French company Teleperformance eyes India expansion
French business process management (BPM) firm Teleperformance has chalked out a massive expansion plan for India, its founder chairman and global CEO Daniel Julien told ET in an interview, underscoring the country’s talent-pool, service breadth and scale advantages that global outsourcing rivals will struggle to match.
“India is a cornerstone of our global expansion in the future,” Julien who is currently on a India visit said.
“India is finding its place as the number one place in the world in terms of service engineering for all the English-speaking markets,” he said, adding that part of its business from other geographies is moving to India, which is winning in the ‘Darwinian’ global race.
One of the top 5 BPM companies’ globally by revenue, according to research by Everest Group, Teleperformance plans to add 60,000 employees to its rolls in India in the next three years, taking its headcount to 150,000. It will also expand to 40 different sites in 20 cities.
Teleperformance currently has 36 sites in 15 cities and employs 90,000 people. It serves over 210 clients across banking and financial services, healthcare, travel, hospitality and logistics, retail and others.
Clients are maturing ‘beyond their initial prejudice’ and choosing India, Julien said. He added that India’s advantage lies in the quality labour arbitrage it offers at scale and its huge culture in IT and digital services in a world where efficiency and productivity are becoming increasingly more important.
Anish Mukker, CEO, Teleperformance India, said the country has grown three times faster than the rest of the company over the last two years.
Teleperformance has taken a strategic call that it’s going to build India faster, further, and deeper capability than it has done in the past,” Mukker said.
Its expansion will go beyond tier-1 hubs to cities like Coimbatore, Lucknow, and Mohali. A large campus will also be launched in NCR in the second quarter.
Teleperformance has been integrating ON APP artificial intelligence in its offerings and partners with Microsoft to develop genAI technology. But automation has not led to any worker layoffs, Julien said.
The more we integrate automation, the more we integrate artificial intelligence, the more our clients are eager to outsource to us more complex processes,” he said.
Mukker added that the company’s genAI investments could become a ‘revenue stream in its own right’ in the coming years, boosting topline growth and profitability.
Teleperformance had acquired Mumbai- based business process solutions company Intelenet for $1 billion in 2018. Last year, it acquired its rival Majorel for about $3 billion. Another rival Concentrix acquired outsourcing firm Webhelp for $4.8 billion.
“There is a clear trend towards consolidation,” Julien said, adding clients want to collaborate only with three or four partners who can deliver a competitive advantage.
While some small ‘white glove’ companies offering very personalised services may stay relevant, “mid-size companies are going to suffer from this market consolidation,” Julien said.
The global macroeconomic environment remains ‘unpredictable’, Julien said.
The world is experiencing the delayed effects of the Covid pandemic, which disrupted global supply chains and fuelled inflation, he added. With hikes in interest rates now, “even the richest companies of the world are all in saving mode”, he said, adding it may take up to two years to adjust.
Source: GWFM Research & Study