Frost & Sullivan Recognizes iSON's Strategy of Diversification in W/African BPO Market

Frost & Sullivan has recognized iSON's strategic acquisitions, partnerships and portfolio expansion that have enabled it to outpace the competition in market.

iSON BPO, a leading Business Process Outsourcing and contact centre service provider, recognised with the  2016 West African Frost & Sullivan Award for Competitive Strategy Innovation and Leadership was awarded in an awards ceremony during Growth innovation and Leadership Event at The Table Bay Hotel, Capetown at the weekend.

The award is based on the recent analysis of the business process optimization (BPO) industry market by Frost & Sullivan.

The analysis revealed that iSON gave a huge boost to its market prospects by diversifying its services portfolio to cater to multiple industries.

Its operational best practices and deployment of sophisticated tools have facilitated the integration of people, process, and technology, making it the service provider of choice in the West African market.

Deepti Dhinakaran, Frost & Sullivan Research Analyst, said, "iSON has started setting up operations in Tier II cities in all West African countries in which it operates as semi-urban and rural population comprises 60% to 70% of the West African population. This has allowed it to slash the cost of operations, while gaining a bigger and cheaper resource pool. The company recruits only local talent, and has a multilingual workforce that supports up to 30 languages."

"iSON BPO's strategies are highly customer centric, with 100% focus on customer experience management. Its multichannel customer support has enabled it to enhance service across all customer segments and lower costs," noted Dhinakaran. "These outstanding value propositions have helped the company stand out from its competitors and position itself for greater growth."

Receiving the Award, Mr. Ramesh Awtaney, the founder and chairman, said, "I am pleased, honored and humbled to receive the Competitive Strategy Innovation and Leadership Award by Frost and Sullivan. iSON started in 2010 and since then it has been an incredible journey of learning and leadership to grow to over 10,000 employees across 20 delivery centers. 

"It gives me immense pleasure that iSON BPO is recognized for innovation and leadership in the West African market, even as we continue to make strategic investments in chat bots, speech recognition & analytics and voice biometrics in order to offer our services to other parts of Africa and accelerating Africa’s growth through an 'onshore' model for offshore opportunities in Africa, for Africa by bringing IP to Work."

iSON BPO has grown through a combination of organic and inorganic growth strategies. Its early partnership with Airtel Africa helped it gain strong foothold in the telecommunications industry, while its acquisition of Spanco Limited (SPAL), strengthened its presence in Africa and India.

It also employs Avaya's end-to-end platforms that comprise interactive voice response (IVR), automatic call distribution, and workforce optimization for improved IVR self-service, information-on-queue status, and visibility into real-time performance.

As a result of these strategies, iSON BPO accounts for about 70% of the market share in the third-party contact centre space, with operations in Nigeria, Ghana, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Burkina Faso, Chad, and Niger.

It currently has 20 centres in 16 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) with over 10,000 employees, while its nearest competitors have between 2,000 and 3,000 employees.

iSON BPO has invested substantially in creating world-class service delivery infrastructure, while allowing its employees to use relevant technologies that ultimately raise customer service levels. It has rolled out rigorous up-skilling initiatives to equip agents with the required skill sets to handle tasks as they move up the hierarchy.

It follows a completely process-driven methodology with global certifications such as Quality Management System (ISO (9001:2008) and Information Security Management System (ISO 27001:2013).

Each year, Frost & Sullivan presents this award to the company that has leveraged competitive intelligence to successfully execute a competitive strategy that results in stronger market share, competitive brand positioning, and customer satisfaction.

Frost & Sullivan Best Practices awards recognize companies in a variety of regional and global markets for demonstrating outstanding achievement and superior performance in areas such as leadership, technological innovation, customer service, and strategic product development. Industry analysts compare market participants and measure performance through in-depth interviews, analysis, and extensive secondary research to identify best practices in the industry.