Infotech Lead India: Infosys BPO is certified under PCI-DSS, one of the most stringent security standards globally. The certification affirms Infosys BPO’s commitment to a strong data protection and information management strategy and places it among a handful of 3rd party service providers around the globe to have achieved this distinction.
Anantha Radhakrishnan, vice president and unit head – Global centers, Business Transformation and Technology Services, Infosys BPO, talks about technology adoption in the BPO industry and investment plans of the company.
What are the major technological challenges and technology adoption in the BPO industry?
Given the volatile business environment, there is an increased need for companies to adopt disruptive technologies like Cloud, Social Media, Big data and Mobility to help not only in reducing operational costs but also in transforming and reshaping their business. Key challenges are security and data privacy, ability to quickly acquire new talent to manage the newer technologies and change management in adoption of these new technologies to match the agile business needs
Today when organizations grapple with the challenges and opportunities presented by globalization and these emerging new technologies they are expecting BPO providers to co-create with them through speed of adoption in leveraging technology to release innovation.
Will 4G encourage Indian enterprises?
As organizations are increasingly moving enterprise applications into cloud and allowing access to this application (data, voice, image) via mobile devices like tablets or smart phones, cellular network throughput/speed becomes critical for productivity. Since 4 G technology is supposed to be 10 times faster, it will certainly encourage Indian enterprise, faster adoption of mobility solutions that helps in building high productive enterprise.
How do you rate the services of Wi-Fi providers?
We use multiple Wi-Fi service providers such as Bharti Airtel, Tata and Reliance and leverage them for varied applications and business usage. Their services are stable and consistent in delivering business needs.
What are your organizations’ devices and social media access policies? How it is impacting growth of the company?
We are currently doing a POC on BYOD (Bring your own devoice) model with limited set of users before we roll out to larger set of enterprise users. We today operate with desktops, laptops, Blackberry devices , iPad’s and iPhones and other smart tablets to access internal applications and emails . Currently we restrict external social media access to employees via corporate network and the same is provided only based on business needs.
What are the new technologies that you are planning to implement?
Cloud, Big data and Mobility and social media technologies have been used to deliver newer service offerings like Business process on cloud, Analytics etc.
Centralized SIP server solutions with Sip clients on Desktops or cell phones (SIP compatible) for voice communication / teleconference over Internet expect to see more solutions for optimizing Voice over IP bandwidth while telecom costs will continue to drop further.
Multi-channel communications, unified contact centers and extending to social networking and mobility solutions are some areas of pilot and commercialization.
What is your security strategy?
As clients build their tomorrow’s enterprise technological threats to data privacy and security are a source of deep concern. Customer data across a wide range of industries and services is vulnerable to data theft, with losses potentially amounting to millions of dollars. Security measures to protect such data are critical.
Infosys considers the customer and client data to be of paramount importance. We have instituted various safety measures to protect data, both in the virtual and in the real environment. We adhere proactively to strict industry standards – aligned to BS7799 IS. We ensure that access to data is limited only to those who need to work with it. We draw contracts with service providers wherein our customer’s privacy and security concerns are addressed. We adopt a data-centric approach to manage security and privacy risks and reviews all processes, function and client relations from the data perspective.
We treat Data security as hygiene and prerequisite to do business with our clients.
What is your ICT budget? What is the growth in ICT budget? What are the new components?
Our ICT budgets vary year on year and depend on the growth of the business and leveraging of new technologies which aid revenue growth. The new components are around SIP technology to optimize costs, mobile, cloud, social media and big data adoption.
Any plan for Cloud adoption?
The BPO market, in general, and FAO market in particular, has matured over the years. Buyer’s demands are increasing and they are seeking more and more flexible and modular solutions tailored to their specific needs. Companies are also finding it increasingly difficult to invest in capital required for large scale platform implementations and / or other key IT initiatives. The cloud model and what it can offer therefore becomes very important
Given the background of the BPO Market and what Clients are looking for , Infosys BPO has embarked on and built momentum on a New Business Model – leveraging the Cloud to deliver innovative and new business models to their clients. (Business process on cloud and Business platforms). The application and process layer bundled with the cloud could either be with an ERP or Best of breed tool along with a Value added white space tool (TVA -Technology Value accelerator) or ride only on a TVA on cloud on top of an existing traditionally implemented ERP or Best of breed application.
The Infosys BPO TVA’s help in delivering enhanced business value to our Clients as it bundles white space technology and business processing services on top of existing sunk technology investments
What would you expect from the communications industry?
– Expect to see more solutions for optimizing Voice over IP bandwidth while telecom costs will continue to drop further.
– Transparency of Service providers in delivering higher service levels.
– Cloud providers to ensure they meet the end client expectations on traceability , control of data storage , business SLA’s on availability and disaster recovery
What are your main expectations from the ICT industry?
Expect the IT industry to adopt and leverage newer technologies to innovate and deliver business models with higher value to clients. Pay as you use pricing, sharing back end costs leveraging cloud principle, enhanced and been compliant with data traceability ,security and privacy norms are crucial to build client trust and confidence.
