global sourcing area with a share of 55 per cent in 2014. Today, BPM stands at $26 billion of exports and the aim is to get to $50 billion by 2020.

Look around and you will realise where the next million or more jobs will come from! Most global organisations today have embraced social, mobility, analytics and cloud (SMAC) in an effort to deepen engagement with their customers. It is the age of driverless cars, mobile apps, virtual reality, robotics and so on. The digital age has thrown open a plethora of opportunities to directly connect with the customer.

In fact, many organisations today create products based on crowdsourcing customer opinion. How will organisations cater to this dramatic change in technology and customer intimacy single-handedly?

So jobs will be for those who can understand the leap that technology has taken, specialists of every kind across industries, generalists who can marry organisational goals with customer experience… people who have the attitude to excel at work!

Is this pace sustainable, or does it need policy intervention? If yes, which areas?

BPM has grown dramatically with minimal help from various quarters; however, for it to reach its goal of $50 billion by 2020, it needs support from the government to move into the hinterlands. The next level of growth will come from Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities. The government has to invest in infrastructure… better airports, highways and, more importantly, telecom connectivity in these locations.

We also need an overhaul of our educational system wherein we create future ready candidates. Nasscom through the Sector Skills Council and industry players has done commendable work in this area by creating curriculum and testing frameworks. However, the government has the power to change the entire educational system, which is what we need.

Also, it would be good to see State governments vie with each other for business in the true sense of the word. They must invest first and we will follow with talent, differentiation and new jobs.

There is a lead-lag gap between skills demand and supply (from the education sector). During the boom phase of IT, skills were in short supply. By the time the education sector scaled up, there are too many IT engineers being produced for the jobs available. Where are the demand-supply gaps in your area, and what needs to be done to bridge this?

The gap is in getting specialists because BPM today has moved to delivering higher value services. The industry has transformed dramatically with its focus on domain expertise (understanding every other industry inside out – for instance, expertise in banking, manufacturing, healthcare, etc) and investing in SMAC-led technologies and robotics.

As on date, we have a large number of specialised talent — doctorates, lawyers, doctors, CAs/CPAs, MBAs, linguists and others. We are certain that the demand for such specialists will only be on the rise. That in no way precludes graduates from joining the industry. Most industry players have very robust programmes to train fresh graduates. For instance, WNS has domain universities (specialising in specific domains, for example travel) in different areas to create specialists from generalists. The challenge we are focused on is re-skilling of internal resources used to old models while adding new age business thinkers and talent.

The skills/cost dilemma — the pressure is to bring more talent to bear on tasks, the challenge is to do so in a cost competitive manner. Is Indian talent pricing itself out of the market?

I would like to answer that differently; every country has its own strengths and BPM players typically leverage that difference in strengths extremely well in delivering value to clients. WNS for instance has 37 delivery centres across 10 countries.

We know that certain client requirements would require time zone affinity, while others may require language skills, and some others could include finance and accounting or analytics expertise. The location strategy is based on driving real bottomline impact to clients. I don’t think cost differential alone would make any location more attractive than the others. I think today all locations are levelling out in terms of what they can offer.

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