GBS WORLD NEWS | WEEK 4 | FEBRUARY 2022

The South African GBS fraternity was a huddle of excitement with the announcement of the 2021/2022 South Africa National GBS Quantification & Investment Report. The report profiles, analyzes and evaluates South Africa’s GBS capabilities, intending to assist investors, buyers and global clients in obtaining strategic market intelligence, benchmark data and insights into South Africa. In addition, the survey sheds light into GBS/BPO business opportunities on a provincial, national, regional and global level. Links to download the report will be available in March 2022.

Moving from the virtual into the real world is American e-Commerce giant, Amazon, which announced its plans to launch a 30,000 square foot brick-and-mortar fashion storefront. Amazon Style, as it will be known, will be situated at the Americana at Brand mall in Los Angeles. The store will only feature one of each product for sale, where customers will scan a QR code to request different sizes or colors, which they can collect in the fitting room or counter. This reduces the need for the company to set up huge numbers of clothes racks, leaving more space for a larger number of styles and items.

Shaking up the riding-sharing market in the UK, Krooz is offering richer benefits with a service package that includes ride-sharing, food delivery and hot-shot package services. Innovative safety features are one of the forefront selling points of the new platform, such as the SOS panic button, favorite driver, stop-and-wait and family follow ride. Krooz drivers are also beneficiaries of the new ride-sharing platform, where they earn 85% per ride fare and delivery fee, as opposed to Uber’s 57.25% and Lyft’s 68%.

Another nifty innovation was deployed in Canada, where Wyth Financial, one of the country’s leading mid-market digital banks, has activated a fully digital direct-to-customer bank offering to its customers. Intellect Contextual Banking Experience – Retail (CBX-R) has been distributed on Microsoft Azure, providing a comprehensive omnichannel solution catering to the evolving demands of the modern bank customer with a digital-only approach.

Over in the Asia Pacific region, Baring PE Asia (BPEA), headquartered in Hong Kong, has announced its acquisition of specialist BPO firm, IGT Solutions, in what would be BPEA’s third purchase of an Indian tech company. BPEA beat the world’s largest business process outsourcing (BPO) provider, Teleperformance, in the acquisition, emerging as the highest bidder. Over 15,000 of IGT’s customer experience (CX) specialists will be absorbed into BPEA, along with its portfolio of 75 global clients.

The global customer experience management market is expected to reach US$38,98 billion by 2030, with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 18.1% between 2022 and 2030, according to the  Customer Experience Management Market Size, Share & Trends Analysis Report. The rise in popularity of speech analytics tools, the cloud-based segment achieving a CAGR of 20.3% over the forecast period and the Asia Pacific regional market registering the highest growth are some of the key highlights in the report.