The below excerpt is an exclusive interview with Mr. Neeraj Tandon – CEO of Conneqt Business Solutions Ltd. (Formerly TATA Business Support Services) a joint venture of TATA Sons and Quess Corp and a sub holding company of Fairfax Canada.
Behind the Scenes: A brief write-up about Mr. Neeraj Tandon
Serving as CEO since July 2018, Neeraj led the company through a smooth transition from Tata BSS to Conneqt. He had built a culture of Performance Orientation, Agility and Better Execution that helped Conneqt grow at twice the Industry growth rate and improve margins. His focus on Employee Engagement and Customer Satisfaction has helped improve both Employee Engagement scores and Client NPS. He is making large bets on Process Automation and Digital Process Outsourcing to repurpose the organization for the future. Prior to joining Conneqt, Neeraj held executive positions across technology & outsourcing majors including HCL ,IBM, ACI Computers & HP . He was also the Co-founder of mPayGo Internet Services, a FinTech start up. In his 30 year long career he is credited with being an entrepreneurial self-starter who has done business across the globe by creating practice led transformational value propositions for his clients. He is an alumnus of IIT Delhi and IIM Bangalore.
Conneqt Business Solutions – Let’s Simplify
- Kindly brief us about Conneqt Business Solutions.
Conneqt Business Solutions Ltd (formerly Tata Business Support Services Ltd) headquartered in India, is one of the largest CLM (customer life cycle management) and BPM (business process management) service providers in India and the Middle East. We have over 30,000 FTE employees located across 26 delivery centers and also present in over 650 locations through our unique ‘Feet on street’ offerings. Today we support over 130 clients in 24 Indian and 12 international languages. Besides CLM BPO services we also provide Finance and Accounting (FAO), HR BPO services and vertical/industry processes.
We are also embarking on our Digital journey with innovative DIB (Digital-in a-Box) framework to help clients rapidly develop digital services that are market ready. We are also investing in automation and analytics capabilities and geographical expansion to US, Middle East and APAC.
- Mention any awards and appreciations that your company has received.
Here are some of our recent awards:
- Digital Customer Experience Summit & Award 2019
Won 2 awards – “Digital Excellence in Banking Sector” and “Digital Customer Experience Team of the Year”
- Business Intelligence & Analytics Summit & Awards 2019
Won 2 awards – “Business Intelligence Champion of the Year” and “Analytics Excellence Awards”
- Dream Companies to Work For 2019
Won 5 awards – “Dream Companies To Work For”, “Best Service Provider”,” Career Fairs”, “Campus Recruitment and “Talent Management & 101 HR Super Achiever HR Leadership Award “
- Future of HR Summit & Awards 2019
Won the “Best Recruitment Strategy & Best Talent Acquisition Practice Award “
- Golden Globe Tigers Award 2019
Won the award for “Best High Potential Development Program – LEAP “
- Design Thinking Summit & Awards 2019
Awarded as the “Best Transitions Design Organization “
- CSR Leadership Awards 2019
Won the Best “Corporate Social Responsibility Practices Award “
We won the following awards in the year 2018
- UBS Forums – Best Internal Communications Award 2018
- Best Leadership Development Program @ Global Training & Development Leadership Awards, February 2018
- Recognized for CSR contribution towards society by Amity CSR Awards, March 2018
- TATVA Award for ‘Best Service Provider’ for our services to one of the largest private insurance companies in India – won 3rd time in a row by Conneqt, April 2018
- Best Performing Partner of the Year Award from one of the Private Bank’s Retail Asset Recovery Department, May 2018
- Best Business Partner Award from India’s Largest Hotel Aggregator, September 2018 And,
- NASSCOM Customer Excellence Award 2018
Won the prestigious “Customer Service Excellence Award, 2018” in “Process Improvement & Efficiencies” category for Tata Motors Limited
- What are the different products and services of Conneqt Business Solutions?
Conneqt Business Solutions is one of the world’s leading CLM and BPM organization. Our four enablers – people, process, platforms and partners – come together to help us deliver favorable business outcomes across industries.
Here are the details of our end-to-end services and solutions:
- CUSTOMER LIFE CYCLE MANAGEMENT SERVICES
- Front & Back Office Services
- Omni channel customer interaction services
- Middle and back office services
- Digital marketing services
- Surveys & VOC
- BI & analytics
- Fulfilment Services
- Field collections and reconciliations
- Field investigation
- Agency based service and sales
- Ecosystem management
- BUSINESS PROCESS MANAGEMENT SERVICES
- Auto TPA – insurance services
- Market research and analytics
- Audit servicesSHARED SERVICES
- Finance & accounting services
- HR shared services
- PR to PO
Apart from CLM and BPM, we had ventured into our Digital Journey known as “Digital-in-a-Box (DiB)” to provide a seamless transition and transformation experience to our customers in the Digital Era
- DiB
- Omni – Channel Services
- Social Media sevices
- BI & Analytics
- eWallets
- Field Force Automation
- Process Automation
- Sales Automation
- Cloud CRM
- What is the USP of Conneqt Business Solutions that serves as an advantage over competitors and benefits clients/customers?
Since our inception in 2004, we have served clients across Banking, Financial Services & Insurance, Telecom & Media, Auto & Manufacturing, Retail & E-commerce, Emerging and Travel.
Across engagements, our clients acknowledge the value we bring to their business
- End-to-end CLM: We support clients across the customer lifecycle journey (target – acquire – onboard – serve – grow – retain)
- Program management: We take ownership at all the stages of the engagement (design – development – deployment – delivery – insights)
- Omni-channel expertise: We connect with customers through multiple modes (voice, IVR, web, email, video and voice chat, SMS, social media, self-service kiosks, agency and snail mail), while ensuring a consistent brand experience
- Presence and personalization: Our wide delivery footprint, multilingual capabilities and proven expertise across industries and offerings makes us the go-to service provider for medium and large enterprises seeking business transformation
- Business outcome-focused: Our committed outcomes of growing revenues, enhancing experience and enabling efficiency resonate strongly with clients
- Our values and heritage: Business is not the end for us, but merely the means to achieve a larger goal. Our affirmative action, positively impacts thousands of lives, while offering clients significant benefits. Our values, thus, play a key role in shaping the organization our culture, and most importantly the value that clients draw from their engagement with us
- How is the global outsourcing industry evolved over the last decade and with Asian countries joining the fray, what is the current scenario of the outsourcing industry?
Past Scenario
Over the last decade, despite recession and many other economic factors, Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) industry had expanded tremendously since 2009, new facet being offshoring of IT services. ITeS and IT along with Finance functions were impacted during 2008-2009 recession but markets did not decline and maintained a steady aggregate score.
In 2008 the revenue of global outsourcing industry stood at 87.5 billion U.S. dollars and it showed an upward trend till 2012.
Over the last 5 years there was a steady drop in revenues to 76.9 billion US dollars in 2016 due various factors.
Present Scenario
America holding the largest share in revenue. Asia Pacific ranks as the fastest growing outsourcing market with a CAGR of 9.6%. India and Philippines are the two most lucrative destinations for business process outsourcing services followed by other countries
- How is the company embracing innovation and leveraging technology for rolling out exquisite services?
ConneQT Business Solution has been heavily embracing on technological innovation. However, over a period of time we have understood that it is not just about embracing innovation, it is about embracing change. CBSL has been at the forefront of embracing the change in what customers expect from service providers. These have evolved over the last decade drastically. We have over a decade of experience in enhancing customer experiences across verticals and we see the customer expectations shifting and evolving. Technology is now not just a layer on the business but has become integral to the fabric of the company.
Keeping this in mind we introduced, a couple of years back, an accelerator framework “Digital in a Box” which has been well received across the customer community. DiB covers various aspects of front-office and back-office with the basic notion that the customers view brands as one entity and hence the entire customer journey needs to be enabled and orchestrated in a seamless manner to deliver superior CX (customer experience). This may include various technology components from Omni-Channel & CRM to automation (aka RPA) well as Social Media Services & Analytics. Our Digital stack covers solutions for the entire customer life cycle management, right from Customer targeting, acquisition, on boarding, maintaining and servicing. Our technology solutions are tailored to enhancing both experience and efficiency (E2 Index).
- What would be your advice for the budding start-ups and entrepreneurs in this segment?
- Before you commit yourself to a start-up you should first introspect and see what problem are you trying to solve? Is it a real problem? How big is the problem? Who are the others trying to solve the same problem? How well does your solution stack up against others?
- Use technology as much as possible. In the current context of business, using technology is essential to solving problems effectively and disrupting existing players.
- Have a team in place that is cohesive and has a shared vision of the future. Find someone to lead the team. Democracy will not always work.
- But, above all, once you start don’t give up. Close your exit options. This is usually the most important difference between success and failure!
- Brief us about the company’s future perspectives.
Aiming to Achieve more:
- To be a $1Bn valued enterprise by 2022
- To deliver superior customer experience by continually simplifying business processes and creating sustainable value for all stakeholders
