The Role of the Service Integrator

Accenture believes that ‘transformational’ and ‘bundled’ outsourcing will become an increasingly important strategy for companies in the current market. By outsourcing several business processes and IT systems to one provider, companies can free up cost and management resources while acquiring the strategic flexibility and capability for growth and to embrace the trends to drive competitive differentiation.

“In addition, significance of the role of the service integrator will continue to rise. The cloud brings a set of third parties into the mix whose services cut across traditional lines. It takes specialized skills in service integration as well as business processes and tools (aka the service integration bus) that automate and monitor IT to ensure coordination and oversight between third party providers and in-house IT. The cloud has magnified the issues of a multi-sourced environment and strategic sourcing has become not just an integral but a critical part of IT and business strategy agendas. The key to being a service integrator is to adopt a services mindset across all internal and external capabilities provided in IT. It is not just cloud services; it is all services IT provides to enable the business,” added the Accenture spokesperson.

Nearshoring and Consolidation

Another line on rise is a move towards near-shoring of services. This continuous pursuit of new locations is driven by the demands of geographical proximity, similar time zones and cultural affinity. Partha De Sarkar, CEO, Hinduja Global Solutions (HGS), voiced, “From the providers’ point of view the focus is on geographical and vertical diversification. The opportunities are springing up in hitherto untapped pockets and we need to be prepared to capitalize on all of them. The industry is also seeing consolidation, with growing demand for new capabilities and new geographies.”

Increased Competition

As the market has matured, it has become much more competitive also. Discussing the reasons behind the competitive nature of the market, Joy V Santosh, CEO and country head, Active Operations Management India(AOMi)expressed, “The market is much more competitive for a number of reasons. Hence, the landscape is promising.” The market is competitive because with quality and service being givens, the focus is once again on cost. Other reasons include trends such as the consolidation of cheaper offshoring hubs; transitioning of contracts from FTE-based to output/ outcome based; and the transition from standard BPOs to more knowledge based platform services.