Predictions 2016: Business Process Services

‘Surfing the Waves of Disruption’ is critical for business process services (BPS) providers in 2016, as they attempt to take advantage of new-style BPS, enabled by digital, automation and analytics technologies. BPS providers should be embracing these waves, even though it means taking some very bold (risky) turns, deciding where to invest and where not to.

Learning fast, rebalancing, and staying on this new course is going to be vital for BPS suppliers surfing these disruptive waves successfully.

In 2016 we expect the following:

Intelligent Automation on the rise: BPS providers will fight back against the wave of Business Process Automation, offering their own 'Intelligent Automation' services that embed intelligence into business processes through the combination of people, process and advanced technologies (see Business Process Automation: What is Intelligent Automation?). The end-goal is a step-change in performance and productivity - and BPS suppliers will need to prove they are up to the challenge.

Transforming legacy operations: Radically improving existing operations is going to be just as important as investing in the new. This means aggressive process standardization, accelerated use of analytics to inform change, and ruthless automation of repetitive, rules-based tasks – all to drive out cost and improve productivity and efficiency. Only with a truly transformed legacy core can BPS providers hope to be agile and responsive enough at the digital front end where the new opportunities reside.

Surge in process consulting and integration: This builds on last year’s theme ‘joining the dots’, because customers continue to need help marrying their digital and legacy process worlds. We will see growing demand for more technical, software-led change specialists, alongside the traditional Lean and Six Sigma process experts. Suppliers will need to invest, re-train and re-invent the role of the process consultant in the digital age.

‘Big Four’ to offer Intelligent Automation services: The pure play IT and business consultancies are going to hit the scene in 2016 offering their own flavour of Intelligent Automation services. These consultancies will aim to position themselves as trusted partners in non-outsourced business process automation opportunities, and could become a credible alternative to the BPOs.

Surge in data driving analytics: BPS players will need to offer Analytics-as-a-Service (AaaS) to add value to new and existing deals, particularly in highly-regulated, and data-heavy industry sectors like energy & utilities, financial services and the public sector. Analytics will become increasingly important for BPS players attempting to target specific customer pain points with business outcomes built around cost reduction, reduced service demand, and/or improved service reliability.

More Multi-client Utilities and BPaaS: We see many sectors now ready to share platforms and processes either on-premise or via the cloud. For many industries facing intense competition from new players or regulations, radical change in process service delivery is the now the only way to future-proof the business. 

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Posted by John O'Brien at '07:43' - Tagged: bps   predictions