While there are plenty of positive GCC stories around us, all GCC leaders need to reflect on and review their GCC journey with the benefit of hindsight that the pandemic has afforded us.
Globalisation in general will be put to the test in the coming months, however we believe it presents the Indian GCC community with a window of opportunity as well.
- India’s response and resilience of its services sector has been a case study of sorts. The focus clearly needs to be (and is already) on how we can be better prepared the next time this happens. Business continuity planning shall be examined very closely. This saw the government and private sector come together to enable seamless working through this COVID-19 environment
- Efforts to accelerate digital initiatives to reduce dependence on people will need to be made. With revenues taking a hit, there is bound to be significant cost pressures on the GCC from parent organisations
- The nudge towards remote working could result in the sector not only accepting colleagues who work from home, but also in them moving/expanding delivery centres to emerging Tier-2 cities to keep costs down
- GCCs and service providers working shifts and sharing desktops and other hardware have been hit harder than others. Technology-enabled remote employee performance monitoring will be key demonstrators (and differentiators) of abilities going forward
- Persistence of the current lockdown scenario may lead to organisations deferring short term incentives and scheduled promotions of their employees at the senior and top management levels, and will also merit review of longer term structures allowing for more flexibility
- Risk and controls, especially in financial services, will see a major rise in prominence with sensitive data ‘going home’. Sustaining these new ways of working will need new thoughts and different controls that work in the new scenario. Security protocols need to be relooked to address various cyber threats, fraud attempts, server/network compromises, etc.
- Last but not the least, COVID-19 has shown us that almost any role can be performed remotely. Will it change the way we think about offshoring?
Indications are that Global Business Services organisations and service providers will need to adopt major changes in their ways of doing business and create a ‘new normal’. This global pandemic has undoubtedly questioned long standing norms of the Indian offshoring industry and will set the foundations to define ‘The Future of Work’
The following six imperatives could be key themes/thought-starters which we are looking to cover as specific subjects to delve deeper. Feel free to reach out to us to develop thoughts better:
- Operating model: revisit sourcing model (in-house vs. outsourced mix, nearshore vs. offshore)
- Delivery footprint: reduce ‘concentration risk’, leverage global talent pool and enhance resilience
- Digital infusion: rearchitect delivery platforms for remote workforce enablement and increased automation
- Risk and compliance: ensure pandemic preparedness and redefine controls, protocols and policies for the new normal
- Workforce shaping: embrace flexible working policies, agile models and gig workers
- Frugality: unlock cost savings opportunities with a frugal mindset