ison bpo_2016_west africa award_frost_&_sullivan

2016 West African BusinessProcess Optimization Competitive

Strategy Innovation and Leadership Award

2016

WEST AFRICAN BUSINESS PROCESS OPTIMIZATION COMPETITIVE

STRATEGY INNOVATION AND LEADERSHIP AWARD

2016

BEST PRACTICES RESEARCH

© Frost & Sullivan 2016 2 “We Accelerate Growth”

Contents

Background and Company Performance ........................................................................ 3

Industry Challenges .............................................................................................. 3

Strategy Innovation and Customer Impact .............................................................. 3

Conclusion........................................................................................................... 8

Significance of Competitive Strategy Innovation and Leadership ...................................... 9

Understanding Competitive Strategy Innovation and Leadership ...................................... 9

Key Benchmarking Criteria .................................................................................. 10

Best Practice Award Analysis for iSON BPO, West Africa ................................................ 10

Decision Support Scorecard ................................................................................. 10

Strategy Innovation ............................................................................................ 11

Customer Impact ............................................................................................... 11

Decision Support Matrix ...................................................................................... 12

The Intersection between 360-Degree Research and Best Practices Awards ..................... 13

Research Methodology ........................................................................................ 13

Best Practices Recognition: 10 Steps to Researching, Identifying, and Recognizing Best Practices ................................................................................................................. 14

About Frost & Sullivan .............................................................................................. 15



Background and Company Performance

Industry Challenges

The BPO industry in West Africa is at its early growth stage. It has a healthy mix of local

and international providers. iSON BPO, CNSSL, and ConSol are among the leading local

providers, while Interra Networks and Tech Mahindra are among the leading international

providers. Telecommunications and Internet Service Providers (ISPs), Banking, Financial

Services, and Insurance (BFSI), Pay TV, and Government are among the key industries

utilising BPO services in West Africa. However, there are concerns around data security

and cyber security, which the government is trying to solve by creating favorable political

and regulatory measures that will attract foreign players to invest in the country, further

improving the business and innovation environment.

Lack of financial assistance especially capital funding to set up and run BPO operations is

hampering the growth and development of the BPO industry.

The limited and uneven supply of power is another major problem hampering the smooth

function of the BPO operations. Reliable power supply is a prerequisite for BPO providers

to operate on a 24x7 basis to support different time zones. This is resulting in high

overheads as providers instead rely on their own diesel generators.

Even though unemployment rates are high in West Africa, finding resources with the right

skill set still remains a challenge to most BPO providers. However, many providers have

set up in-house training programs to train and equip agents with required skills.

Strategy Innovation and Customer Impact

Strategy Effectiveness

iSON BPO focuses on creating a team with strong domain knowledge and equip them with

skills required to directly deal with their clients. This has driven client and employee

satisfaction. Above all, it has enabled iSON BPO to remain competitive. Highlighted below

are some of their strategies and its impact:

• iSON BPO’s early partnership with Airtel Africa since their entry in 2010 has helped

them to gain a strong foothold in the telecommunications industry. This is apparent

from the fact that iSON BPO has procured nearly 100% of all new outsourcing projects

from the telecommunications industry ever since it entered the market.

• iSON BPO’s complete acquisition of Spanco Limited (SPAL), an Indian-based

telecommunications and contact centre services provider, in 2013 helped iSON BPO to

further strengthen its BPO service offerings. Spanco’s strong onshore operations in

Middle East, UK, US, and India have not only enabled iSON BPO to further strengthen

its global presence but also expand its client base.



• Given that semi-urban and rural population comprises of 60-70% of the West African

population, iSON BPO started setting up operations in Tier-II cities in all West African

countries in which it has operations. This has helped iSON BPO to reduce cost of

operations significantly, while having wider access to labour at relatively lower wages.

• iSON BPO uses Avaya’s end-to-end platforms that comprises of Interactive Voice

Response (IVR), Automatic Call Distribution (ACD), and Workforce Optimization

(WFO). This has helped the provider to achieve improved IVR self-service resolution

levels, improved accessibility to information on agents and queue levels, and better

visibility on real-time performance that helps in efficient strategic decision-making.

• Furthermore, the usage of Avaya’s Real-Time Adherence (RTA) Dashboard has helped

iSON BPO to improve the average response time to customers and reduce waiting time

in queue. Also, the agent skill-set configuration tool has enabled the provider to

allocate the right set of agents in queues to offer services to customers in the earliest

possible time.

• iSON BPO follows a recruitment policy of hiring 100% local talent. This has helped the

provider to hire multilingual workforce that has capabilities to support up to 30+

languages including English, French, and other major local languages such as Hausa,

Igbo, Yoruba, Ibibio, Edo, Fulfulde, and Kanuri. Furthermore, this has enabled the

provider to deliver high quality voice services.

• iSON BPO’s practice of hiring Subject Matter Experts from the client segments has

helped the provider to drive the business through the strong domain knowledge of

their employees. This has enabled them to serve their clients better, while providing

value addition to their clients in achieving their objectives. For instance, as part of its

$300 million outsourcing contract with MTN, iSON BPO will manage MTN’s contact

centre operations in 7 countries in Africa. Also, nearly 5,000 MTN employees will be

trained and aligned with iSON BPO’s processes to support MTN’s contact centre

operations.

• Most of the business which has been sourced in the Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) region

in last 4 years has come to iSON BPO. As a result, the provider has close to 70%

market share in the third party outsourced contact center space.

Thus, the above mentioned strategies have helped iSON BPO to grow leaps and bounds

and emerge as a strong regional provider in West Africa with operations in 7 countries

such as Nigeria, Ghana, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Burkina Faso, Chad, and Niger.

Furthermore, they have also enabled iSON BPO to procure assignments from largest US

companies which are being executed from African countries.

Strategy Execution

Given that the service quality of local industries such as Telecommunications, BFSI, Retail,



and Aviation was sub-standard when iSON BPO entered the market in 2010, iSON BPO

used this opportunity and pioneered the initiative to develop SSA a viable alternate

outsourcing destination. iSON BPO’s required Intellectual Property (IP) and skill set along

with its vast experience in the Indian BPO market has helped to emerge as a strong

provider in the West African BPO market.

The Strategy and Business Solution teams are the primary teams that are responsible for

identifying and developing competitive strategies. These teams draw information and

resources heavily from various functions including training, operations, quality, marketing,

and corporate departments of the organization on an as-needed basis to develop

strategies. These strategies further get approved by the Executive Committee before

actual implementation.

Highlighted below are some of iSON BPO’s operational best practices:

iSON BPO has made significant investments in implementation of state-of-the-art

technology with focus on providing tools to help the agents in performing more

efficiently with minimal error rate.

iSON BPO follows a completely process-driven methodology with global certifications

such as Quality Management System (ISO (9001:2008) and Information Security

Management System (ISO 27001:2013) in place. This has helped iSON BPO to

consistently maintain high service quality levels.

iSON BPO believes in all round employee development and has made substantial

investments in rigorous up-skilling initiatives. This has helped the provider to equip

agents with the required skill sets to handle tasks as they move up the hierarchy,

while increasing their efficiencies.

iSON BPO strictly does not hire any supervisory cadre from outside the company and

has created the entire supervisory staff of about 1000 employees by up-skilling and

promoting internal resources.

Putting up facilities at locations which are more convenient from employee perspective

and providing excellent work conditions for agents to be able to give output to the best

of their capabilities.

High focus on employee engagement and reward and recognition programs. Very large

focus on employee empowerment and delegation with strong governance and control

mechanisms in place.

Furthermore, iSON BPO is trying to replicate the proven strategies that have enabled the

provider to emerge successful in the telecommunications industry to the other verticals

such as Banking Financial Services and Insurance (BFSI), Media, Retail, and eCommerce.



Competitive differentiation

Service diversification and moving beyond offering standard contact centre services is the

main competitive differentiator factor between iSON BPO and its competitors.

Most BPO and Contact Centres in West Africa offer the basic services such as

inbound/outbound contact centre services for voice, chat and e-mail; HR management;

and marketing services. Besides these services, iSON BPO also offers additional services

such as content digitization, healthcare administration, policy administration, market

research, analytics, social media support, government to customer (G2C) services,

customer acquisition and campaign management, customer on-boarding, and customer

retention/revenue assurance which have helped the provider to stand out in the

outsourcing space.

Most of the competitors focus on providing services to fewer verticals such as the

telecommunications; banking and financial industries, while iSON BPO targets a wider

range of industries, such as insurance, media and entertainment, retail, aviation,

government, energy and utilities, amongst others.

iSON BPO’s diversification strategy along with an efficient operational model has helped

the provider not only to combat the decline in domestic demand but also enable its clients

to see the value in outsourcing their non-core activities, thereby remaining competitive

and successful in the BPO market in West Africa.

Price/Performance value

iSON BPO follows ‘value for money’ strategy. For instance, iSON BPO has helped

telecommunications providers to achieve superlative service levels that surpass West

Africa’s conventional industry norms by far. They have also helped to reduce customer

service costs by 50%, thus making ‘customer experience’ a competitive edge in the

telecommunications industry.

iSON BPO has made substantial investments in creating world class service delivery

infrastructure while enabling its employees to use relevant latest technologies which

ultimately helps to superior quality customer service levels.

Customer Service Experience

iSON BPO’s has employed automated escalation, response mechanisms, concepts of

closed looping on queries, and service recovery mechanisms so as to respond immediately

to service requests. This has enabled the telecommunications providers to drastically cut

down the wait time on customer care calls which used to run into several hours, while

resulting in a rapid increase in subscriber numbers.

iSON BPO’s strategies are highly customer centric with 100% focus on customer



experience management. This is evident from the fact that it offers services across a wide

range of channels such as e-mails, web chat, voice, Interactive Voice Response (IVR), and

social media. The social media platforms supported are Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, and

Nairaland. This omni-channel customer support has enabled iSON BPO not only to improve

customer service experience across all customer segments, while substantially improving

customers’ accessibility to problem resolution. For instance, iSON BPO’s efficient

management of back-office processes have not only helped to reduce fraud rates but also

result in a significant growth of the mobile money business.

The customer feedback mechanisms used are internal audit mechanisms such as Voice of

Customer (VOC) which helps the management to improve incident resolution levels; daily

VOC reports that keep clients apprised of sudden issues such as downtime, network issue,

etc.; and monthly Net Promoter Score (NPS) reports as part of which outbound calls are

made to survey customers to capture reasons for calls to contact centres and suggestions

and ratings from customers that help iSON BPO to calculate NPS. Furthermore, visits are

made to client shops to capture VOC and also understand the competition in the market.

Brand Equity

iSON BPO is a leading BPO provider with 3715 employees and 2252 seats in West Africa.

It’s strong regional presence is evident from the fact that the provider started off with 65

call centre agents in Kenya in 2010 and has grown to 17 centres across 14 countries in

SSA with over 10,000 employees as of today, while their nearest competitors are at 2000

to 3000 employee levels. This has also helped iSON BPO to iSON BPO has business

operations across 15 countries in Africa, with its headquarters in Nigeria. Apart from

Africa, iSON BPO also has operations in India. The provider has inherited immensely from

iSON Technologies, the IT subsidiary of its parent iSON Group, in terms of infrastructure,

platforms, services, skills, and competencies.

The approach followed to build and strengthen the brand equity of their services is by way

of delivering quality services through their strategic initiatives, thereby winning the trust

of their customers. While iSON BPO had entered the West African market along with much

larger multinationals like Tech Mahindra, today there is no comparison in their positioning

against their competition in the eyes of relevant client categories.

CSR

July 23rd, 2016 iSON Group embarked on a new journey with Girl Effect to fulfill its CSR

objectives. Girl Effect and iSON’s landmark initiative “Girls Connect” went LIVE for the first

time in areas of Kano state in Northern Nigeria.

Girls Connect is a truly pioneering initiative that allows girls to access on-demand content

and personalized conversations that can enrich their lives. Girls will be able to call a toll

free number, listen to content on a number of topics ranging from friendship to safety,

and follow this up with a conversation with a trained female call centre operative to help



them make sense of what they’ve heard and apply it to their own lives.

This groundbreaking initiative is the result of an unlikely partnership between iSON, one of

Africa’s largest BPO and Technology groups, and Girl Effect, the organization building

brands and content that change the world for girls, so that girls can change the world.

iSON with its first-rate technical expertise, labor force and on-the-ground reach through

its call centres complements the “inspirational” partnership wherein Girl Effect brings its

content and girl centered technical knowledge.

iSON aims to reduce intergenerational poverty with girls as the highest point of leverage

in breaking this cycle.

Conclusion

iSON BPO, one of the leading BPO and Contact Centre providers in West Africa, has

diversified its services portfolio to offer a wide range of services across multiple industries.

This service diversification strategy coupled with an operational strategy that focuses on

continuous improvement has helped iSON BPO to stay ahead of competition. The

deployment of sophisticated tools has facilitated the integration of people, process and

technology and has enabled to perform operations efficiently. The operational strategy

which is the key to its success is characterized by nurturing employees with strong domain

expertise who are able to deliver high quality of services and improve time to delivery.

With its strong overall performance, iSON BPO has earned Frost & Sullivan’s 2016

Competitive Strategy Innovation and Leadership award.



Significance of Competitive Strategy Innovation and

Leadership

Any successful approach to achieving top-line growth must (1) take into account what

competitors are, and are not, doing; (2) meet customer demand with a comprehensive,

value-driven product or service portfolio; and (3) establish a brand that resonates deeply

with customers and stands apart from other providers. Companies must succeed at these

three things—brand, demand, and positioning—to achieve best-practice levels in

competitive strategy.

Understanding Competitive Strategy Innovation and

Leadership

As discussed above, driving demand, brand strength, and competitive differentiation all

play a critical role in delivering unique value to customers. This three-fold focus, however,

must ideally be complemented by an equally rigorous focus on strategy innovation and

customer impact.



Key Benchmarking Criteria

For the Competitive Strategy Innovation and Leadership Award, Frost & Sullivan analysts

independently evaluated two key factors—Strategy Innovation and Customer Impact—

according to the criteria identified below.

Strategy Innovation

Criterion 1: Strategy Effectiveness

Criterion 2: Strategy Execution

Criterion 3: Competitive Differentiation

Criterion 4: Executive Team Alignment

Criterion 5: Stakeholder Integration

Customer Impact

Criterion 1: Price/Performance Value

Criterion 2: Customer Purchase Experience

Criterion 3: Customer Ownership Experience

Criterion 4: Customer Service Experience

Criterion 5: Brand Equity

Best Practice Award Analysis for iSON BPO

Decision Support Scorecard

To support its evaluation of best practices across multiple business performance

categories, Frost & Sullivan employs a customized Decision Support Scorecard. This tool

allows our research and consulting teams to objectively analyze performance, according to

the key benchmarking criteria listed in the previous section, and to assign ratings on that

basis. The tool follows a 10-point scale that allows for nuances in performance evaluation;

ratings guidelines are illustrated below.

RATINGS GUIDELINES

The Decision Support Scorecard is organized by Strategy Innovation and Customer Impact

(i.e., the overarching categories for all 10 benchmarking criteria; the definitions for each

criteria are provided beneath the scorecard). The research team confirms the veracity of

this weighted scorecard through sensitivity analysis, which confirms that small changes to

the ratings for a specific criterion do not lead to a significant change in the overall relative

rankings of the companies.



The results of this analysis are shown below. To remain unbiased and to protect the

interests of all organizations reviewed, we have chosen to refer to the other key players

as Competitor 1 and Competitor 2.

DECISION SUPPORT SCORECARD FOR COMPETITIVE STRATEGY INNOVATION AND

LEADERSHIP AWARD

Measurement of 1–10 (1 = poor; 10 = excellent)

Competitive Strategy Innovation and

Leadership

Strategy

Innovation

Customer

Impact Average Rating

iSON BPO 9 8 8.5

Competitor 2 6 5 5.5

Competitor 3 4 4 4.0

Strategy Innovation

Criterion 1: Strategy Effectiveness

Requirement: Strategy effectively balances short term performance needs with long-term

aspirations and vision for the company

Criterion 2: Strategy Execution

Requirement: Adoption of best-in-class processes to support the efficient and consistent

implementation of business strategy

Criterion 3: Competitive Differentiation

Requirement: Unique competitive advantages with regard to solution or product are

clearly articulated and well accepted within the industry

Criterion 4: Executive Team Alignment

Requirement: The executive team is aligned on the organization’s mission, vision, strategy

and execution

Criterion 5: Stakeholder Integration

Requirement: Strategy reflects the needs or circumstances of all industry stakeholders,

including competitors, customers, investors, and employees

Customer Impact

Criterion 1: Price/Performance Value

Requirement: Products or services offer the best value for the price, compared to similar

offerings in the market

Criterion 2: Customer Purchase Experience

Requirement: Customers feel like they are buying the most optimal solution that

addresses both their unique needs and their unique constraints

Criterion 3: Customer Ownership Experience

Requirement: Customers are proud to own the company’s product or service, and have a



positive experience throughout the life of the product or service

Criterion 4: Customer Service Experience

Requirement: Customer service is accessible, fast, stress-free, and of high quality

Criterion 5: Brand Equity

Requirement: Customers have a positive view of the brand and exhibit high brand loyalty

Decision Support Matrix

Once all companies have been evaluated according to the Decision Support Scorecard,

analysts can then position the candidates on the matrix shown below, enabling them to

visualize which companies are truly breakthrough and which ones are not yet operating at

best-in-class levels.

DECISION SUPPORT MATRIX FOR COMPETITIVE STRATEGY INNOVATION AND LEADERSHIP

AWARD

High

Low

Low High

Cu

sto

mer I

mp

act

Strategy Innovation

iSON BPO

Competitor 2

Competitor 3



The Intersection between 360-Degree Research and Best

Practices Awards

Research Methodology

Frost & Sullivan’s 360-degree research

methodology represents the analytical

rigor of our research process. It offers a

360-degree-view of industry challenges,

trends, and issues by integrating all 7 of

Frost & Sullivan's research methodologies.

Too often, companies make important

growth decisions based on a narrow

understanding of their environment,

leading to errors of both omission and

commission. Successful growth strategies

are founded on a thorough understanding

of market, technical, economic, financial,

customer, best practices, and demographic

analyses. The integration of these research

disciplines into the 360-degree research

methodology provides an evaluation

platform for benchmarking industry

players and for identifying those performing at best-in-class levels.

360-DEGREE RESEARCH: SEEING ORDER IN

THE CHAOS



Best Practices Recognition: 10 Steps to Researching,

Identifying, and Recognizing Best Practices

Frost & Sullivan Awards follow a 10-step process to evaluate award candidates and assess

their fit with select best practice criteria. The reputation and integrity of the Awards are

based on close adherence to this process.

STEP OBJECTIVE KEY ACTIVITIES OUTPUT

1 Monitor, target, and screen

Identify award recipient candidates from around the globe

Conduct in-depth industry research

Identify emerging sectors Scan multiple geographies

Pipeline of candidates who potentially meet all best-practice criteria

2 Perform 360-degree research

Perform comprehensive, 360-degree research on all candidates in the pipeline

Interview thought leaders and industry practitioners

Assess candidates’ fit with best-practice criteria

Rank all candidates

Matrix positioning all candidates’ performance relative to one another

3

Invite thought leadership in best practices

Perform in-depth examination of all candidates

Confirm best-practice criteria Examine eligibility of all

candidates Identify any information gaps

Detailed profiles of all ranked candidates

4

Initiate research director review

Conduct an unbiased evaluation of all candidate profiles

Brainstorm ranking options Invite multiple perspectives

on candidates’ performance Update candidate profiles

Final prioritization of all eligible candidates and companion best-practice positioning paper

5

Assemble panel of industry experts

Present findings to an expert panel of industry thought leaders

Share findings Strengthen cases for

candidate eligibility Prioritize candidates

Refined list of prioritized award candidates

6

Conduct global industry review

Build consensus on award candidates’ eligibility

Hold global team meeting to review all candidates

Pressure-test fit with criteria Confirm inclusion of all

eligible candidates

Final list of eligible award candidates, representing success stories worldwide

7 Perform quality check

Develop official award consideration materials

Perform final performance benchmarking activities

Write nominations Perform quality review

High-quality, accurate, and creative presentation of nominees’ successes

8

Reconnect with panel of industry experts

Finalize the selection of the best-practice award recipient

Review analysis with panel Build consensus Select winner

Decision on which company performs best against all best-practice criteria

9 Communicate recognition

Inform award recipient of award recognition

Present award to the CEO Inspire the organization for

continued success Celebrate the recipient’s

performance

Announcement of award and plan for how recipient can use the award to enhance the brand

10 Take strategic action

Upon licensing, company may share award news with stakeholders and customers

Coordinate media outreach Design a marketing plan Assess award’s role in future

strategic planning

Widespread awareness of recipient’s award status among investors, media personnel, and employees



About Frost & Sullivan

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and achieve best in class positions in growth, innovation and leadership. The company's

Growth Partnership Service provides the CEO and the CEO's Growth Team with disciplined

research and best practice models to drive the generation, evaluation and implementation

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