Majority of our Indian workforce will be in tier 2-3 cities by Dec'25: Teleperformance

French outsourcing company Teleperformance which acquired Mumbai-based BPO firm Intelenet from private equity firm Blackstone in 2018, considers India as its top growth market. The $10.7 billion company that has expanded its operations in cities like Gurugram, Mohali, and Hyderabad, is further expanding into Tier 2/3 cities and plans to hire around 15,000 people in the next year. During a recent visit, Deputy CEO Thomas Mackenbrock and India CEO Anish Mukker highlighted India's importance as a growth market and global centre of excellence, discussing hiring strategies and technological trends in outsourcing. Edited excerpts:

What role does India play in Teleperformance's overall business strategy?

Mackenbrock: India plays a vital role in Teleperformance's business strategy, serving as a centre of excellence (CoE) aligned with our goals. It functions as a hub for innovation, workforce management, and global business services (GBS), offering specialised talent across key verticals. India supports various operational needs, from managing a large workforce and implementing best practices to integrating processes with AI (Artificial Intelligence) solutions. Our operations in Delhi, Mohali, Jaipur, and Mumbai consistently highlight India's significance in every industry we serve. Moreover, India is the global CoE for GBS, providing essential internal services in finance, accounting, analytics, HR, and IT services.

What kind of innovation is being driven by the India team?

Mackenbrock: In terms of innovation, our vision is to centralise capabilities globally across five functions: workforce management, finance and accounting, IT, analytics, and HR. Our centres in India lead in these areas, especially in finance, accounting, IT, and analytics. India acts as both a capability and intellectual hub, enhancing Teleperformance’s global services and benefiting over 200 third-party clients. For instance, in finance and accounting, we've automated reconciliation processes, reducing manual work and speeding up account closures. Our workforce management tools optimise staffing by predicting demand based on trends. For a major airline, we implemented a solution that reduced fraud by 85-90% by analysing booking patterns. We continually refine our technology, increasing fraud detection rates from 10% to 80%. Key sectors include financial services, travel, healthcare, and high technology.

You aim to double the workforce in India in 2-3 years. What strategies do you have in place for recruitment and team development?

Mukker: Our workforce and infrastructure are nearly evenly split between Tier 1 and Tier 2/3 cities. We are expanding in Tier 2 cities like Lucknow, Noida, Mohali, Indore, Kolkata, and Chennai, with strong support from state and central governments. Our goal is to achieve a 55% presence in Tier 2/3 cities by the end of 2025, allowing us to access new talent and create opportunities. We are collaborating with government bodies and universities to promote job prospects and develop relevant academic programs. Currently, our distribution is 52% in Tier 1 and 48% in Tier 2 and below, with plans to increase the latter to 55%. We are also experiencing double-digit annual growth, necessitating further expansion in Tier 2 cities.

What specific skill sets are you looking for, and what are your hiring targets for the next year?

Mukker: We plan to hire around 15,000 people in the next year. In Tier 1 cities, strong language skills are crucial. In Tier 2 cities, we focus on domain expertise, such as finance and accounting in Rajasthan or customer service skills in local languages in Chhattisgarh. We also leverage our internal training programs and online platforms like Coursera and LinkedIn for upskilling and reskilling our middle managers.

Mackenbrock: India offers a vast talent pool with expertise across various verticals and horizontal capabilities. This broad footprint is key for us, and we plan to expand further to meet the growing demand in different specialisations. Globally, Teleperformance has 500,000 employees. Our growth rate in India is two to three times our global growth rate, highlighting India's importance and attractiveness to our clients.

You are involved in several AI initiatives. In which areas are these projects being implemented, and what benefits are you seeing?

Mackenbrock: AI is a core component of our strategy. We have hundreds of AI projects in production, leveraging micro-services for seamless client integration and focusing on efficiency and effectiveness. These solutions address various pain points across the service lifecycle, from generative AI interactions in omnichannel services to knowledge management, quality assurance, and response summarisation. We systematically explore opportunities to augment our processes with AI, focusing on driving efficiency and effectiveness for our clients. We can provide an overview of our core AI solutions, such as TP Interact and TP Summariser.

What is the outlook of the BPM sector in 2025, and are there any areas where Teleperformance will specifically focus on?

Mackenbrock: The global landscape remains uncertain due to economic and political factors. Our focus continues to be on delivering results for our clients by combining process expertise with technology. We believe AI will play an increasingly important role, and we'll continue to embed AI solutions in our processes to deliver value. We're also keen to further leverage India's expertise in back-office services. Our focus remains on augmenting core processes with AI solutions. We're also verticalising our solutions and offering our AI capabilities to external clients under the TP Infinity brand. We've seen accelerating momentum in the first half of the year, and we expect this trend to continue.

Mukker: We expect the BPM sector to see renewed growth in 2025, and Teleperformance is well-positioned to outperform the industry. India's attractiveness as a destination for Global Capability Centers will continue to grow, and we'll play a key role in enabling this trend. We'll also be focusing on domain-rich programs, particularly in financial services, healthcare, and high-tech.