‘Third-party BPOs are more efficient than captive ones’

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: Cost cutting no longer lures BPO firms. Their ability to provide value to customers is the new mantra, says Mohammad Ketabchi, chairman of Savvion, Inc. A leading provider of business process management (BPM) solution, Savvion offers software that automates corporate functions including procurement, design specification, supply chain management, service provisioning, benefits administration, and maintenance.

A Ph D in computer and information sciences from the University of Minnesota, USA, Ketabchi was a professor at the Santa Clara University, California, when he began Savvion in 1994. He was also the director of the object and multimedia technology research laboratory at the university and has done some pioneering work in the area. On a recent visit to India, he spoke to Viveat Susan Pinto about trends in the BPO segment and benefits the company’s software offerings could provide them with. Excerpts:

You sell to several industries globally. Don’t you feel that interest from the BPO companies in your software is high in India?

That’s true. Over 50% of our pipeline in India consists of BPO companies alone.

Which are the prominent Indian clients in the BPO segment?

We have Genpact, Intelenet and Patni as our BPO clients here. The BPO vertical is one among many others that we cater to. The list of names in those areas is pretty long. For instance, in manufacturing, telecommunications, banking and financial services, electronics or IT, there are quite a number of names on our list across the world.

What kind of automation products click better with BPOs?

Ease with which they can use our software is the key. This applies to companies from other sectors too.

We basically enable them to define their business processes with the help of an easy-to-use graphic tool. Anybody who knows Microsoft Excel or Powerpoint can use the tool. With its help, and particularly in this phase, the user can articulate the process clearly.

The next part of our product allows the user to convert the process into an application—to make it executable. The third part of the product deals with the monitoring of the process. Whether the task on hand has been performed according to the expected standard or metric? How long did it take? Who was involved?