Wednesday 29 May 2013

Aegis Ranked Amongst the Top 12 on IAOP's 2013 Global Outsourcing 100 List



 DALLAS and MUMBAI, India, May 9, 2013 /PRNewswire/ --
Aegis Limited, a leading outsourcing and technology services company and part of the USD 27 billion conglomerate Essar, today announced that it has been ranked 12th in the International Association of Outsourcing Professionals (IAOP) 2013 Global Outsourcing 100. Aegis has moved up the charts of the Global Outsourcing 100® rankings from 26th in 2009 to 12th in 2013. The Global Outsourcing 100 list serves as the essential industry reference of innovative outsourcing services companies in the world.
The Global Outsourcing 100, in its eighth year currently, is an annual ranking by IAOP of the world's best outsourcing service providers and serves as an essential reference for companies seeking new and expanded relationships with the best outsourcing services providers. The applications sent by service providers are judged by an independent panel of experienced outsourcing buyers on four critical characteristics - size and growth, customer references, organizational competencies and management capabilities.
Other than being cast as a Leader in the 2013 Global Outsourcing 100, Aegis is also cited in various sub-categories in the 2013 listings
  • Leaders in Number of Employees Globally
  • Best CSR in Outsourcing
  • Best 20 Leaders in Healthcare
  • Best 20 Leaders in Telecommunications
  • Best 20 Leaders in Customer Relationship Management Services
  • Best 20 Companies in Financial Management Services
  • Best 10 Companies in Australia/New Zealand
  • Best 20 Leaders in USA
  • Best 20 Companies in India
"Our strategy of placing customer experience management at the center of our business is clearly taking us places. At Aegis, the art of managing, enabling, extending and enhancing customer experiences across multiple channels is at the core of our solutions portfolio. We see customer experience as a powerful transformation lever for any organization, and we can architect a multidisciplinary solution that's best suited for our clients, right from strategy to execution," said Sandip Sen , Global CEO, Aegis Limited.
Aegis' consistently rising trajectory on this list is an outcome of strong client references before the IAOP panel as well as its winning customer experience strategy. The company continues to invest in innovation and look at moving up the value-chain with transformational business process services and vertical specific back office solutions to further enable clients meet their corporate goals.
"As applicants continually raise the bar and as the outsourcing industry continues to grow and mature in many markets, competition is tougher," said Jag Dalal, Managing Director of Thought Leadership, IAOP and chairman of the judges' panel. "Being named as a leader in The Global Outsourcing 100 is a great achievement, particularly given the strong competition, and we are proud to recognize Aegis for their excellence."
About Aegis
Aegis is a global outsourcing and technology company committed to impacting clients' business outcomes by focusing on enhancing customer experience across all touch points and channels. Aegis was founded 30 years ago in the US and now has operations in 56 locations across 13 countries with more than 55,000 employees. Aegis services over 300 clients from verticals such as Banking and Financial Services, Insurance, Technology, Telecom, Healthcare, Travel & Hospitality, Consumer Goods, Retail, and Energy & Utilities. The company is wholly owned by Essar, a USD 27 billion conglomerate. For more information write to us at info@aegisglobal.com or visit http://www.aegisglobal.com
About Essar
Essar is a multinational conglomerate and a leading player in the sectors of Steel, Energy, Infrastructure and Services. With operations in more than 25 countries across five continents, the Group employs 75,000 people, with revenues of $27 billion.
About IAOP
The International Association of Outsourcing Professionals® (IAOP®) is the global, standard-setting organization and advocate for the outsourcing profession. With more than 120,000 members and affiliates worldwide, IAOP helps companies increase their outsourcing success rate, improve their outsourcing ROI, and expand the opportunities for outsourcing across their businesses. To learn more, visit http://www.IAOP.org
Media Contacts

Essar media contacts
Manish Kedia , Senior VP Corporate Affairs
Essar Group
Phone: +91-98197-30092
Email: manish.kedia@essar.com

Aegis Global
Danveer Bhasin, Associate Vice President, Marketing
Aegis Limited
Phone: +91-99301-35788
Email: Danveer.Bhasin@aegisglobal.com
Aegis Americas
Kevin Nolan , Senior Director, Marketing
Aegis Limited
Phone: +1-214-505-9732
Email: Kevin.Nolan@aegisglobal.com

IAOP Media Contact:
Kate Tulloch-Hammond , Manager, Media and Communications
Phone: +1-845-452-0600 extension 122
Email: kate.hammond@iaop.org
SOURCE Aegis Limited
aegisglobal.blogspot.com
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Tuesday 28 May 2013

Corporate Responsibility: From ‘Green’ to Business Essence

Aegis CSR      The common perception of the relationship between environmental friendliness and profits used to be mutually exclusive i.e. high profits lead to low eco-friendly functioning, and vice versa.
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) was an ‘extra’ that was rarely, if ever, highlighted.
But this was a decade ago. Since then there has been a radical change in the perception of environmental friendliness and a rise in CSR. Although companies have always viewed ‘green’ as just another fashionable status to tag their company with, it is now an important element in their customer value chain and Innovation. Earlier, companies embraced CSR for the primary reason of differentiating their brand in the crowded marketplace. However, because CSR is now relatively more common among companies, the rules of the ‘green’ game are changing.  It now looks at -
  • Environment Conservation with an impact to the bottom line is being focused on as Businesses work towards a Responsible Environment.
  • Community Development is also key focus given the impact the business has on the neighborhood and work towards being a Responsible Citizen.
Customer behavior is also changing all over the world.
With sustainability and global warming becoming an important ecological concern, end customers are now more influenced by the eco-friendly ideals of the brand they buy their products and services from. In fact, their perceptions about the environmental friendliness of brands are already influencing their buying behavior vastly. A whopping 41 percent of the U.S. population is either interested in or already purchasing from green companies, or they are choosing green products and services over others. From a business standpoint, enterprises with foresight are focusing on innovation and growth opportunities provided by Corporate Social Responsibility.
How CSR Effect’s your Business
An excerpt from his interview with India CSR News Network – Stefan Crets, Executive Director of CSR Europe says that
‘Social Responsibility is becoming one of the most dynamic and challenging subjects corporate leaders are facing today and one of the most important challenges shaping the future of our world.  Social Responsibility, social innovation and corporate governance are collectively shaping the identity of organizations and are therefore becoming increasingly integrated into the business strategy of today’s most successful corporations’.
The most progressive organizations today see Social Responsibility as an important driver for social innovation and long-term value creation. Companies accept his wholeheartedly. In fact CSR needs to be aligned to the core business. It not only helps build the brand value, it also enriches the underserved. As we all know aligning the business to support social development for sustainability and continuity creates the real fortune, which is at the bottom of the pyramid.
It is a simple formula. Social Development + Environment Conservation = Business Continuity
CSR is now becoming increasingly important as the concept which frames the business contribution to sustainable development. It has the potential to become a strategic activity adding value on different dimensions—business, society and ecosystems—if it integrates with the strategy of the enterprise and monitors all efforts.
Organizations have made a strong commitment with policies for environment, waste reduction and green procurement which are being adhered to. They also work towards impacting people to create social value.
Planet enhancement initiatives like Reforestation, Greening centers across the globe, Recycling campaigns and working towards reducing the carbon footprint and climate change and environmental degradation. Lastly organization also focusses on skill sharing and knowledge to provide livelihoods for women empowerment to reduce social inequalities.
The following blog post will discuss the different ways CSR helps create, integrate and redistribute value to your business and the ecosystem.
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How your Company can Assess Customer Experience Intuitively

Customer-Experience      Providing a great customer experience is not a well-kept secret that only companies like Amazon can access. In fact, the best customer service I get today is at my local hardware store.
Let me describe my experience here. Every weekend I find in my email inbox, an updated online catalogue of new products, mailed to me by my hardware store. When I drop by at the store, the single clerk at the register is non-intrusive but attentive to answer any questions. Aisles are labeled correctly and goods organized according to categories with little scope for confusion – customers can pick up what they need, independent of a sales person.
Features of every product are described on charts along with the pricing. A Wi-Fi enabled computer kiosk in the store helps shoppers who want to look up reviews of any product online. And that’s not all, if I have to wait in the billing queue for more than 5 minutes, I am offered a discount on my next purchase – and complementary home delivery. And post my purchase, I can call the store for free help any time.
To me, the management of this store knows exactly what their customers want at every stage. Week after week, I leave the store with a smile on my face and the store has earned itself the loyalty of a customer who remembers it above competition.
Why has this small corner store gone through so much end-user value addition focused on keeping acustomer happy? Because they know something that organizations across the world are beginning to understand: the value of retaining customers through good customer service. It’s no secret that the most common way of losing customers is through bad customer service. And if we’re talking numbers, the average value of every customer relationship abandoned or lost to competition is approximately a hefty $289[1]. My hardware store has understood this and supports my shopping path right from the time I plan to buy, look around for product information and discounts, make a purchase, look at delivery options and seek after-sales support. Furthermore, their main focus lies on keeping a customer happy while empowering other players in the chain to contribute – in effect, it is creating a Value Constellation.
This is a far different from traditional routes where companies position themselves appropriately on the Value Chain, so that they provide the right experience to their customers and offer them value in the right ways. This model requires suppliers to provide the required goods and/or services to a company, which would then add its value to these goods and services before passing the offering on to consumers[2]. Every level in the value chain played his role as best as he could; but there was little effort towards complementing and supporting other levels in the chain.
In a Value Constellation, the focus does not lie on the company or the industry(as it previously did) but on the value-creating system itself, within which different economic actors – suppliers, business partners, allies, customers – work together to co-produce value.[1] What my small hardware store is doing, was creating an entire business environment that was empowering other players in the economic chain – the store, the delivery personnel and the customer to be a part of the process of creating value.
Value constellation works so well because it allows you to gather customer feedback at every stage of the lifecycle. Your representatives will not be called only when there is an issue late in the buying cycle or post purchase but rather, you could gather data based on experience at every stage, and provide your customers with more intuitive, “proactive”, game-changing and differentiated experiences.
Renowned furniture retailer Ikea is a great example of a company that functions successfully as a Value Constellation. Ikea itself is not just a retailer as much as it is the center of a value constellation of goods, services, management, design and support. With Ikea, a customer understands that their role is more to create value than simply consume it. What the company manages to do, (and successfully), is orchestrate the entire social, financial, managerial and technical engineering that ensures its smooth operation.
There are an increasing number of companies jumping onto this bandwagon. Amazon.com discovered that it could provide its customers with a larger range of services interconnected with their basic service which was e-commerce. It has progressively partnered with a number of companies such as Marks and Spencer, Toys ‘R’ Us and Target to offer integrated value to its customers. It now ranks as one of the top companies in the world forgreat customer service.
Your company could benefit from a similar approach. In our coming blog posts we will delve more into the concept of a Value Constellation, so you can see what you could do to keep your customers happy and your business profitable.
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Three Simple Steps to Differentiate Your Brand

Brand Differentiation     To state a truism, it is an incredibly competitive world that we live in. And you need to keep your brand visible from the clutter with smart, sustainable tactics.
How do you stay relevant and differentiate your brand from the hundreds of others currently in the market?
In the past, companies have traditionally used the following two tactics to stay relevant. But these may be getting old and irrelevant to changing markets:
  • Competitive pricing strategies
Why this works: Your consumer is constantly looking for a better product at a lower price. Who would say ‘no’ to buying a tablet PC for $750, marked down from $800? Certainly not me. Product companies are at war with each other daily to see who is priced better, and with more features.
Why this doesn’t work: Pricing is a dynamic factor that needs to be changed on a daily basis to keep up with the competition. Every day there is a new player in the field, with better features at a lower price. Try to undercut your competitors on a daily basis, and you might just end up losing out on a significant amount of earnings
  • Constant innovation
Why this works: Everyone loves a good idea and a better product. That’s how companies like Apple survive, despite pricing their products above the competitions’. As a consumer, don’t you always want the most updated and technology-forward gadgets?
Why this doesn’t work: If great ideas were that easy to come by, every company would be at the top of its game. Although there are companies that innovate continuously, most companies tend to be incremental improvers – fixing a glitch, removing cost, upgrading features, and keeping pace with the market. Besides, sometimes existing products can be exactly what the customer wants, but because of lack of information, or bad or indifferent customer service, they back out of the buy.
It’s time we discovered newer strategies to drive sustainable brand differentiation. Let’s look at some of the following:
 1. A 100 percent focus on the customer’s requirement
Companies have begun to realise that brand loyalty is becoming a thing of the past if the focus is just on product and price. Delighting customers in surprising ways at every moment of truth via new business models and engagement models is now essential.
Although tried and tested tactics never fail to generate results, loyal customers now expect every experience to be well-rounded and focused on solving their problem, want or need. In today’s world, nobody has the time to waste on advice they don’t want. Deflecting a customer with something they don’t want right from the minute they walk in will annoy them sufficiently for them to walk off. Generic offers, or “solutions” won’t bring the customer back to buy again
2. The extra step, and extra smile, in customer service
Peter Fader, professor of marketing at Wharton and co-director of the Wharton Customer Analytics Initiative says “We have a ‘customer is king’ mentality, and we have come to expect world-class treatment.”

Brand DifferentiationCustomers want to be sold products by company representatives who know what they are talking about. The fact is that customers are probably more educated on your products and services before they even approach you to buy – the profiliation of information on the web and social media. Thus the buying behaviour and the skills required of your sales and marketing team must be radically different now. They must be outcomed based. You need to help the customer buy… not sell.
From a service perspective the requirement is simple, you must shift from reactive to proactive. Or where impossible to be proactive react in surprising ways.
3. Keeping up with social media
Your customer does, and will follow you online. At the very least, they’re going to want to peek at your online presence. Interesting online games, quizzes, product knowledge and questionnaires are a few ways of reaching out to them and keep them engaged from the start. Social media can result in you losing business without even knowing it. Consumers today simple ask the world wide web’s opinion (via social networks) whether they should buy from your company or not. There is no shortage of opinions that are provided in response. What’s the sentiment of your company on the web and how are you engaging in these discussions?
Although this might seem like a tall order, don’t despair because there are organizations that manage to pull it offand so can you! Companies like Southwest Airlines, whose airline crew goes above regular service and instigates impromptu airport games and activities when flights are delayed. Or some hotel chains belonging to Hilton, where warm, fresh chocolate chip cookies are supplied to customers regularly .
How many of the above is your organization following?
In one of next blog posts, we’ll explore the steps you can take to transform your company into a uniquely differentiated customer-centric organization.
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Letting your customers show you growth

Linear Growth     The BPO industry has witnessed a surge in the past few years. In fact, over the past decade, it has grown more than tenfold, from USD 8 billion in 2000 to USD 88 billion in 2010.
This rapid spurt in the industry is slowly giving way to a steadier pace of growth – driven by an increased customer-focus.
Traditionally, companies have recognized two broad growth drivers in the industry: ‘linear’ and ‘non-linear’. Linear growth is a stable revenue growth proportional to a company’s rate of growth in manpower. In contrast, non-linear growth is achieved when a company increases its revenue and operating income by a higher rate than the rate of growth in manpower. Non-linear growth itself encompasses a number of drivers (KPMG has identified seven) including cloud computing, intellectual property, mergers and acquisitions, and branding.
Customer ExperienceToday’s customers expect and appreciate superior, personalized experiences across every interaction with a brand. This has led to the emergence of customer engagement and customer experience as equally strong drivers for growth, as much as the linear and non-linear aspects. With the growing popularity of social media, micro blogs and a host of other networking platforms, delighted customers today have instant access to hundreds of friends and followers. They express opinions, share views and serve as critics or ambassadors for a brand – making it all the more critical for organizations to effectively engage with them and offer them the right customer experiences.
Organizations are increasingly leveraging the whole ‘customer experience’ paradigm to build competitive advantage and grow their business. They are exploring multiple engagement models, each of which firmly places the customer at the centre stage. With an “outside in” approach, many of these models are focused on improving the entire brand experience from the end customer’s perspective. Organizations are also investing in the right People, Processes and Technologies to optimize the customer experience they offer across every touch point of customer interaction.
With organizations considering customer experience as a key growth driver, besides the traditional linear and non-linear methods, there is a fundamental shift in business outlook. Businesses are focused on aligning their solutions to meet customer needs today and on keeping their offerings relevant tomorrow.
Naturally, there is a need for companies to partner with the right customer experience partners and R&D houses to achieve this. They need to gain better insights and customer focus to drive growth in future. At the end of the day, superior customer engagement has proved itself to be a factor that organizations have to sit up and take note of. Brands now have only one choice to make – which customer engagement model best suits their business?
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A Weapon called CX

Successful Business People Showing Thumbs Up.   We live in a hypercompetitive world where the battle for the customer’s wallet will continue unabated. And only those who play the game better will win.
Some organisations differentiate themselves on price and others on product features and quality; however, those advantages get nullified without fulfillingcustomer experiences (CX). In this scenario, arguably, it is investments in transforming CX to branded CX that yield the most significant benefits to organisations.
BRANDED CUSTOMER SERVICE
Janelle Barlow and Paul Stewart in their book “Branded Customer Service” talk about how many organisations look at CX as a cost, where the approach is tentative and the prevailing practices show scant respect for the customer; then there are others who have a better CX disposition. Some see it as a necessity which is manifested in policy, and take a tactical approach to CX totally dictated by a script; and there are those who see CX as a differentiator, where CX-related learning is imbibed, customer issues are resolved quickly and CX performance is measured.
However, it is companies where CX is a living expression of the brand, led by purpose with empowered employees eager to create change, who will rule this hypercompetitive world! This implies cogency and alignment in organisational thought relating to CX.
ALIGNING THE ORGANISATION TO CX
CX is an outcome of many arrows getting aligned! It’s about a differentiating strategy and impeccable execution. It’s about a fine balance being achieved across the value constellation! Themes that run through success stories are similar while of course, being different in their own ways:
  • In the case of Titan it’s a combination of a trustworthy brand, design superiority and investments in equipment to ratify quality, running across all the industries they are in – namely watches, jewellery, eyewear and accessories.
  • At Bata, it’s about targeting the middle-class without ambiguity; design and durability as levers of appeal and ensuring right-sized stores at the right locations.
  • At Bajaj Auto, it’s about their positioning around powerful bikes, delivering more value for money and sharp execution across the value chain including a world class plant to deliver desired quality levels.
  • Zappos.com an online shoe and apparel portal in the US has created a culture of creating “wow” for the customer with every interaction – a 24X7 call centre with no scripts, free shipping both ways and a 365-day return policy. It grew to a billion dollars of revenue in eight years and records 75 per cent repeat business.
  • Metro Bank in the UK turned banking on its head by focusing on creating unparalleled retail experiences for its customers, where visiting a branch suddenly became enjoyable, opening up opportunities for showcasing and selling many more products to satisfied clients. They are open seven days a week, starting early and closing late to facilitate “store” visits.There’s also what you don’t want to see.
  • A hotel chain repeatedly inviting a devout vegetarian to a non-vegetarian food festival despite many protests from the customer.
  • A DTH provider denying service to a HNI (high networth individual) customer because information available in the system is incorrect and incomplete.
  • A credit card company repeatedly attempting to sell a card to an existing customer despite a string of complaints.
In essence, it’s about a differentiating strategy and how it comes together across the value constellation to deliver outstanding CX. And of course, we must be equally conscious of the price to pay when our customers encounter bad experiences!
After all, in India we’re more vocal about our dissatisfaction than anywhere else in the world with 96 percent of us choosing to speak out and talking to 35 others. Ninety percent of us also like to reward providers of good service with repeat business, that too at a premium price. Underlying that is creating comfort for customers across all their touchpoints of interaction.
TOUCHPOINTS
The market comprises millions of customers, potential customers and organisations, connecting through four touchpoints – the Contact Centre, Social/Digital Media, Face-to-Face Interactions, and the Product/Service itself. It is critical for organisations to have a holistic view of the customer because strategic leverage will come out of wrapping great experiences around products and services and it is finally about customers and employees being co-creators of differentiating, enriching customer experiences.
OUTSIDE-IN
Finally, it is also about looking at the customer equation a little differently. In the words of Prof. Ranjay Gulati of Harvard Business School, “Focusing your business simply on giving the customer what he wants can be dangerous. An outside-in mindset allows firms to identify needs far more sharply as they are continuously exploring unstated customer needs and how to address them.” And Apple, an example quoted so often that it doesn’t need repetition proves that beyond a doubt, doesn’t it?
Editor’s Note: This article first appeared in The Deccan Chronicle, Bengaluru, on Monday, June 18, 2012 in the Technomics section, Page 13.

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Sunday 26 May 2013

Common pitfalls observed in social media customer engagement strategies

SocialEngagementEffort     When you think about brands like Zappos and Southwest Airlines, what’s the first thing that comes to mind?

It’s probably the fact that brands are becoming more than active on social media channels like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, and are highly successful at engaging with their end customers. Visit any of their social media streams, and you’ll find a number of conversations developing between the brand and their customers – and they make it all look so easy!
But that’s just the problem.
While we’re all familiar with the success stories of how brands use social media channels to put a finger on the customers’ pulse and generally to engage with them, do you ever think about the pitfalls of maintaining these communication lines? How can you ensure that you don’t end up making some common, brand-erodingmistakes in your efforts to leverage the power of social media?
Here are some tips:
  • Don’t manage your social media accounts like other channels:Email, chat and telephones are largely one- on -one channels of communication. Quite often, these channels use scripted responses to increase productivity.But what makes this work is the fact that these channels allow a customer to restate or repeat his questions – in fact, as many times as he gets a satisfactory response.But when you’re talking about social media channels, the scenario is very different. These channels are transparent – and archived for the world to see. Scripted responses often make brands look “un-engaging and synthetic” – especially when different questions by diverse customers are met with the same response!
  • Avoid diverting social media conversations to other channels:Are you primarily using your social media accounts to divert customers to your inbound or email channels – particularly when dealing with complaints and grievances? Not a good idea!
    Social Media Engagement StrategiesWhile this may work for confidential communication channels(like email, chat or telephones), this approach can backfire in the social media space. Remember, a customer contacting you via social media channels might have already tried to resolve his issues through conventional channels. He’s perhaps here on your social media page because his problem was not resolved elsewhere. Diverting him back to a conventional channel can only end up annoying him further – something you should avoid at any cost.
  • Understand which support window suits your business best: Decide whether using your social media accounts for offering support is aligned with your industry’s needs. Some brands specifically mention their customer support hours on their social media accounts. However, they also continue to service customers over the phone and via email practically 24×7. Real Time customer support on social media channel for Travel & hospitality, IT services industries might not work well, as customer issues in these verticals need real-time attention, than near real-time attention. Similarly delayed responses can only send out wrong messages about your social media strategy not to mention the damage caused to your brand and customer expectations.
  • Avoid a siloed approach to social media:With increasing volumes and complexity in customer support issues, a silo based team often becomes a hassled approach with an additional cost. For instance, brands create a dedicated group to manage their social media accounts, typically under their marketing team. These groups are great at managing your brand on Facebook and Twitter. But are they also skilled in handling one-on-one customer engagements, sales opportunities, and customer complaints? Perhaps not.This is why it’s best to have these teams work alongside other customer service groups.Make sure your customer complaint resolution groups are well-integrated across all engagement channels with only the front-line engagement teams kept separate, if required.
So think closely about how you’ve been handling your social media accounts – do you feel you’ve made some the mistakes we talked about here? Can you think of instances where a customer has been left frustrated after an interaction with your brand through a social media channel?
If yes, perhaps it’s time to do things differently.
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