{"id":1513,"date":"2011-05-03T08:35:00","date_gmt":"2011-05-03T08:35:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/projects\/horsesforsources\/exl-opi_030511\/"},"modified":"2011-05-03T08:35:00","modified_gmt":"2011-05-03T08:35:00","slug":"exl-opi_030511","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.horsesforsources.com\/exl-opi_030511\/","title":{"rendered":"EXL eyes the enterprise BPO market with acquisition of OPI and the world’s second-most intelligent people"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/p>\n

EXL: Fine wines, fine insurance and now some very smart Bulgarians <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

EXL and OPI, two of the smaller Finance and Accounting BPO (F&A BPO) providers, and both recently touted as\u00a0acquisition\u00a0candidates in HfS Research’s\u00a02011 F&A BPO market landscape<\/a>, have tied the knot in a surprising merger, in this\u00a0rapidly-consolidating and transmutating BPO market. Not only that, HfS has officially uncovered the undisputed proven fact that Bulgaria is home to the world’s second-most intelligent people<\/em>, according to MENSA’s IQ scores. \u00a0Yes, EXL now has an operation there.<\/p>\n

Already this year, we have seen bold moves from HOVS to acquire SourceCorp<\/a> and Genpact with Headstrong<\/a>. \u00a0It appears that the leading “pureplays” (whom we won’t be calling pureplays anymore) are seeking to\u00a0bolster their scale, service\u00a0portfolio\u00a0and industry competency, while several of the larger IT-centric outsourcers watch curiously from the sidelines as their BPO heads anxiously try to convince their boards of tech-lovers that offshore IT services growth isn’t infinite, and if they don’t invest in their BPO competencies soon, will face a very tough task to\u00a0infiltrate\u00a0this market in the future.<\/p>\n

I have long-admired EXL as a business, since the early days of its IPO – its clients are like a who’s who<\/em> of insurance giants. EXL\u00a0\u00a0has focused expertise in complex areas of insurance, namely risk management, analytics and compliance, in addition to transactional process. \u00a0It has also been quietly developing its excellent LifePRO platform for or life, health and annuity insurance.<\/p>\n

Here’s why this is an excellent acquisition:<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

EXL has struggled to broaden its client portfolio outside of the insurance sector. <\/strong> OPI brings a host of clients from the services and manufacturing industries.<\/p>\n

OPI brings some sales chops to the party that EXL has sorely lacked<\/strong>. \u00a0While EXL has developed an excellent reputation in niche circles within insurance and BPO, is has struggled to develop an aggressive sales organization, anywhere near comparable with the likes of Genpact, of even WNS. OPI has punched above its weight over the years, largely thanks to an excellent sales organization, which includes some former KPMG partners who came across with the formation of the firm, bringing with them a strong CFO network. \u00a0OPI also has sales offices in Dallas, Houston, Atlanta, Chicago, LA, New York and DC. \u00a0If EXL can retain this talent, it has a ready-made front-end to get itself into larger deal discussions. \u00a0One little-known fact about EXL is the it has one of California’s finest winery tycoons<\/a> on its board, which will be a strategic bonus when attempting to convince OPI’s management to put off retirement for a couple more years…<\/p>\n

OPI adds to EXL’s European and India delivery competency.<\/strong> OPI has a small, but not\u00a0insignificant, 440-seat operation in Sofia, Bulgaria, that adds to EXL’s existing European center<\/a> in the Czech Republic, which was formerly Schneider Logistics’ captive operation. Bulgaria’s advanced education was ranked 5th amongst all countries in sciences and 11th in mathematics, according to The World Bank and The Economist, in 2005. Ranking 2nd in the world in IQ tests (MENSA International), Bulgaria also ranks 2nd in the world in SAT scores. \u00a0The country also has some German, French and\u00a0Italian\u00a0language competency. \u00a0Not bad for F&A huh?<\/p>\n

What does this mean to the macro outsourcing environment?<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

One of the BPO\u00a0industry’s\u00a0prized assets just got a lot more expensive<\/strong>. \u00a0Several of the billion-dollar offshore providers have long-eyed EXL as an acquisition to bolster significantly their BPO competencies – and HfS has been repeatedly informing the market that rumored acquisitions of EXL were baloney. \u00a0Those\u00a0outsourcers\u00a0which could have significantly benefitted from acquiring EXL aren’t (yet) prepared to invest serious money<\/em> in BPO and are\u00a0pursuing “organic” growth\u00a0strategies, while hoping to pick up bargain captives<\/em> (which don’t really exist, but one can dream). \u00a0This strategy is now backfiring, with fewer and fewer realistic and affordable acquisition candidates now available.<\/p>\n

BPO-centric\u00a0outsourcers are developing real enterprise delivery competency to compete effectively for the larger-scale deals. <\/strong>While a year ago, many were arguing that BPO “pureplays” were a dying breed, we are seeing several of them acquiring and developing additional scale, consultative, technology and process competency to compete with large-scale outsourcers. \u00a0The term “BPO Pureplay” is quickly being replaced by “BPO-centric outsourcer”.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

EXL: Fine wines, fine insurance and now some very smart Bulgarians EXL and OPI, two of the smaller Finance and…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48,835,61,64,838,95],"tags":[593],"organization":[],"ppma_author":[19],"class_list":["post-1513","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business-process-outsourcing-bpo","category-f-a","category-financial-services-sourcing-strategies","category-healthcare-and-outsourcing","category-kpo-analytics","category-sourcing-locations","tag-opi"],"yoast_head":"\nEXL eyes the enterprise BPO market with acquisition of OPI and the world's second-most intelligent people - Horses for Sources | No Boundaries<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.horsesforsources.com\/exl-opi_030511\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"EXL eyes the enterprise BPO market with acquisition of OPI and the world's second-most intelligent people - 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