“Teleperformance’s digital transformation creates infinite value”
Interview
Five question to Bhupender Singh, Chief Transformation Officer & Éric Dupuy, Chief Business Development Officer
Can you explain Teleperformance's digital transformation journey? When did it start and why?
Bhupender Singh: Teleperformance has successfully transformed itself over the last seven to eight years. The Group has been able to anticipate and adapt to major changes in the global business services market, driven by more complex, more demanding, more digital client needs in a fast-moving environment.
The Group has stepped up its transformation since the Intelenet acquisition and is now accelerating the deployment of Digital Integrated Business Services. This is enabling us to expand our services offering and enhance our ability to deliver value to our clients.
What kind of digital transformation are we talking about? Is it on the client or the solutions side?
Bhupender Singh: The Covid-19 crisis has accelerated the digitalization of our environment at all levels, with changing buying behavior among customers, the development of home working, new digital clients, and the digital transformation of companies.
Éric Dupuy: On the client side, the digital economy has done well during the health crisis in areas such as e-commerce and related logistics, distance learning, online entertainment with streaming and online gaming. Fast growing “FAANG”* clients need to be supported by expert, seasoned global support services companies like Teleperformance to develop their business worldwide.
The health crisis has accelerated the digital transformation of companies, who see digital and automated solutions as the right way to quickly streamline their cost structure and increase the competitiveness of their offering. Teleperformance is also supporting them in their challenging journey.
Today, 80% of our sales proposals to clients include a transformation solution. Pure E-tech clients, including FAANG groups, represent around 40% of our revenue, but we estimate that the figure could be around 80% if we include clients who are implementing digital transformation solutions.
*Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix, Google
The digitalization of the economy in figures
Teleperformance supports a leading European headquartered retailer deliver its business transformation goals
This successful partnership began in 2019. Thanks to strong collaboration between teams at the regional and local level and a proactive strategy of duplicating solutions, Teleperformance quickly deployed its services throughout Europe and beyond. Today, Teleperformance manages our partner’s customer service interactions in multiple countries across Europe as well as North America and plans to continue this global expansion in Latin America.
Bhupender Singh: On the solutions side, digital transformation for Teleperformance is enabled by our worldwide “Technology, Analytics, Process” (T.A.P.™) teams made up of over 1,500 expert engineers and analysts, who support the Group’s operations and sales teams in rolling out high value-added digital transformation solutions worldwide. We plan to expand them to 2,000 in 2022.
Fields of expertise include predictive models, RPA*, OCR*, bots, machine learning, etc. Over 10,000 bots are now deployed in our operations across the world to optimize employee efficiency and client satisfaction.
Digital transformation is also enhancing the Group’s internal organization. Over the last decade, the Group has successfully created a strong and smart management structure to shape its business transformation, in information systems, data security and HR. Today, one of the key aspects of our ongoing transformation is increased industry verticalization to develop more specific solutions for a given industry vertical.
*RPA : Robotic Process Automation, OCR : Optical Character Recognition
Introducing Teleperformance’s T.A.P.™ solutions
This analytics-based solution remarkably improves client business performance through the automated and personalized prediction of consumer behavior.
It analyzes their buying and paying habits to recommend alternative products when the ones they want are no longer available.
Sales conversion
How has digital transformation impacted your delivery model for greater efficiency and engagement among Teleperformance employees?
Bhupender Singh: A people-oriented “HighTouch” strategy is imperative for successful digital transformation. A large part of our first wave of digitization has not been focused on human replacement but on human ability to perform roles in a simpler, faster, and safer manner, taking out some of the mundane and repetitive tasks and upskilling people to do the more complex activities.
The next step is to step up the use of augmented/virtual reality and the metaverse to drive even higher levels of employee engagement, especially among those who work from home.
Digital transformation is having a big impact on our delivery model, with the deployment of digital integrated Work-From-Home solutions based on cloud technology. We have developed TP Cloud Campus solutions dedicated to recreating a comprehensive virtual ecosystem to ensure work sustainability through remote management.
Éric Dupuy: TP Cloud Campus is one of our best employee engagement tools, a key differentiating factor versus our competitors. It improves working conditions for employees, meaning less time on public transportation, less stress, better performance, and lower attrition. Numerous certifications and prizes recognizing our HR practices have given us the edge to gain market shares with worldwide champion clients.
Voice/Digital: the ideal mix
• The complexity of the customer’s inquiry determines the channel they choose:
– For retention/escalations/dispute resolution, 71% of those surveyed prefer telephone/in-person contact, 20% online assisted service and 5% the chatbot
– For order management, 22% of those surveyed prefer telephone/in-person contact, 27% online assisted service and 51% the chatbot
• According to advisory firm IDC, customer experience volume through chat and messaging channels will be up +25% per annum by 2025
• Independent advisory firm Forrester predicts that customers who used a digital channel for the first time during the pandemic will continue to do so.
Does this strategy create value for the Group, in terms of new business development and operational efficiency?
Bhupender Singh: The development of TAP digital services with outcome-based pricing will increase margins and maximize business opportunities. Beyond the financial benefits, it will also elevate the industry’s perception of Teleperformance as a provider of word-class, end to end digital integrated business services. Teleperformance perception is currently changing, whose profile will shift from execution-focused service provider to Next Gen Smart Outsourcer, with strong expertise in global solution design.
Éric Dupuy: Opening up new digital territories creates future value for the Group. Trust & Safety operations are a great example of new digital activities that Teleperformance is developing very rapidly.
The number of digital platforms made available to customers continues to rise as technology adapts with the changing buying behavior of customers. It’s no surprise that users of digital platforms consistently generate an astonishing amount of data, which must be monitored to ensure it doesn’t damage the reputation of companies or people. Protecting companies and customers with trust and safety solutions has become an imperative in today’s societies and for Teleperformance.
Over the last three years, Teleperformance has worked to continuously protect customer data, ensure regulatory compliance and safeguard the brand’s reputation. Now worth €5 billion, the global Trust & Safety market is huge and growing fast, by around +20% per year*. For Teleperformance, business is currently booming with worldwide brands in diverse sectors like social media, e-commerce and gaming.
* Source : Everest
How does Teleperformance's digital transformation differ from that of your competitors?
Bhupender Singh: Our more proactive investments in Technology Analytics Process (T.A.P.™) resources and capabilities give us an advantage over the rest of the traditional customer experience players.
They are active in this area as well, but on a much smaller scale, as our worldwide footprint is the largest in the industry, with 80+ countries covering 170 markets in 265 languages and dialects. That makes a huge difference relative to the mainly regional and local competition.
The Asia-Pacific region hosted the APAC Botathon finals in September 2021, a campaign to drive innovation through ideas, technology and employee engagement
256 automation ideas were submitted by employees in China, Malaysia and Indonesia during the four-month competition organized in partnership with UI Path, a Tech leader specialized in automated solutions. Seven of them were selected by a jury of experts and then developed as a proof of concept.