GBS WORLD NEWS | WEEK 2 | SEPTEMBER 2023
Over 1,000 banking industry leaders and more than 12,000 consumers across five continents were surveyed for the Embedded Finance: Creating the Everywhere, Everyday Bank survey. While 80% of global banking consumers currently prefer to deposit their salary and keep their savings in traditional banks, 16% of respondents globally are already comfortable embracing the full digital experience with branchless institutions. Many consumers are seeking a higher level of engagement from their financial institutions with 79% of younger respondents being open to receiving insights on better ways to save and 75% being open to guidance on investing. The survey was conducted by the IBM Institute for Business Value (IBV), in collaboration with the Banking Industry Architecture Network (BIAN) and Red Hat.
Amazon, the e-commerce giant headquartered in Washington State, has begun rolling out a new generative AI tool, aimed at helping sellers to write product listings. The tool prompts for sellers to enter keywords that describe their product(s), and then provides content for sellers to build their listings – including descriptions, bullet points, and titles. This new feature is expected to improve sellers’ success while supporting the company’s position in a competitive third-party marketplace.
Headquartered in China, the multinational technology and e-commerce company, Alibaba Group, has also launched new technological tools. The company has released a new suite of next-gen B2B sourcing tools, expected to enhance the buying process for entrepreneurs on the company’s one-stop platform for B2B sourcing. Some of the new features include a smart-assistant tool, real-time translation in 17 languages for live video chats, and upgraded image searching.
The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has announced that it has established a permanent customer experience (CX) office to help deliver services that are simple to use, accessible, equitable, protective, transparent, and responsive for all DHS customers. The Department’s commitment to improving CX is a direct response to President Biden’s Executive Order 14058 “Transforming Federal Customer Experience and Service Delivery to Rebuild Trust in Government,” which charges the federal government to reduce administrative burdens and increase equity by simplifying both public-facing and internal processes.
Over in South Africa, the City of Cape Town has announced plans to expand its BPO afterschool program. Administered by CapeBPO, the new BPO afterschool program plans to train 1,000 young people from disadvantaged areas. The project’s objective is to provide learners with access to a community-based call center to gain first-hand experience in the industry.
Youth populations are also being targeted for BPO work opportunities in India, with over 1,500 freshers set to be hired by the global health-tech company, Carelon Global Solutions. Various educational institutions across the country will be targeted, with the company hoping to recruit fresh graduates from the fields of computer science or information technology (among others), to train them in the basics of the US healthcare sector. The training could lead to permanent roles as call center agents.
In global news, a new report has been released by 360iResearch, a market research and business consulting company, assessing the long-term cumulative effects of COVID-19, high inflation, and the Russia–Ukraine conflict on the IT outsourcing sector. According to the research, the IT outsourcing market is expected to be worth US$ 758.67 billion by 2030. The report analyzes changing consumer behavior, political and economic uncertainty, and the impacts on demand–supply balances, import/export operations, and pricing variants.
