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1. I D C W O R K B O O K
Analyzing Internal Business
and Market Data to Build Real -Time
Competitive Ad vantage
August 2013
Adapted from Business Process Outsourcing Services Vendors — Leveraging Analytics Services to
Enable Their Customers to Overcome Challenges, Create Value, and Manage Risk in the Current
Economic Downturn by Mukesh Dialani, IDC #220329
Sponsored by WNS
Leveraging the insight gained by analyzing vast amounts of internal operational and third-party
data has become a key component of any enterprise strategy and assists enterprises making
tactical and strategic business decisions. Besides relying on in-house customer transaction
data, enterprises leverage other data sources such as social network chatter, storefront video,
customer service calls and chats, and machine sensor data that in real time provides feedback
on customer experience and value in reference to the products/services offered. Toward
supporting this need to harvest the insight and knowledge residing in these data sources,
most business process outsourcing (BPO) providers have built significant business analytics
services practices. Historically, enterprises invested in a business intelligence (BI) tool
that was installed by the BI tool vendor, the outsourcing systems integrators (SIs), or the
customer's in-house IT team to gather data and market trends relevant to their business. An
enterprise managed this system on its own, since it is was assumed that it knew its business
best. A typical implementation then gathered various business metrics data and used it for the
internal decision-making process. The flaw in this approach was twofold as this data:
 Was viewed in the context of the enterprise business ecosystem and the resulting analysis
 Did not leverage some newer data sources that became available for analysis
Additionally, this data was being mined out of processes that were not efficient.
This IDC Workbook discusses market trends, customer expectations, and challenges
organizations should consider when evaluating and outsourcing their data organization, data
management, and analytics needs. It also helps organizations identify criteria for selecting the
most appropriate BPO provider that can support their data and analytics outsourcing needs.
Market Trends
With the emergence of BPO service providers' analytics services offerings, vendors in recent
times have succeeded in shifting the focus to providing business impact to the enterprise
rather than just installing and implementing a BI solution. A vendor with domain-specific skills
can provide additional value to its clients by discussing actions the customers should take to
improve and optimize the performance of their business from an overall industry perspective.
Additionally, the analytics implementation necessitates close involvement of the business user
since it would be familiar and closely associated with the various issues that impact its
business.
IDC 1546

2. The following represent key market trends and benefits that enterprises should take into
consideration as they refine their current big data and analytics strategy:
 Enterprise cost reduction initiatives increasing the adoption of these business
analytics outsourcing services. The current downturn in the economy is inhibiting
corporations from investing in high-value business intelligence software tools. IT
outsourcing and pure-play BPO vendors are investing in the purchase of these tools and
providing these outsourcing services, including a hosted low-cost subscription model, to
their customers.
 New forms of data available for analytics. In recent years, cloud, mobile, and social
tools have taken availability and access to big data to an entirely new level. Customers
now expect to consume content in real time, and newer tools and technologies are now
able to deliver on that expectation. BPO vendors are developing competencies in-house
or forming alliances to deliver on these expectations.
 The build-versus-buy discussion for those enterprises that are new to outsourcing.
Those customers that currently outsource their business processes but have not
harnessed their business data or implemented any analytics infrastructure or those that do
not have the funding to implement an internal analytics practice are increasingly reaching
out to BPO providers to avail them of their services.
 Analytics services offerings becoming a natural extension of BPO services. For
many customers, analytics services are an extension of their BPO provider's service
offering. Many vendors have implemented a platform BPO initiative and are building or
have built specific industry-based solutions around various BI tools.
 The cost and availability of labor. A business analytics implementation necessitates
highly qualified labor that comes at a higher price point. Also, these unique skills may not
be available in abundance, which is a key reason to work with partners. Doing so will also
reduce the financial burden and activity required to hire and maintain the scarce high-cost
resources necessary to execute this business function.
To download the full workbook click here.
©2013 IDC