Genpact: Services, History & Global Business Impact

Table of Content

• How it all started with General Electric
  
• What does Genpact do?
  
• Industries Genpact works in
  
• Talent and training at Genpact
  
• Conclusion
• Frequently Asked Questions

Genpact is one of those firms that you don’t really talk about, but its impact can be found woven throughout the operations of hundreds of companies around the world. It started out as an internal unit within General Electric, founded in 1997 and set up initially to take on the back office processes of GE's financial services operations. Over the subsequent years, however, it became so much more than that, an independent listed company which now has over 125,000 employees operating in over 30 countries. Even its name, derived from "generating business impact," suggests an ambition that has directed its growth and development at every point.

The real Genpact, however, is far more compelling because it created a whole new category of service in India, and then did so around the world. It succeeded in creating a new high-value service industry (BPO) at a time when global multinationals could hardly comprehend why anyone would offshore anything that wasn’t back office, and today it offers a broad array of services to a huge range of clients from across banking, insurance, life sciences, manufacturing, and consumer goods sectors, redesigning how organizations operate fundamentally.

How it all started with General Electric

To best grasp Genpact, we have to travel back to its beginnings as a GE Capital venture in the late 1990s. The initial motivation for GE was to reduce the cost of processing a vast number of financial transactions, and India had a large supply of educated, English-speaking graduates who would be willing to do it for far less than American and European workers would require.

The unit, which eventually grew to become Genpact, was housed in a couple of hundred-person operation in Gurgaon, outside of New Delhi. From the very start, GE demanded that it implement its well-known process discipline – Six Sigma – to all of its activities. This was no way just a cost-cutting initiative disguised as something else, but GE believed that well-constructed processes – which it then diligently measured and continually improved – could produce superior results to the processes it was seeking to replace.

Key facts about early Genpact:

●     The initial unit GE established was founded in 1997 as GE Capital International Services (GECIS)

●     The unit initially was responsible for finance and accounting processes for GE's internal business segments

●     It was established with the goal of applying GE's rigor and discipline-and Six Sigma principles-to all of its processes

●     Within five years, the unit employed thousands of workers

●     The unit was renamed Genpact in 2005, as it was broadened to serve external clients

●     In 2007, General Atlantic and Oak Hill Capital bought a controlling stake in Genpact, leading to an IPO on the New York Stock Exchange

The move to serve external clients was initiated in 2005, and it has enabled the business model that GE built to be offered to other corporations that were looking to outsource their back-office operations.

For a closer look at industry-leading consulting and outsourcing services, check out Genpact’s official platform for business innovation.

What does Genpact do?

Many who hear the name assume that it's a typical IT outsourcing company, but that description is more nuanced, and indeed more interesting.

Business Process Management

At its heart, Genpact is a process management company. That is, it focuses on the often complex, usually non-glamorous details that keep a large business running: processing invoices, managing claims, processing compliance documents, running payroll, answering customer inquiries, etc. The business Genpact conducts is to apply disciplined processes to how such processes are designed, measured, and improved over time.

Instead of simply accepting a client's current process and running it at a lower cost, the company maps the current process, identifies where it's inefficient, redesigns it, and then manages it on an ongoing basis. This is different from simply operating at a lower cost-the conversation shifts to operational improvement.

Data and Analytics Services

Over the last 10 years, Genpact has also heavily invested in building analytic capabilities. This logic is simple: many processes require the generation of large amounts of data, and the information contained within these databases can be used by clients to make more informed decisions. This translates into:

Risk and compliance analytics for the financial sector

●     Supply chain analytics for manufacturers, involving the prediction of inventory, logistics, and demand

●     Customer analytics for consumer businesses trying to gain an understanding of purchasing behavior

●     Finance analytics beyond reporting to model scenarios and understand potential pressures on the company's finances before it's a problem

Digital transformation support

Most large corporations that are trying to modernize technology systems and business processes find that the gap between vision and execution can be quite wide. In this space, Genpact's job is to serve as a partner who helps clients to translate legacy systems and cloud, business process automation, and integrate data from disparate parts of a business. It does not necessarily mean Genpact builds software; rather, it partners with their clients to determine which business processes can be reengineered and drives change through, while day-to-day business processes are not greatly impacted.

Industries Genpact works in

Genpact works in a variety of industries, with very different services required in each of these:

Banking & financial services

Genpact provides assistance with processing regulatory compliance, management of credit risk, assistance of fraud identification, and mortgage administration. With this volume of transactions and complexity of regulation, there will always be a great appetite for well-run outsourced processes.

Life sciences & healthcare

Pharmaceutical and healthcare companies need Genpact to help with pharmacovigilance, clinical data management, preparation of regulatory submissions, and administration of the revenue cycle. Platforms like Phyzii, which focus on healthcare analytics and engagement, further highlight how technology is transforming the industry. With this kind of work, where errors can have a significant impact, discipline is crucial.

Insurance

In this industry, Genpact provides services such as claims processing, support for underwriting, and administration of the insurance policy. The combination of high transaction volumes and the need for very high accuracy makes the operating model work here.

Manufacturing & consumer goods

The supply chain complexity over the last twenty years has increased dramatically, and manufacturers turn to external firms to assist them with managing procurement processes, logistical coordination, and financial reconciliation. They assist clients in automotive, manufacturing, and consumer products businesses.

High technology

IT firms are likely to have complex and widespread finance and HR operations across several countries, and use Genpact to standardize the operating procedures.

Talent and training at Genpact

Another part of Genpact that probably doesn’t get enough credit is how it develops and maintains an effective workforce to do the complex, highly specialized type of work at scale.

• All new hires undergo a detailed onboarding process covering not only technical job requirements but also process methodologies employed.

• Ongoing training is integrated into the operational process and not provided on an ad-hoc basis.

• The company is investing heavily in enhancing analytical and data management capabilities across its workforce. This is in response to the market's demand to shift from a service-delivery paradigm towards an insight-driven paradigm.

• Leadership development programs groom mid-level managers for leadership responsibilities in a highly complex environment of cross-cultural and cross-functional management and a global delivery system.

Developing these capabilities in an enterprise spread across over thirty countries and many languages is one of the true challenges of building a company like Genpact. The workforce is, more directly than for most enterprises, the product.

Conclusion

Genpact is one of the most didactic business stories of the last thirty years. It emerged from an internal cost-cutting measure inside one of the most operationally disciplined companies in the world to a firm that has fundamentally shifted the thinking inside large companies about how to manage the operating function. Emerging from an operations support group in Gurgaon to a publicly traded global entity of over $4 billion in revenues is a story of rigorous operating discipline enabled by a fundamental reorganization of the global economy.

All companies that want to reduce complexity and operational risk, or that want to obtain more value from their operating processes and the data their processes produce, have an organization they would do well to study in Genpact. A few reasons they can sustain such depth of relations and tenure, and the unrelenting drive toward outcomes versus theory are the characteristics they possess that allow them to remain current in a rapid, technological, global business space. Their clarity of vision in such a confusing business arena is helpful.

Frequently Asked Questions

1. Is Genpact an Indian company?

Genpact was originally an Indian firm and still retains most of its employees there, but it is incorporated in Bermuda and listed on the New York Stock Exchange; its headquarters is located in New York, and it possesses a range of delivery centres across North America, Europe, Asia and Latin America; it should be more accurately described as a global company with significant Indian roots.

2. What are Genpact's revenues and size?

Genpact currently boasts of annual revenues estimated at US$4.5bn with a workforce of over 125,000 people across the world, serving more than 70 countries.

3. How is Genpact different from a conventional IT outsourcing company?

Traditional IT outsourcing refers to the maintenance of technology infrastructure and software development. Business process outsourcing is focused on the flow of work, decisions and actions within an organisation to run its day-to-day operations. Technology acts as the enabler for the process.

4. Which companies does Genpact service?

Genpact services a majority of the Fortune 500 companies in areas ranging from financial services, manufacturing and consumer goods, to the healthcare sector, but it does not publicly disclose the names of all its clients, although it has made known its relationship with certain key players. Many of Genpact's client relationships span more than a decade.

5. What job opportunities exist at Genpact?

Genpact is an equal opportunity employer, and its business operations, ranging from finance and accounting, data analytics, technology implementation, compliance, supply chain management and human resources, offer ample scope for both entry-level staff and executives as well as opportunities for leading, consulting or specialized tasks within the company across numerous countries and territories.