Partner of the Month:

Originally known as Gecis Global (and before that, GE Capital International Services), GENPACT is now hugely lauded as an outsourcing success story, having made the leap from captive BPO to independent third-party outsourcer. As Gecis Global, the company began as a captive IT outsourcer to General Electric in 1997, but following the sale of 60 percent of its ownership to General Atlantic and Oak Hill, both private equity funds, the former captive operation found the momentum to launch itself into third-party outsourcing in 2004.

The move to step out of GE's shadow was prompted by the realization on the part of Gecis's leadership that the subsidiary can be more than just a BPO subsidiary. Having grown at a Compounded Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 10,000 percent over the course of seven years, it was clear that the company could do more, and not just for GE, but for other clients as well. Thus Gecis became a third-party vendor in December 2004 and shed the GE brand name to become GENPACT in September 2005.

Losing the GE brand name was only a small price the company had to pay to achieve independence. Today, GENPACT is in Phase Two of its three-stage growth strategy developed by President and CEO Pramod Bhasin.

Phase 1, executed in 2005, involved gathering a five-member leadership team composed of VN Tyagrajan, Executive Vice President for Business Development; Anju Talwar, Senior Vice President for Client Operations; Vivek Gour, Chief Financial Officer; Sanjay Goel, Senior Vice President for Knowledge Centers of Excellence; and Piyush Mehta, Senior Vice President for Human Resources. With a combined experience of ten years at the Gecis helm, these five executives set up a global sales and marketing team of 50 people within two months and began switching to global delivery of services, as opposed to Gecis's offshore delivery from India. By the end of 2005, GENPACT was employing 19,500 people, its revenues were up by 22 percent from US$ 404 million in 2004 to US$ 493 million in 2005.

Phase 2 is currently underway, and involves generating more revenue from non-GE clients, one of which is the Wachovia Corporation, the number 4 bank in the US . Revenue targets have been set at US$ 620 to 625 million, with GE-generated revenue down to 75 percent. More delivery centers are also slated to start up this year, one of which is in the Philippines.

By 2007 and 2008, GENPACT foresees an IPO as part of Phase 3, although it seems low on the list of the company's priorities when compared to plans to expand into new services in other fields like engineering, pharmaceuticals, healthcare and insurance. By December 2008, GENPACT also envisions employing up to 50,000 people, with GE-generated revenue down to 50 to 60 percent.

Despite the company's plans to scale down its reliance on revenue from GE, GENPACT still plans on choosing only what they consider to be “strategic customers,” clients who have a broad range of processes to outsource, putting a higher premium on the services GENPACT offers. Since the company has inherited a depth of expertise across a gamut of services, GENPACT has the capability to expand the scope of its services. Expanding into engineering, finance and accounting and other high-end Knowledge Process Outsourcing (KPO) functions are therefore not far from GENPACT's future.

GENPACT has recently begun operations in the Philippines , starting with an Alabang facility that can house up to 800 professionals. According to Pramod Bhasin, President and CEO, they expect to hire 150 professionals and trained graduates in 2006 and their ranks may swell to 2,000 to 3,000 over the next several years. The facility—GENPACT's seventh in the world—will provide finance and accounting services, customer-service support, collections, and IT services to their increasing list of global clients.

Today, GENPACT has a headcount of 24,500, with a global delivery capability in 19 languages from 16 centers in six countries: the US, India, Mexico, China, Hungary, and Romania . GENPACT offers services like finance and accounting, sales and marketing, services collection, supply chain and procurement, IT services and customer service.

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Sources:

Build It and They Will Come ; by Russ Banham, FAO Today, January-February 2006.

Gecis Transformation; by Shyananuja Das, Global Outsourcing, June 2005.

How Genpact CEO Pramod Bhasin And His Team Are Breaking New Ground in BPO-land; by Archna Shukla, Business Today, May 7, 2006.

One Year Later; Snigdha Sengupta, Businessworld, January 30, 2006.