THE POWERFUL ROLES OF BUSINESS PROCESS MANAGEMENT TO CONCENTRIX

A Case Study Presented to the Faculty

Of the Graduate School

College of Business Administration

In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirement of the Course

ADM C010 - Management of Information Technology

Master in Business Administration

By:

CHRISTHEA PEREZ DE LEON

May 2019
 INTRODUCTION

Improving customers experience by implementing the methods

of BPM will allow business process outsourcing companies to

identify and modify existing processes to align them with a

desired future state.

Companies are using IT to improve the way they design and manage

customer relationships. Customer Relationship Management (CRM)

systems capture every interaction a company has with a customer,

so that a more enriching experience is possible. If a customer

calls a call center with an issue, the customer support

representative will be able to see what the customer has

purchased, view shipping information, call up the training

manual for that item and effectively respond to the issue. The

entire interaction is stored in the CRM system, ready to be

recalled if the customer calls again. The customer has a better,

more focused experience and the company benefits from improved

productivity. (Chris MacKechnie; Reviewed by Michelle Seidel,

B.Sc., LL.B., MBA; Updated March 11, 2019)

BPM does not equate to a technology tool or initiative for

business processes. There is significant business process

improvement that can be achieved without technology. Better

processes produce lower cost, higher revenues, motivated

employees, and happier customers. Business Process Management

(BPM) is an approach that’s designed to produce better processes

through the combination of technology and expertise. BPM is a

collaborative effort between business units and the IT world,

and this effort fosters a new paradigm of efficient and logical

business processes. (“Justifying BPM Projects,” Gartner, 2004)

The basic operational value proposition of BPM is the ability to

process more with less effort and higher quality. As a result,

BPM has become a cornerstone discipline for companies that want

to grow revenues quickly while controlling resource costs. (IBM

Corporation 2010)

Using BPM and Web services in tandem may allow the extended

enterprise to extract far more value of internal applications

and leverage external business processes. As BPM moves towards

mainstream adoption, we are going to see an evolution of

business processes and services. Web services will quietly merge

behind the scenes with BPMS, and we are likely to see processes

everywhere. Universal services like currency rate services will

be offered and maintained by some company. All other business

processes will just consume the currency rate service.(“Business

Process Management’s Success Hinges on Business-Led

Initiatives,” Gartner, 26 July 2005)

Business process and web services combination is already

changing the business landscape. Business processes will invoke

web services, but it might be the end consumer interested in the

results of the web service. Concentrix use web service from UPS

in its direct process model to offer its consumer package

tracking. Concentrix guests go to UPS website to track their

packages once eBay gives them a confirmation number. Such kind

of process handoff and process specialization is going to be the

norm going forward. (2016 HfS Research Ltd. Excerpt for

Accenture)

Company Profile

Concentrix, a wholly-owned subsidiary of SYNNEX Corporation

(NYSE: SNX), is a technology-enabled global business services

company specializing in customer engagement and improving

business performance for some of the world’s best brands. Every

day, from more than 40 countries and across 6 continents, our

staff delivers next generation customer experience and helps

companies better connect with their customers. We create better

business outcomes and differentiate our clients through

technology, design, data, process, and people. Concentrix

provides services to clients in ten industry verticals:

automotive; banking and financial services; insurance;

healthcare; technology; consumer electronics; media and

communications; retail and e-commerce; travel and

transportation; energy and public-sector. They are Different by

Design. A customer who was previously getting a response

anywhere from four hours to three days can now get a reply in

less than five minutes. It’s not a choice between saving money

for the clients or giving their customers a better experience.

We do both.

Concentrix/Convergys structures its people and teams

hierarchically, and this would describe the organizational

structure as hierarchical, centralized, and formal. Presumably,

Convergys evolved into this hierarchy to reduce the complexity

of the organization’s products and goals into straightforward

units and tasks, which are managed and directed from top-level

employees to lower-level employees. A firm’s organizational

structure or corporate structure is the design of the system and

arrangement of components in the organization. Effective

management is crucial to maintaining services that suit target

customers accessible through the Internet.

Genpact, a digital business process management and services

provider, started off in 1997 as a business unit of General

Electric. In 2005 it became an independent unit to serve clients

beyond GE and in 2007 became a publicly traded company. In a

matter of two decades, it grew in leaps and bounds. In 2005 they

had 19000+ employees. December 2016 that number stood at 77000+

with important offices in New York City, Palo Alto, London, and

Delhi.

They have keyed the word Lean Digital which integrates lean

principles (creating value for customers with limited

resources), design conceptualization, analytics and digital

technologies with their domain and their extensive knowledge of

the industry. Their service comes broadly in two forms: domain

enabled solutions and digital operations. Their experience at GE

has helped develop a culture that focuses on customers’ needs

and requirements, teamwork and the striving for continuous

improvement. This is what they believe led to them having a 90%

+ contract renewal rate.

Their services range from customer service to finance and

accounting to collections, IT managed services, application

services to procurement. The industries covered by them are

equally varied.

Genpact enables companies worldwide to make smarter decisions,

helping them drive revenue growth, compete more successfully,

mitigate risk effectively, and improve operating margins and

working capital. Driven by a passion for process and operational

excellence based on its Lean and Six Sigma DNA, the company’s

53,000+ professionals around the globe deliver world-class

business process and technology management services everyday to

its more than 600 clients – from a network of 51 delivery

centers across 17 countries supporting more than 25 languages.

Objectives of the Study

The case study generally aims to describe and analyze the

process for customer service of Concentrix/Convergys. It

specifically sought to:

1. To determine the as-is customer service process of Genpact.

2. To identify the issues and problems associated to the as-is

customer service process.

3. To propose a to-be customer service process to address the

issues and problems.

METHODOLOGY

The study aims to focus on the satisfactory of employees, and a

survey was conducted to obtain their quantitative insights.

A survey through google forms for the questionnaire, the

familiarity and process of their works was the main focus for

the answers of the respondents, as shown in Illustration 1. The

questions were (1) Are you confident that your company is giving

great customer service?, (2) Are you familiar with BUSINESS

PROCESS MANAGEMENT?, (3) Does software on your workplace is

convenient for you?,(4) Do you have enough promotional offers?

and (5) Do you feel empowered while you are in work?

Respondents are to answer the close ended questions.

H1 : BPM has a great role for BPO companies.

Results

The aim of this study is to determine the roles of Business

Process Management to Business Process Outsourcing companies .

Respondents have a common familiarity on the great service (µ =

3.6294, p = .000). Respondents identified that the most

effective factor of BPM is the convenience (µ = 3.89, p = .000),

next is the familiarity(µ = 3.77, p = .000), and Source

Credibility (µ = 3.95, p = .000). Table 3 summarizes the

descriptive statistics of BPO companies.

Table 3. Descriptive statistics – BPO

Indicators/questions Std.

Mean Dev Sig

BUSINESS PROCESS OUTSOURCING 3.6294 .68730 .000

Service based 3.8854 .81721 .000

Are you confident that you company is giving

4.0304 .94432 .000
great customer service?

Process Credibility 3.1714 .90989 .000

Are you familiar with BPM? 1.0379

3.1732 .000
2

Workplace Congruence 3.7679 .78597 .000

Does the software on your company is

4.3304 .94186 .000
convenient?

Do you have enough promotions? 1.0775

3.6518 .000
8

Do you feel motivated when you are in work? 3.6982 .97371 .000

The results show that the influence of BPM, here the group-

difference, is significant for both service groups (worker and

local companies). However, group-differences are not significant

for consultants (neither management nor software consultancies).

The lower and upper limits of the 95% confidence interval (last

two columns) span the range in which the difference between the

population means is to be expected. If such interval does not

include the value of 0 (here: applies to both service groups),

we can consider the hypothesis that the Business Process

Management has the important role for the BPO companies. With a

confidence of 95%, we can assume that the importance of service

(both workers and local companies) is the same in organizations

depending on personnel or management that acquire BPM.

There are 85% of the respondents that are confident enough about
their great customer service and 15% are not. Business process
management (BPM) offers an opportunity to empower support teams
and the customers they serve. Advanced BPM solutions make it
possible to solve problems efficiently and take advantage of
positive customer experiences.( 2000 - 2018 ProcessMaker Inc)
There are 75% of the respondents that are familiar with BPM and
25% are not. BPM system should sit at the heart of your
organisation and that the most benefit is derived from one
common BPM system supporting your whole organisation. This gives
one central, source of accurate information, accessible to
everyone.( Process Excellence Network, a division of IQPC, 2019)

BPM can provide, such as enhanced operational efficiency,

improved customer service and increased product and service
innovation. (Villanova University, 2018). There are 90% of the
respondents that are comfortable and reliable to their software
on their workplace and 10% are not.
There are 50% of the respondents that are sure that they are
oferring enough promotions, 40% are not sure and 10% are totally
not. Business process management is critical to the way that
nearly all organizations operate. That’s because business
processes lay the foundation for back-office and front-office
business functions — from managing invoices and records to
quickly opening customer accounts and offering real-time
promotional offers to prospects. (IBM Cloud, 2015)
There are 80% of the respondents are motivated while in work,

15% are not sure and 5% is actually not.

With BPM software investments that give employees tools for

process improvement, companies can achieve considerable

productivity gains, motivating employees to improve is

especially vital during the key transformation period, when

organizations make process changes. (MALCOLM ROSS, MAY 17, 2013)

Business Process Management (BPM) activities cover a broad

variety of issues ranging from selecting process modeling

methods, defining process documentation standards, implementing

IT support for BPM activities, establishing a process-oriented

culture, BPM training, BPM governance to concrete process

analysis, optimization, and design (Rosemann et al. 2006).

The retrospective assessment of the situation prior to BPM

system implementation limits the reliability of the findings. As

for the real time experience and my own observation, I

definitely agree that BPM truly helped my workplace to have

organized and convenient process to have a great customer

service. Current results seem a good basis for further

refinement and validation. Call Center Solutions simply are not

built to capitalize on the opportunities collaborative Business

Process Management can exploit. Power the complete business

process lifecycle. Empower agents, empower knowledge workers.

Collaboration at every level, for every step for high-value

business processes. Enhanced business efficiency, performance

and agility. Workforce Management and Optimization with

management dashboards. Improve Customer Service with Integrated

Self-Service. That is why I used that points to ask agents and

managers questions about their workplace.

DISCUSSION OF FINDINGS

The aim of this study is to the process, strategies and

benefits gave to Genpact that Concentrix/Convergys applied or

adopted. BPM automation as an agent of change now reached a

tipping point for BPM automation as companies navigate this

world. We're seeing it become internalized across our standard

customer base as it's applied to increasingly complex processes.

A global engineering company is using it to streamline its bid

process, a financial services company is orchestrating the data

input process to meet tough compliance standards, and a

consulting firm uses it to compile clients' tax returns.( James

Luxford, 2018) Companies should apply a design-thinking approach

when it comes to improving the customer experience and the role

of automation and other technologies. This includes mapping the

customer experience before making any decisions about which

technologies to implement so you know what you're trying to

improve or fix, bringing in employees for their insights on

where applying new technologies would make the biggest impact

for them, such as the tedious manual processes that could be

automated to free up their time to spend on more effective

customer service and having the right mix of people in the room

to bring a vision to life – technology experts, system

architects, and those who touch the processes being changed

As the technology evolves, companies may add elements like RPA

or agile case management, enabling greater organizational

agility and an improved user experience. But BPM automation is

still a small step toward digital transformation – the challenge

for our customers is how they can build on this and move it to

the next level to ensure the future success of the company. Not

just incremental changes, but thinking about the products and

services they provide in a fundamentally different way. In 2011,

Gartner defined a new class of BPM suites – Intelligent BPM

Suites (iBPMS). These solutions go beyond traditional BPM with a

range of features such as analytics, mobile, social, and cloud

capabilities.
AS-IS Customer Service Process

Figure 1

As-Is Customer Service Process

“Genpact’s expertise in payment processing, financial services

operations, and customer service, along with a scientific

approach to process and operational rigor, is already helping

PreCash manage and drive growth,” said Steve Taylor, CEO of

PreCash. Genpact consulted a wide range of client-side

stakeholders, including shop-floor team members, agents, front-

line managers, operations managers, subject matter experts, and

internal support function resources, to identify root causes and

lay the groundwork for a solution design. Collaborating with

various process and function experts, these participants helped

identify significant variables and validate hypotheses.

Solutions ultimately included a mix of practice implementation,

process alignment and optimization, and IT intervention and

automation. The project team implemented a business process

management system to standardize and track processes,

accompanied by upgrades to hardware, software, and networking to

boost the number of connects per hour and improve handling time.

Customer Service Portal – ideally, you want to have a helpdesk

on your website where clients can go to get the answers they

need without needing help from your staff.

Phone Support – ideally, you want to minimize the need for a

support line. In some cases, however, there’s no way to get

around it. Most CRM solutions will empower support staff by

giving them customer information at their finger tips.

Email – people still email a lot. With a little setup, emails

should be able to be automatically created into cases when need

be.

Phone Sales – in some cases, people will call your sales

department because that’s who they dealt with previously. With

that being said, you need to give your salespeople the ability

to log cases manually if need be.

customer service process

Assign & Verify – the first thing your customer service process

should do, at this point, is to assign the case to the

appropriate customer service representative. This is typically

done by categorizing the cases by some set of predetermined

criteria and determining which customer service representative

is best suited to handle the case.

Identify Solution – next, your customer service representative

will then need to find the appropriate solution. In an ideal

setup the customer service representative would have the ability

to search a database of possible solutions.

Deliver Solution – once identified, your customer service

representative will need to somehow deliver the solution.

Rework the Case – if the solution fails, the case is

automatically rerouted back to the “Identify Solution” stage.

Escalate & Reassign Case – if the case hits a certain threshold,

it should then be escalated to the next level and reassigned to

the appropriate customer service representative.

Close the Case – once the case has been resolved, the data

collected should be used to help improve the customer service

process.

Issues and Problems with the AS-IS Customer Service Process

1. Disappointed customers/Customer satisfaction

2. Unfamiliarity in BPM
 3. Software/Technologies inconvenience

4. Not enough promotional offers

5. Unmotivated employees/workers

Figure 2.

Issues and Problems with the Customer Service Process

Dialing efficiencies - A combination of manual touch points and

sub-optimal settings led to issues such as high abandon and idle

rates, at the same time limiting progress on no activity (NA)

account inventories

Customer experience - Call effectiveness scores were low, and

some customers were upset by the persistence of follow-up calls

even after payment had been sent

Controllership and compliance - Controllership governing

adherence to state guidelines, such as cell phone consent

management, appeared to be inadequate

Agent and front-line manager (FLM) productivity - Productivity

issues included high average handle time, too much time spent on

manual inbound call exclusion, and manual touchpoints slowing

collector’s development plan reporting

To avoid this we must know about these:

Level of Complexity – How complex is the proposed process? At the

beginning of your process initiative it is important to establish

quick wins. If possible, avoid implementing

complex processes first. Complex processes usually span three to

four departments and involve a high degree of integration with

other internal systems. Don’t try to overhaul your company’s

financial management system as your initial process. Start with

simple processes to build success and gain buy-in.

Process Reach and Impact – How many people will the process

impact and how much pain is caused by the current process?

Initially, priority should be given to processes that represent

the greatest impact to a small group of users. Poorly deployed

processes that impact large numbers of users are guaranteed to

derail your ambitions if the process is not well received by end

users. Iron out process implementation wrinkles and hiccups on

a small group of users first.

Executive Support – Is the process currently a hot topic in the

executive board room? It is important to decide how priority

will be given to processes that are widely supported by the

executive team. In most cases, you should give these processes

priority if they are supported by a large executive contingent.

When processes enjoy strong executive support, they are usually

connected to a strategic or operational objective, which

increases the likelihood of project success.

Subject Matter Expertise – How well documented is the process;

on paper and in carbon life forms? Priority should be given to

processes that are well documented. You should also consider

accessibility to subject matter experts. Are they in the same

geographic location as the implementation team? Are they

currently unavailable due to demands from other projects? If

there is little subject matter expertise available, it will be

difficult to develop clear process requirements, which could

lead to a poorly designed process that is ultimately rejected by

end users.

Process selection guidelines should list and weight each

criterion. This will create some level of transparency around

how processes are selected for implementation. It is important

to gain consensus throughout the organization on the slate of

process selection criteria. Gaining consensus up front also

minimizes the need to constantly elaborate on why a particular

process is being implemented first.

Moving BPM Services to Small Cities Presents Challenges…

Indian BPM companies offer a wide range of services, including

customer and technical support, telemarketing, IT help desk,

data entry, etc. Critics believe that talent availability,

especially at the middle management level and the infrastructure

in Tier 2 & 3 cities, are still not on par with Tier 1

locations. Scaling up the local talent on communication and

domain will result in higher learning costs. BPMs will also need

to convince clients that the work done in an IT hub can be

effectively replicated in smaller cities. Tier 2 locations are

usually focused on providing specific services, with most other

Centers of Excellence still located at the primary locations.

It is imperative that the infrastructure and talent pool in Tier

2 & 3 cities is commensurate with the requirements of the

industry. Good transport with airline connectivity and high-

class office space are the first attractions for BPMs to shift

to smaller cities. Second, they seek to establish new service

lines for operating processes. This requires uninterrupted power

and good quality broadband connectivity. The third is the

creation of Software Technology Parks (STPs) that provide ready-

to-plug IT and telecom infrastructure. New SEZs accompanied with

tax holidays, which will boost BPM movement to small cities, is

also lacking pace.

TO-BE Customer Service Process

Figure 3.

As-Is Customer Service Process

When business intelligence is used to inform business process

changes, companies find new ways to save money and connect more

closely with customers. BPM tools were integrated, they could be

used to map how best to change business processes given a

particular insight from the data, says David White, a senior

research analyst with Aberdeen Group. But for now, CIOs like Roy

have to work with their business partners to make such

determinations. Connecting analytics and business processes

sometimes means creating data warehouses to collect information

from multiple systems in order to study it. IT leaders also find

themselves promoting old-fashioned conversation across

departments.

The IT-BPM (Information Technology and Business Process

Management) sector composed of customer relationship, support

and BPO (business process outsourcing including digital

agencies, software development and financial backroom services),

it’s the country’s fastest growing industry.

Prioritize and Implement Processes – The Center of Excellence

works with the executive sponsor and business managers to

identify and prioritize process projects. As previously

mentioned, process selection guidelines should be developed to

help the BPM Center of Excellence rank the processes to be

implemented. After processes have been prioritized, the Center

of Excellence can focus on its primary objective: developing and

deploying processes.

Maintain the Process Library – This consists of maintaining

knowledge and documentation captured for each process. This

knowledge is often contained in process requirements documents,

training manuals, and project plans. The Center of Excellence is

tasked with maintaining these artifacts in a physical library or

within a virtual knowledgebase.

Establish Process Best Practices – Upon completion of each

deployment, the BPM Center of Excellence conducts post-project

reviews and identifies lessons learned. These reviews are used

to establish best practices that can be applied to future

process implementations.

Evaluate Process Performance – Working with the process steward

and executive sponsor, the Center of Excellence periodically

evaluates the effectiveness of deployed processes. Process

effectiveness is evaluated based on key performance metrics

established prior to process deployment. BPM Centers of

Excellence are growing in popularity as many organizations begin

to expand departmental BPM initiatives to encompass the

enterprise. Centers of Excellence are most appropriate for

organizations looking to deploy three or more processes that

will need to interact with multiple departments. Working closely

with the executive sponsor, the BPM Center of Excellence should

be assigned responsibility for defining and enforcing process

governance rules. Once process governance rules have been

established, these rules should be institutionalized and

automated by the Center of Excellence.

 Conclusions

Current web world yearns toward increasing operational

efficiency have increased the need for business analysts to be

equipped with skills pertinent to the management and improvement

and business processes. At the forefront of such activities lies

the ability to identify, describe, and articulate business

processes in the form of such process specifications so that the

organizational processes can be documented, analyzed, improved,

and managed. In an attempt to respond to the current and future

market needs of IT and IS graduates equipped with process

capabilities. The content of this research closely relates to

industry practice and embeds latest advancements in related

process modelling research. ( W. Schmidt (Ed.): S-BPM ONE 2011)

Innovative assessment tasks help companies reinforcing and

applying the best for their customer service. Companies rate the

BPM highly in terms of relevance and skills transfer and find

the overall process valuable. Business process management is

all about smashing departmental silos and improving cross-

departmental collaboration and communication. However, in order

to achieve these lofty goals, organizations must first provide a

robust framework for governing how processes will be implemented

and deployed to the enterprise. (Clay Richardson, 2006)

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