Industry news

Prices of IT services in outsourcing are anticipated to shrink by 5 percent to 20 percent during 2009 and 2010, according to Gartner. The analyst house said IT outsourcing prices are likely to decrease during the next two years due to the uncertain economic climate, IT budget constraints and general market consciousness.

Gartner said that this fall in prices will occur due to increasing competition in the market between traditional and new providers as more providers compete aggressively to keep revenue growth on target, while ensuring margins. Furthermore, cost-focused buying behaviors in the current economic phase will be a key factor behind the reductions for IT infrastructure outsourcing services from 2009 to 2010, with a great variability based on each single deal.

“Regardless of the relative strength of outsourcing during a recession, many clients are reporting intense discussion with their vendors and renegotiation of contracts for Terms and Conditions (T&Cs) Service Level Agreements (SLAs), fees, volumes and low-cost offshore delivery locations,” said Claudio Da Rold, vice president and distinguished analyst at Gartner. “These items are under scrutiny to identify satisfactory concessions to further reduce the cost of services on a case-by-case basis.”

Mr. Da Rold added that Indian offshore providers have been coming under significant pressure for pricing reductions due to the Mumbai terrorist attack, the scandal at Satyam, rupee exchange rate fluctuations, and continued wage inflation and attrition levels.

North Somerset Council has selected IT consultancy, Kainos, to implement its electronic document and records management system (EDRMS). The first project is underway in Adult Social Services & Housing and expected to go live in the next few months.

Kainos was awarded the contract following a market tender which attracted a number of supplier responses. The deal was sealed after North Somerset Council held reference discussions with Havant Council, another user of Kainos’ services.

Barrimore England-Davis, EDRM Project Manager at North Somerset Council commented, “Kainos’s track record implementing EDRM solutions in other councils was very comforting to North Somerset. Havant spoke very highly of their experience.”

North Somerset has already made significant headway tackling the EDRM demands of its Adult Social Services and Housing department. This department relies entirely on paper files but a recent white paper that indicated the benefits of handling electronic rather than paper files, provided the necessary impetus to help this department to ‘go electronic’. The EDRM system links closely with the department’s patient care system and all new correspondence coming into the department will be scanned, indexed and stored electronically.

Barrimore explains, “EDRM will make a great difference to the speed and accuracy with which we find information. The cost of maintaining and supporting documents in filing cabinets is simply staggering when you account for floor space, management, retrieval, heat, light & storage. These are some of the very tangible savings that we expect to realise through the broader implementation of electronic document and records management technology across departments.”

Barrimore and the implementation team have their sights set on a number of departments that will benefit from EDRM technology across the council.

According to KPMG, the recession is expected to prompt a fresh "rush" of employers seeking to outsource services to new locations such as Sofia and Cairo rather than to traditional centres such as Bangalore and Chennai.

But what about the UK? It is incredible to see that companies are off-shoring their outsourced services while the UK is suffering from a declining economy, high unemployment and a lack of jobs. As in the US, the UK government should provide a tax incentive for companies that near-shore their outsourced services rather than sending money and jobs abroad.

Outsourcing has always and continues to provide an appropriate means of reducing cost and employing expert or specialist skills whilst allowing an organisation to concentrate on its core business. But the cost/benefit analysis of offshore versus near-shore outsourcing has changed dramatically in recent years, and in particular since the onset of the global financial crisis.

Now, a business may receive the same or a similar quote from an outsourced services provider in India and one in Inverness. This is due to rising inflation in other countries and the cost of a local liaison to front-end the agreement where there is a disparity in time zones, language and business practices.

Even where offshore outsourcing wins on price, this is rendered insignificant by the risks to communication and security that are involved. In the last two years, undersea cables have been damaged at least twice in shipping or geological incidents, resulting in significant degradation to communications and the time-critical transfer of important data.

And, businesses take for granted the regulation and trustworthiness of the UK business market by comparison with most other parts of the world. The UK is a very compliant society whereas large scale fraud has been widely publicised in the US through the escapades of Enron and recently Bernard Madoff. Astonishingly, the Indian commercial world has been rocked by the recent $1bn fraud at Satyam – India’s fourth largest IT outsourcing company.

We must come back to the much publicised quote, “British jobs for British workers”. Every £ spent in the UK rolls through the economy generating tax revenues at every turn. Every £ spent on an Indian Graduate is a loss to the UK exchequer and most importantly is a waste of the “Education, Education, Education” we have all been paying for since 1997. If businesses can reduce costs to stay in business, whilst keeping that work within the UK economy, my argument is that ministers at the Department of Business, Enterprise & Regulatory Reform (BERR) need to wake up to the notion of a commission or incentive and provide some direction and encouragement before it is too late.

News that up to a quarter of all government databases may be illegal comes as little surprise.

A report by the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust claims that as many as 25% of all Whitehall databases are probably in contravention of European privacy, human rights and data protection laws and should either be scrapped or redesigned.

The Trust funds political campaigns in the UK that promote democratic reforms and social justice.

It considered 46 Whitehall databases and found that a quarter of them are “almost certainly illegal” under human rights or data protection laws.

“The collection and sharing of sensitive personal data may be disproportionate, or done without our consent, or without a proper legal basis; or there may be other major privacy or operational problems,” explained the report.

Those singled out in this category are:

• The National DNA database, which holds approximately four million records, including those of nearly 40,000 children, and has already been condemned by the European Court of Human Rights. The Trust says that over half a million of its records are of innocent people who have not been convicted or cautioned for any offence and who have no pending legal proceedings against them;

• The National Identity Register, which will store biographical information, biometric data and administrative data linked to the use of an ID card;

• ContactPoint, the national index of all children in England. It will hold biographical and contact information for each child and record their relationship with public services, including a note on whether any sensitive service is working with the child;

• the NHS Detailed Care Record, which will hold GP and hospital records in remote servers controlled by the government, but to which many care providers can add their own comments, “wikipedia-style”, says the report, without proper control or accountability;

• The Secondary Uses Service, which holds summaries of hospital and other treatment in a central system to support NHS administration and research;

• The electronic Common Assessment Framework, which holds an assessment of a child’s welfare needs. It can include sensitive and subjective information, and is too widely disseminated;

• ONSET, a Home Office system that gathers information from many sources and seeks – extraordinarily – to predict which children will offend in the future. This suggests an emerging programme for a highly interventionist state;

• The Audit Commission’s National Fraud Initiative, which collects sensitive information from many different sources and, under the Serious and Organised Crime Act 2007, is absolved from any breaches of confidentiality;

• The communications database and other aspects of the Interception Modernisation Programme, which will hold everyone’s communication traffic data such as itemised phone bills, email headers and mobile phone location history;

• The Prüm Framework, which allows law enforcement information to be shared between EU member states without proper data protection.

But perhaps the most interesting of the Whitehall programmes to be condemned by the Trust is the Department for Work and Pensions' cross-departmental data sharing programme, which involves sharing large amounts of personal information between government departments and the private sector.

Just listing these initiatives in the light of the inexorable 'mission creep' of such projects (either by design or incompetence) is enough to give serious pause for thought.

Factor in the increased sharing of data across borough and county borders in the name of citizen relationship management and you can begin to see the big picture: an imminent future in which the state can intervene in people's everyday and private lives to an extraordinary degree, all in the name of efficiency and security.

Twenty-nine other databases are listed as being problematic and potentially illegal. The Trust recommends that these be scaled back and should offer people increased opportunities to opt out.

The findings suggest that the widespread extension of surveillance and data-gathering about British citizens may be exploiting the Internet's ability to move more swiftly than legislation, and a culture of datasharing by stealth is being allowed to become the norm.

However you look at it, the Trust is suggesting that a large majority of the government's IT programme is, or may be, illegal and of questionable value.

If “the innocent have nothing to fear”, as legend has it, then what of those innocent people whose data is incorrect, corrupt, or has been tampered with, stolen, or lost? Or retained on these databases despite there being no apparent reason for them being there?

The outsourcing industry will increasingly be called in to underpin these programmes. We should be wary of where all this is heading; the possible legal and social implications of the relentless, multibillion-pound pursuit of modernity, and the more mundane repercussions of a future government putting a red pen through this wasteful and dangerous campaign.

SABMiller has awarded a five year, $120m deal to BT, who will deliver network and telecommunications services for the brewing giant, across the Latin American and European regions.

BT will provide and manage the company’s communications and networked IT Services needs in Latin America as well as global connectivity services into North America, South Africa, and Hong Kong.

SABMiller is one of the world’s largest brewers with brewing interests and distribution agreements across six continents.

The deal was concluded by BT Business with support from BT Global Services. Bill Murphy, Managing Director, BT Business, said, “SABMiller is a growing global brand that reaches the lives of hundreds of millions of people worldwide. BT aims to help SABMiller achieve its goals by ensuring that the company’s communications are amongst the best in the world.”

Good news for our readers this week; firstly it’s Friday (it comes every week but is always a joy) and secondly the best weather is yet to come – yes more sun is forecast for the UK this weekend! Those based elsewhere we wish you good weather too!

But before we continue into the sun-soaked weekend and lazy disposition that such days inspire, its time for our very important and ever informative weekly news round-up.

News that Steria and the Belgian Police have united to introduce a new fingerprint identification system will please those worried about the UK’s Big Brother society - at least we’re not alone in our government’s surveillance exploits.

Orwellian complaints aside the new system does sound pretty good and is likely to make catching the bad guys a whole lot easier. According to a statement the system will provide “more precise results with a shorter response time and be prepared for future additional functionality. It will also offer increased search precision, significantly improved response times and a palm print search option.”

Steria’s Benelux division has joined hands with the Belgian Police Department’s Legal Identification Division to implement the system. Steria will apply the technology required for the capture and transmission of finger and palm prints and traces, and will also be in charge of all necessary integration services.

Now onto other news; WNS, a global BPO provider, has appointed Rick Sturge as Deputy Managing Director, Europe. If this isn’t a sign of WNS growth intentions in the UK and rest of Europe I don’t know what is.

Before this move Rick was Head of Strategic Development for the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA). He has over 25 years experience in ‘business development, finance and transformation, outsourcing and finance and accounting’ [sic] – wow that is a mouthful. Not to blow his trumpet too much, he has also previously held progressively responsible executive roles with Serco, PricewaterhouseCoopers and Accenture.

Rick will have the small task of driving WNS’s business development efforts, particularly in the travel and leisure and finance and accounting sectors, leveraging his cross-industry experience.

News from our neighbours across the pond reports that Air Canada has extended two outsourcing contracts with Unisys Corporation for hosting & integration (HIS) and cargo portal services (CPS).

The contracts will last until 2015 and Unisys will continue to host Air Canada on its Logistics Management System at its data center in Minneapolis. The CPS cargo system, which Air Canada will use until 2011, is an Internet portal for the air cargo industry.

The system brings together a range of carriers and forwarders in a neutral portal reducing transaction costs and allowing cross-market competition. Seems logical to us.

The final big story of the week comes from our beloved Orange UK. It’s decided to outsource the operation of its entire mobile network in the UK. Nokia Siemens Networks will take up the reigns for Orange UK’s 15.9 million mobile subscribers and responsibility for 230 of its staff.

Few details of Orange’s business reasons were released. But with UK mobile saturation at an all time high perhaps it’s prudent to slash overheads when new revenue streams are few and far between. Only time will tell the fates of the nation’s canniest mobile operators – watch with interest.

On that note, I bid you farewell for another week. Now feel free to commence that lazy disposition and more importantly for those in the UK - enjoy the sun this weekend.

Over the past few weeks we have had a recurrence of deplorable violent activity in Northern Ireland. A policeman and two soldiers have been murdered by the Real IRA and many are concerned that this will restart the ‘troubles’ Irish people have long fought to end. Public feeling against renewed violence was palpable as more than 2000 people took to the streets in Northern Ireland holding ‘No going back!’ placards and making a stand for peace.

However, despite the uproar from the general public, potential investors may be concerned that the near-shoring hub has trouble bubbling under the surface and this could deter organisations from taking advantage of the outsourcing opportunities Northern Ireland has to offer. These opportunities have led to a significant surge in investment, something that Northern Ireland has been relishing over recent years. As recently as the beginning of the month gem, a contact centre provider based in Belfast, announced a £19.5m expansion plan which will see another 900 seats made available for an ever increasing client list. Geraldine Fusciardi, Sales and Marketing Director of gem, further promoted the image of Northern Ireland and commented, “We are extremely busy right now as businesses are looking to use contact centres with similar cultural touchpoints.”

This is all welcoming news, especially as the global economy is experiencing a period of financial instability. The last thing Northern Ireland needed was an obstacle in its progress to becoming one of the most attractive destinations for near shore outsourcing. The recent ‘Black Book of Outsourcing’ produced by Brown and Wilson had a section devoted to establishing the riskiest and safest locations to outsource to. This outsourcing handbook had Belfast in the safest 25 destinations to outsource to. This is certainly an acknowledgement of the benefit that peace has brought to the country and in turn highlights how Northern Ireland has become an attractive business area. However the Black Book was published before the recent activity and as we all know, bad news has the potential to severely knock confidence in a location, you only have to look to India for an example of how quickly confidence can be rocked within the outsourcing world.

The Mumbai attacks and the resignation of the CEO of Satyam over a £1bn fraud may have contributed to Mumbai being placed in the 25 riskiest destinations to outsource to. We have certainly heard mumblings of a slowing down in the Indian BPO market and many people are wondering whether emerging destinations such as South Africa and Eastern Europe are going to chip away at the Indian stronghold as a result of a confidence downturn. Does Northern Ireland risk having its end users lose confidence and consider other destinations first?

Speaking to Sourcingfocus.com Bill Montgomery, Director for International Investment at Invest Northern Ireland, commented on the impact the recent events will have on Northern Irish businesses, ‘These are utterly terrible events that have occurred, however in relation to business we are not seeing any adverse effect. Of course questions have been asked however there have been no investment cancellations or potential investment trips halted. Mr Montgomery goes on to say that the events have been ‘isolated and targeted incidents that everyone is against’.

Indeed it appears that it has been pretty much back to business as usual. After putting their U.S. tour on hold briefly, to deal with the events, Martin McGuiness and Peter Robinson met Barack Obama this week in Washington and will presumably continue to promote Northern Ireland as a foreign investment destination.

So concern of a possible reduction in business interest in Northern Ireland may be premature. As Bill Montgomery highlighted, Northern Ireland has done extremely well and the proposition they offer is too strong to ignore. Potential investors should, like with any investment, carry out a thorough risk analysis of the potential locations they are considering. However, they should not be overly concerned about a sudden turn for the worse in Northern Irish violence. The country is united against falling back into the awful times that characterised the late 60’s and continued for nearly 30 years. The area has evolved and despite the awful actions of a few extremists, Northern Ireland looks set for continued growth continue to grow as the country continues offer one of the most competitive near-shore outsourcing models in the industry.

Outsourcing is an industry which thrives in a recession. Now more than ever end users are focusing on the bottom line, making slashing costs a decisive factor in the procurement process. However despite this ‘cost is king’ approach, we are seeing the rise of a particular outsourcing model that treats suppliers as strategic partners rather than external cost cutters.

The ‘service effect’ model is being used by end users in an effort to detach themselves from how a supplier delivers their services, which allows the user to focus on end objectives. This outsourcing model has become prominent enough for the National Outsourcing Association, the UK outsourcing trade association, to hold a seminar dedicated to the topic.

So what is service effect? How can end users feasibly sit back and let the supplier work their magic? Essentially the service effect model boils down to end users identifying exactly what their strategic outcome should be in an outsourcing arrangement. The supplier’s job is to then meet the outcome using whatever tools are needed. Srikanth Iyengar, Global Head of Business Development for Strategic Global Sourcing at Infosys, summarises, “In service effect models, customers focus on an overall outcome which helps us run our operation in a very efficient way.”

It seems like an interesting way of conducting an outsourcing deal and it means that both supplier and end user must, above all else, trust each other to work towards the agreed objective. Mr Iyengar highlights the importance of the end user trusting the supplier and adds that “setting clear expectations and objectives for the supplier to work to is essential” he also goes on to say that the supplier becomes much more of a “strategic partner” rather than just simply a vendor. This strategic partnership is salient for both user and supplier. Suppliers will need to ensure that teams working on the end user account are fully briefed on the way the user operates and well versed on the market the user operates in. End users will need to incorporate the supplier in key board-level decisions in order to properly align the strategy or modify objectives.

This level of trust and partnership surely would not be obtained over night. Mr Iyengar reinforces this by saying that “prior relationships help”, so do service effect models fall into the realm of contract renewals rather than brand new outsourcing contracts? Suppliers and end users would certainly be taking a bigger risk entering into these contracts. Suppliers could be left with a bloody nose if objectives are not met, end users could face a situation where money has been ploughed into a partnership with nothing to show for it, so surely a prior relationship is essential rather than helpful; And what of ongoing communication to ensure things are going to plan?

Service effect models have the potential to work well. However, as with any outsourcing deal they need to be thrashed out properly in order to reap the benefits. George Wheeler-Carmichael, partner of law firm NABARRO LLP, warns end users that only focusing on outcomes can lead outsourcing deals into trouble, “Contracting for an outcome or a ‘service effect’ puts a new perspective on an old issue with outsourcing contracts, rather than creating an entirely new challenge. Whether a customer is starting out on a new outsourcing relationship or is renewing an existing one, if the aim is to achieve a business outcome, scoping the service requirements is still as important as ever. Focusing on the end point of the journey and allowing the supplier greater flexibility in the technical means of getting there must not distract the parties from setting out required characteristics of the journey and from contract and service management in general.”

Mr Wheeler-Carmichael also commented that there needs to be regular ‘touch-points’ where users can monitor the progress of the outsourcing arrangement, he also commented that key milestones should be set and reached in order to properly maintain the relationship.

What does the future hold for service effect models in outsourcing? According to Mr Iyengar, clients switching to service effect models with Infosys are in their tens rather than hundreds suggesting a gradual change rather than a sharp shift. While Mr Iyengar expects these types of contracts to be more prominent in the future, it remains to be seen which vendors have built sufficient trust with clients to make such a strategic leap.

So the service effect model is one to keep an eye on as a trend for the future. It appears that there are those who have felt comfortable enough to adopt this strategy with their suppliers; however, the model may not be for everyone. Those in multi vendor relationships may find the service effect model very challenging and possibly not the right solution. The model does add another dimension to outsourcing and it will be interesting to see whether those that begin their outsourcing journeys through downturn cost cutting, find themselves in a service effect relationship a few years down the line.

Being green has gone through many stages over the last ten years. For some time simply paying lip service to environment was enough to get by. Token projects and initiatives followed in all their PR-able glory. Exposures for ‘astroturfing’, bad press and grassroots and governmental pressure inevitably moved the corporate world forwards on green issues. Drip by drip the real importance of minimising impact on the environment has filtered into organisations and many companies now appear to be doing some impressive things. Carbon footprints, carbon offsetting, low-impact building and numerous other concepts have all followed. But as yet there is still much to be done about green issues in globalisation - what of those companies that outsource and offshore large chunks of processes and development?

Outsourcing and offshoring as an industry has reached relative maturity and many companies now contract out a large amount of work. This is creating an almost global carbon footprint largely hidden from their domestic corporate personas. What the company’s call centre is doing in India with its offshore IT developer in Russia, is becoming increasingly important to recognising a company’s global green impact. ‘Greensourcing’ is the answer being put forward by the outsourcing industry to help companies lower their outside impacts, but what is it and how’s it going to help?

Jeremy Hammant of LCP Consulting, a management consultancy firm, offered his explanation, “Alongside the financial and commercial elements of the procurement process we’re starting to see clients looking more at the intrinsic green and CSR credentials of potential partners. This is true in pretty much every sector we’re working in. Now, as part of the selection criteria there is a set of evaluation criteria around green, sustainability, CSR, call it what you will, meaning green is becoming part of the selection process.”

The drive towards green is certainly evident in consumer-facing businesses as customers continue to vote with their feet and wallets on environmental issues. But is this force strong enough to feed through into the B2B space, to those companies far-removed from end consumers?

“There’s certainly a desire from consumers to understand what are an organisation’s green credentials. I think this is permeating all the way down through the supply chain,” commented Mr Hammant.

The force of the green end user is not to be underestimated, recent figures from the carbon trust found that two out of three people think it’s important to buy from environmentally responsible companies and approximately one in seven had decided to use a different supplier due to a shabby environmental record.

So the green wave is clearly getting bigger but what are outsourcing suppliers doing to meet the rising tides? Patni, a large global outsourcing company, is an example of a company that seems some way ahead of the curve in this respect having invested millions of dollars in a new ultra low environmental impact delivery centre. The ‘Patni Knowledge Centre’ seats around 3,500 staff members at any one time and takes every possible step to reduce the amount of energy it uses and waste it puts out. The use of natural light wherever possible, intelligent air conditioning, minimal sewage output and ‘Lead Platinum Building’ (a certification for exceptional environmentally rated buildings), no name a few of the innovations, appear to give the centre bragging rights over most other outsourcer’s green efforts.

The importance of companies developing initiatives like this cannot be denied. But we asked Saurabh Karora, a Patni spokesperson, about the current demand for greensourcing.

“I think people are becoming more and more aware of green issues as a social responsibility. This is impacting big businesses hugely and they’re asking themselves and their suppliers how they can reduce their carbon footprints. Towards this goal end users are increasingly looking at leveraging vendor relationships with those that have invested heavily in green. Patni has invested around $40 million dollars in this facility and we are planning to construct more similar centres around India. As a corporate citizenship strategy this is how we’d like to look forward.”

Evidently greensourcing could be big bucks if supplier investment is anything to go by. But it’s not just lowly consumers that will make this sustainable globalisation a reality. There seems to be a green storm brewing around today’s companies that will increasingly and more forcefully begin to push the envelope on green issues.

Arthur D. Little, of the Sustainability & Risk Practice, commented in a report, “While carbon and environmental footprints are a growing concern, much of the footprint that can be attributed to a company lies in other parts of its supply chain. As stakeholders become increasingly insistent that “promises made” by the CEO should be “promises delivered”, CEOs will need to extract more innovation from suppliers as well as the company itself to deliver on commitments to sustainable performance”.

The drive from investors, consumers, canny companies and forward thinking suppliers could soon be augmented by the law. The EU Emissions Trading Scheme, introduced in 2005, is an early example of the direction governments are heading. Though focused on the high-emissions industries such as energy and transport, carbon footprint reduction driven by government is only set to grow. The sheer necessity of meeting the 2012 Kyoto Protocol and its successor will necessitate heavily polluting countries to get tough on companies.

“The regulatory environment is in a state of determination at the moment. You have the UK Government Office of Climate change inviting responses on a climate change bill. Regulatory conditions and emissions trading haven’t yet fully landed. We’re in a position where the game has opened but we’re probably still playing on the first morning of the test match,” commented, Alan Braithwaite, a Professor at Cranfield School of Management and founder of LCP.

Mr Hammant added “I think as regulation starts to kick in green principles will become much more important in procurement.”

Companies and outsourcing vendors may groan at the thought of compliance with new green legislation but there are also clear benefits to those taking the lead.

“Very often if something is green it’s also cheaper due to the reduction of energy consumption,” commented Alan Braithwaite, a Professor at Cranfield School of Management.

The Sustainability & Risk Practice report identified various other attractive reasons for going green including costs factors ranging from enhanced compliance with government regulation, lower consumption of energy and other resources, to enhanced return from capital investments. Greensourcing could also lessen risks to a business, for example, by a strengthened brand, enhanced reputation, improved community relationships, and/or reduced grounds for litigation. According to the report, the risk of supply discontinuity can also be lowered by applying environmental performance metrics and targets into the supplier performance assessment or contract renewal process.

Saurabh Karora sees Patni reaping the rewards of their bullish investments, “I think increasingly companies are also looking to green vendor partners to make a positive difference to their bottom lines or even their top lines.”

However, Mr Little’s report is also quick to warn of the difficulties of driving green into suppliers, “Many companies underestimate the difficulties of controlling supplier standards at long distance. The longer and more articulated a supply chain is, the harder it is to control entirely. This becomes especially true when a ‘low-cost-country sourcing’ (LCCS) strategy is pursued”.

So, the fact that some outsourcers are proactively addressing green will be heartening for end users. Certainly attempting to drive green into existing outsourcing relationships in far flung locations could be painful to say the least. And measurement processes are also a long way from clear definition.

But the risks are clear to those that ignore the trend, “A reactive company develops its business and product/service strategy without any consideration of sustainability issues in the supply chain. Monitoring of suppliers is piecemeal and lacking predetermined targets for sustainability, leaving the company open to risks,” said Mr Little.

Greensourcing is clearly going to become much more important over the coming years as the various forces encouraging sustainability intensify. The take-up of greensourcing services certainly is not yet fully established and it’s likely to be a while before an outsourcing deal is won on green specifications. However, like it or not, the green wave is coming and it’s up to companies to decide if they will act early to ride it or wait and be swept unceremoniously into a brave new green world.

Hyundai Motor America has signed a three-year contract renewal with Convergys, a global BPO provider. Convergys will provide customer management services to the car manufacturer.

As part of the contact Convergys will provide dedicated customer service agents as the first point of contact for vehicle owners contacting Hyundai’s Consumer Affairs for sales and service related concerns. Convergys will also provide case management, fulfillment, self-service, and other back office processes to Hyundai.

“At Hyundai, we know that providing the highest level of service to our customers throughout their relationship with our company is a key driver of continued loyalty,” said Kelly Kawaguchi, Hyundai’s National Manager of Consumer Affairs. “Convergys’ experienced and knowledgeable agents ensure our owners have an excellent service experience each and every time they contact us. In addition, Convergys’ extensive reporting capabilities give us the insight we need to take positive action on trends and issues that can impact customer satisfaction.”

“Car buyers and owners are sophisticated when it comes to the purchase and maintenance of their vehicles. Providing a consistent customer experience across all channels throughout the customer’s relationship with a particular brand is a key differentiator for manufacturers and dealers and a solid predictor of return business,” said Jim Boyce, Convergys President, Global Business Units. “Convergys’ experience in the auto industry, coupled with our live agents and self-service solutions, is a key component of Hyundai’s strategy to maintain high customer satisfaction levels and drive profitable growth.”