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Five ways companies can unlock the power of growth

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Businesses around the world are facing a challenging operating landscape. The global economic slowdown is impacting consumer spending power and reducing corporate profits. Geopolitical conflict is disrupting traditional supply chains and forcing businesses to relocate operations and logistic networks. Meanwhile, the ongoing threat of climate change is resulting in constrained resources, a greater regulatory burden and increased scrutiny from consumers who demand that companies take their environmental, social and governance (ESG) obligations seriously. 

 

DISRUPTION IS THE NEW NORMAL

Businesses cannot wait for market conditions to stabilize and for growth to return naturally, as there is no sense of when that will be. As the World Economic Forum states, “disruption is here to stay, and uncertainty may well be the new normal1.” Despite the conditions, businesses must be proactive and innovative. They must make growth happen. It’s clear that business leaders understand the challenge. Recent research from Gartner shows that growth is the single biggest priority for CEOs2. Interestingly, despite the negative external forces, many businesses are optimistic about their prospects.

Technology opens new horizons for business growth

This can-do outlook is largely because of the huge potential of technology to revolutionize operations, unlock new markets and increase productivity. With digital transformation, companies can re-imagine their processes, making core workflows more efficient, agile and responsive. This has the potential to optimize all areas of their business, from financial functions to product development to customer service and outreach. Meanwhile, technologies like high-speed internet, video conferencing and cloud storage are allowing employees to complete their roles from any location, which can improve job satisfaction and engagement.  

Artificial intelligence (AI) has also recently taken a huge leap forward with generative AI (GenAI) models that are able to produce content, such as written text, design and images, that is indistinguishable from human efforts. By answering prompts and queries as accurately as a human can, GenAI solutions have the potential to automate large areas of knowledge work. 

The key challenge for businesses is understanding how to harness this technological revolution to transform their operations and enable business growth.

hand holding a light bulb

SPS is at the forefront of digital transformation and helps companies around the world to adopt best-in-class technology solutions to optimize their core processes. By combining advanced tech with highly skilled workers in our global service centers, we can complete complex workflows across several areas and industries, helping companies maximize their growth potential. This is why we are a trusted partner for 20% of Fortune 500 companies. 

We look at five major drivers that can unlock the power of growth, while also considering potential risks and providing actionable steps to ensure successful implementation.  

“Despite these unprecedented challenges, we see immense opportunities for growth through innovation and strategic use of technology. At SPS, we believe that by embracing digital transformation and prioritizing sustainable practices, we can not only navigate these disruptions but also thrive and lead the market.” — Jörg Vollmer, CEO SPS  

 

1. CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE

In a time of intense global business competition, providing outstanding CX can be a key differentiator for companies. GenAI can help give businesses the edge in this area, empowering them to outperform the competition. Also known as conversational AI, these tools are capable of giving fast, accurate responses to almost any customer request across any channel. The average first response time for customer queries across most industries is 3-6 hours3. Now, companies can use AI chatbots to answer in seconds, greatly improving customer satisfaction. However, AI is not a perfect solution.

 

Customers often still want to interact with a human, as they feel they will be more valued and understood. Even the best chatbots can make mistakes and come across as cold and mechanical. Also, there can be concerns over privacy and customer data, which puts some customers off. They key is to get the right balance between AI and the human element.  

SPS’ human chat uses GenAI to accurately translate both queries and responses into any language in real time. As a result, both service agents and customers can communicate effortlessly with each other even if they don’t speak each other’s language. Real-time chat translation provides a higher level of customer service while being far more efficient than a standard call center. A single location can be used to handle customer queries from anywhere in the world, giving companies a strategic advantage for their global go-to-market.  

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2. EMPLOYEE EXPERIENCE (EX)

Recruiting skilled workers in an age of technological transformation has become a major challenge for global organizations. 77% of employers are reporting difficulty finding talent4, and it is already a serious growth barrier. As automation becomes more advanced, it can be used to complete a growing range of non-core tasks, allowing workers to focus on more interesting and engaging work and improving their work life. Even tasks that were thought impossible to automate, like writing emails, taking meeting notes or creating presentations, can now be completed at the click of a button. However, it is important that companies don’t just focus on the technology. They must also invest in re-skilling and up-skilling programs to help employees transition to new roles that complement automated processes. 

 

Another way to boost EX is to implement digital solutions that support hybrid working and improve employee flexibility. SPS provides a range of services to support hybrid workplace models, including document digitization and digital delivery, secure storage, admin support, database management and expense management. SPS’ digital assistant helps employees to easily organize their daily work lives by providing access to services like desk booking, meeting rooms, printing services and tech support.  

By automating routine tasks and freeing employees’ minds and bodies so they can complete their roles from any location, companies can increase EX significantly. In turn, this will allow them to attract and retain the best talent, driving growth in the long term. 96% of employees that have positive experiences at work feel more engaged, and nearly the same amount is likely to recommend their employer to peers. 

people in a meeting

3. BUSINESS EFFICIENCY

With the global economy slowing down, companies must optimize the resources they have to generate growth. Technologies like AI, process automation, cloud computing and blockchain can allow straight-through processing for many standard business cases, massively improving efficiency. Whereas previously automation had to be closely managed by employees, AI can now route and direct tasks, which allows more complex work to be automated. Employees can then focus on case exceptions or high-value tasks like customer engagement, meaning overall business performance also improves. This careful balance of people, processes and technology is the key to productivity. It involves looking at the workflow as a whole and then designing a solution that maximizes efficiency across every touchpoint.  

 

4. AGILITY AND SCALABILITY

Businesses must be adaptable to be able to grow in volatile market conditions. They must respond effectively to disruption without their business performance suffering. They must also be able to quickly seize new opportunities and scale in response to consumer demand. To become more resilient and agile, companies need to digitalize their processes, so they are not dependent manual actions. By making processes location-agnostic, companies can ensure core functions, such as customer service, finance, or payroll, are completed, even in the event of disruption in certain locations.  

Businesses must also leverage global talent pools to ensure scalability and operational flexibility. For example, SPS has a service center in Vietnam, a location with large numbers of educated, tech-qualified workers. This gives our partners access to valuable human capital. We also have well-established recruiting and training processes, meaning we can ramp up headcount rapidly, giving our clients the flexibility to seize opportunities and respond to demand faster than the competition.

 

5. ENVIRONMENTAL, SOCIAL AND GOVERNANCE (ESG)

Today, ESG is a central part of any major company’s strategy. Those that don’t meet their ESG commitments can face regulatory pressure, difficulty raising capital and a consumer backlash. Digital transformation in areas such as document management can make a significant impact on a company’s environmental footprint by cutting paper consumptions as well as CO2 emissions from transport.

 

Digital processes can also be easily audited, allowing companies to track their progress and to ensure they are meeting regulations.

However, while digitalization has huge potential for helping companies reach their ESG goals, it is also important that the environmental impact is considered. For example, training GenAI models takes huge computational power, which can be extremely resource intensive. Data centers must be always kept cool, and so consume large amounts of electricity and water.

It is important to always critically evaluate digitalization initiatives and especially AI to understand the overall impact. In some instances, it may be more environmentally responsible and effective to use skilled personnel to complete tasks, rather than AI-based processing.  

smart city with lots of connections between buildings

WHY SPS?

Global spending on business process outsourcing (BPO) consistently increases year-on-year by an estimated 4%-5%. For some companies, BPO is a way to rationalize rationalise costs, but the right strategic partner will also help businesses boost their growth initiatives.  

The key challenges for tech-driven growth are having digital and process expertise in place, understanding the right timing to invest and adopting technology rapidly. According to studies, 80% of companies struggle to attract tech-talents to drive digital business strategies5. This is where strategic partners come into play. They enable businesses to better focus their core team on growth, while providing support for technology-driven process optimization and digital business operations.  

With SPS, companies can: 

  • Benefit from expert process and industry know-how 
  • Get access to best-in-breed technology utilization at scale 
  • Leverage a global workforce pool 
  • Build a more agile operation through partnership 
  • Liberate their business from day-to-day processes and focus on driving business  growth 
  • Rapidly adopt AI and technology in operations 
  • Pivot and scale to seize new opportunities faster than the competition  

 

  1. World Economic Forum (2024): How to thrive when uncertainty becomes the new norm for governance.
  2. Gartner (2023): CEO and Senior Business Executive Survey.
  3. Desk365.io (2024): How to Improve Customer Service Response Times?
  4. Manpower Group (2023): Global Talent Shortage.
  5. IDC (2024): The Fusion of Human and Technology Assets to Achieve Digital Business Efficiency.

SCALE YOUR BUSINESS

SPS, as a technology-driven leader, is moving towards a bright future built on a strong and proud past. We accumulate more than 20 years of experience making our clients' lives easier in more than 20 countries, through a client-centered approach that involves excellence and innovation as fundamental values. 

With a world-class Net Promoter Score of 80 and a customer retention rate of over 95%, hundreds of clients across various sectors, including Banking, Financial Services, Insurance & Healthcare, trust our solutions and our multidisciplinary team of more than 8,000 specialists to boost business efficiency and productivity. 

Discover how SPS can help your business unlock growth. 

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