GBS World News | Week 4 | August 2021
In the Caribbean, Jamaican call center operator, Itel, has acquired its Guyana-based rival, Emerge BPO. As a result, Itel has gained some wealthy U.S. clients and has added 700 seats in its operations. Emerge BPO is located in Guyana’s capital, Georgetown, which has sufficient infrastructure in place to scale the Jamaican company further. It also has operations in Honduras. The acquisition was part of Itel’s expansion strategy into Guyana and Honduras.
In the U.S., Kentucky-based BPO services provider, GlowTouch, has been recognized as an Aspirant for its unique customer experience management (CXM) offerings in Everest Group’s 2021 Customer Experience Management (CXM) – Service Provider Landscape with Services PEAK Matrix® Assessment. The report provides insights into the strengths and weaknesses of 39 CXM providers, validating CXM leaders’ market position and differentiation in customer experience (CX). The group has grown tremendously amid the COVID-19 pandemic, securing a spot in the list for the first time.
Canada’s government have announced a drive to vastly improve the digitalization of the country’s immigration, refugee, and citizenship processes. Public and private stakeholders are engaging ways to design and implement digital platforms that will streamline permanent resident confirmations, online citizenship tests, and visa applications processes. The Global Case Management System is one of the digital tools that is being considered to transform the Canadian immigration system.
Expenditure in Asia on IT and business services reached US$3,4 billion for the first time in a quarter in the Asia Pacific region, according to the Information Services Group (ISG) Asia Pacific ISG Index report. The index measures the annual contract value (ACV) of commercial outsourcing contracts exceeding US$5 million. The ACV in IT outsourcing (ITO) achieved quarter-on-quarter growth of 80% or US$800 million and BPO reached US$129 million, going up 148% from the previous quarter in the region.
In Europe, Portuguese-based contact-centre-as-a-service (CCaaS) provider, GoContact, has been acquired by Broadvoice, an American telecommunications company. GoContact provides a range of cloud-native voice platforms and cloud-platform-as-a-service (CPaaS) offerings. The acquisition will create new footholds in the North American, European, African, and South American markets. It will also enable the integration of their products into customer offerings and embed CRM, collaboration, and helpdesk software-as-a-service platforms.
In general news, global fast-food giant, McDonald’s, will be beefing up its investments in CX and personalization channels through the creation of a new CX team and restructuring its internal business units. McDonald’s is integrating its digital customer engagement, data analytics, global marketing, global restaurant development and restaurant solutions. The company’s goal is to streamline its data silos in order to be more responsive to customer needs and be more fluid in adapting to changing market conditions.
In other general news, Ryan Strategic Advisory discusses the rising trend of mergers and acquisitions amongst CX outsourcing industry players. The amalgamation is comprised of both small companies looking to grow via a buyout and large players cutting down competitive threats, as well as enter new markets. Sitel’s purchase of Sykes, Webhelp’s acquisition of OneLink and Emerge BPO’s absorption into Itel are some of the latest examples of this trend.
