Offshore IT/BPS player Genpact has announced a new partnership with Israeli IT process automation provider Ayehu Software Technologies Ltd. The partnership is for Genpact’s IT managed services business, which is deploying Ayehu's eyeShare IT process automation solution to provide clients with ‘efficient and scalable workflows that increase return on investment (ROI) while reducing human error, costs, and adoption cycle times’. It is being integrated for a large capital markets client right now, and there are plans to deploy for another financial services client in the coming months.
Genpact wants to use the technology to eliminate labour-intensive manual interactions in the IT department, so automating key processes such as system, network and application tasks.
A look at Ayehu’s website shows that the technology creates workflow templates, which 'enable IT professionals to design and implement IT processes and create automated incident resolution procedures'. This is easily transferable to business process operations, where there are often long tails of manual routine rules-based processes that can be automated.
Business process automation (BPA) is a hot space right now as providers attempt to automate discrete business processes such as customer onboarding, or administration backlogs (see Business process automation – a BPO industry game changer?). BPA was my presentation topic at our recent TMV event (see here) and has since spurred some very interesting discussions.
Genpact’s approach shows it is aware of the opportunity around automation, and the risks. Keeping automation within the IT department means it won’t encroach on Genpact’s much larger BP operations, which rely on large numbers of people to process IT-based processes. BPA has the potential to threaten low level rules-based administrative tasks that BPOs have built armies of people to support. The big question is how BPS providers like Genpact face up to this challenge over the next few years, as competitors like Capita and Accenture are already making moves.
