Sumana is an experienced IT professional, having spent over 23 years in the industry. This includes global experience across the domain, which includes Delivery management, Risk management, operations management to strategic planning and consulting. She has successfully executed several business plans and has a strong business acumen for handling channel management activities. Before starting Goavega, she worked in several large MNC’s and product companies. Some of her past stints include Symphony Services Corp India Pvt Ltd, where she served as a director for 6 years. Additionally, she was at AIG (American International Assurance), Singapore as Assistant Manager from Jun’01 – Apr’04.
Global in-house centres or offshore captive centres, have been in a popular norm since the Y2K boom in 2000, and have been a successful model for businesses, across verticals. However, while the GIC and offshore captive centres offer greater propriety, operational and management control, lower cost of operations and risk ownership, it is marred with functional challenges like understanding local socio-cultural sensitivities, delivering timely results, and having access to the expert talent pool, which was a part of the parent company. Some of these challenges are often solved by recruiting/ on-boarding a local service partner or talent, who is then trained and empanelled as a part of the company. A pool of smaller, local technology service providers who are experts in the demand delivery, on the other hand, can drive excellent customer experience. Apart from being cost-effective, they are also efficient and deliver effective results, as compared to in-house hiring of local talent or empanelment of very selective external vendors. Some of the key benefits GIC’s/ Offshore captive centres stand to gain, include:
Deliver more value: Local service providers and vendors are equipped to create value-oriented solution offerings that are both effective, innovative and customised to the exact client requirement. Apart from this, the personal attention, focus, and dedication to a project are greater, when dealing with smaller service providers. From extended Service Agreements and Maintenance contracts to Client training and contract operations, outsourced service partners can offer and deliver a plethora of offerings which may otherwise be a resource burden for a GIC.
Staff Augmentation: While recruiting local talent over outsourcing to local service providers has been the preferred option for various GIC’s, the process is a drain on the resource for the organisation, as recruitment of local talent requires investment in training, supervision and management needed to derive the desired output. Partnering with local service providers, on the other hand, helps companies to continue enjoying a lean business structure, with effective staff augmentation, while still being able to leverage the local expertise, without a long term cost commitment.
Consulting: Apart from providing customised and cost-effective solutions, external service providers make excellent consultants that can bring local insights and approach to a task, that might offers a different, fresher perspective, which can go a long way when driving customer satisfaction and delight.
Implementation and support: Creating a strong partner network of local service providers helps to not only offer customised solutions but also an extended after support and maintenance. From conceptualisation, creation, delivery, installation to back end support and maintenance, GIC’s can leverage the external service providers resources and expertise to drive an efficient product lifecycle, without personally investing time or human resource.
Co-creation: External service providers and partners bring unique, solution drive insights to projects. When approached through a collaborative mindset, outsourced service providers can help GIC’s co-create innovative solutions that are relevant, impactful and drive customer delight.
The above benefits, coupled with operational ease and value-driven service output, can help GIC’s and offshore captive centres to drive not only cost-effective solutions but to also build a long-lasting network of local partners. By reviewing empanelment parameters, which invite smaller local service providers and offer a more reasonable credit period, GIC’s can gain access to a wider range of versatile solutions and services, that are driven by insight, and ultimately drive customer experience for the GIC/Captive centre clients.
With the recent pandemic and the global slowdown, managing overheads and risks has become significantly important for businesses across the spectrum. An outsource economy has been an active one over the years. However, with the crisis, there are several companies looking to cut overheads and deal mostly with external service providers that can offer many more value-driven solutions at a reasonable cost. Additionally, with the thrust on ‘Vocal for Local’ and the dynamic technology start-up ecosystem in India that has a rich pool of efficient tech service providers, can be leveraged to gain maximum and effective quality output within a time and cost constraint – something that needs to be explored.
More About Sumana Iyengar and Goavega
Sumana is also the Co-founder of Krimzen, which she manages at a part-time basis. Sumana has received the prestigious ‘Women Entrepreneur of the year 2018-19’. Award from WeLeed and Women Empowerment Summit and GIWL Awards 2019 from UBS Forums. At Goavega, she provides leadership to drive growth and customer delight. Sumana has assisted several start-ups in building products from ground zero and launching products to the market.
Established in 2014 “Goavega” is a Bangalore based product engineering services organisation delivering customer needs with high quality and cost-effectiveness. At Goavega, they have straightforward and single-minded focus: to help the customers with innovative and unmatched tools, services, and solutions and make them future-ready / prepare them for the future.