The top 5 outsourcers share their vision of a rapidly evolving market and their strategic orientations for the coming months.
The CEO of the French outsourcing leader expects cyclical declines in business. The group is poised to bounce back as soon as companies want to outsource their customer relationships again.
How will the economic situation affect Webhelp’s business in the coming months?
After several years of very strong outsourcing dynamics, some headwinds are expected from the start of the 2022 school year. Inflation is causing some retailers and e-tailers to downgrade their growth projections, which could have a full-year effect in 2023 if the fears materialize, which it is not.
Added to this are regulatory aspects that exacerbate the acquisition logic: the Naegelen decree on cold calling adopted in October 2022the discussions of Arcep on the numbering of outgoing calls or the specific effects of the energy sector, which has practically suspended this type of activity.
2023 therefore promises to be a little more complicated, but I remain optimistic because our business helps make companies more efficient, more flexible and improve their economic performance. During these times, they more easily decide to outsource their customer relationship and we can expect business transfers.
Through our consultancy Gobeyond Partners, we can also help our clients rethink their customer experience, particularly through technology.
How does this translate into business priorities?
We are preparing to internally manage the volume reductions requested by some customers without losing the related skills because we believe that there will be market shares to be regained a few months later with these same companies. We must acquire flexibility to respond as quickly as possible to their requestsand at the same time supporting our employees to show resilience in a very uncertain world, reassuring them about their professional prospects and their search for meaning.
From a technological point of view, is it time for continuity or interruption?
A little bit of both. Some technologies take time to adopt and scale up in sufficient volume. For example, I wish we could go faster RPAwhich allows you to work faster and more economically for the customer or to use more of them polyglot, our email machine translation solution, perfectly suited for clients looking for European languages, some of which are quite rare. We also provide more and more back-office business, which is a business where there are deposits to be leveraged.
The integration of new and more complex activities into our customers’ processes allows us to move towards a partnership relationship and, more generally, to diversify our activities.
So what will Webhelp’s priorities be in 2023?
Continue to accelerate on technology and also manage an inflationary world that we will have to get used to, from our employees and towards our customers. They will have to be reviewed more regularly to renegotiate contracts, to better manage the business so that everyone can find their bearings.