Capgemini, a European technology consulting and outsourcing services firm, is expanding its business process outsourcing (BPO) portfolio and its operations to pursue opportunities in North America. The North American market represents nearly two-thirds of the global BPO services market, according to a 2006 Gartner study, which pegged BPO spending at $152 billion worldwide.
Specifically, Capgemini is bringing two services to market: procurement services and assurance services for Sarbanes-Oxley compliance. Capgemini has been offering supply and BPO procurement services for some of its big clients in North America, such as TXU Corp. and Hydro One Inc., as part of larger deals, but now Capgemini will offer the procurement service as a standalone proposition. "We will provide both sides of the procurement proposition: the half that is procure to pay or the transaction processing half, and the more value-adding half of procurement BPO services, which is sourcing and category management or strategic sourcing," says Tony Kelly, Capgemini's global director for BPO product marketing.
The other new category is in assurance services, which is a focus of Sarb-Ox. "We can't sign off on the documents. But we do everything else: We support all of the management's attestation, documentation of design effectiveness, the walk-throughs, the control deficiency assessment, the operational testing, the reporting." Capgemini provides these assurance services through a shared-service center located in Bangalore, India, with a dedicated compliance unit. As a result, Kelly adds: "The cost basis is lower and the ability to bring to bear a global view to the client is much easier. This is a SOX compliance service delivered at BPO offshore Bangalore rates."
Recommended For You
One of Capgemini's strengths, notes Forrester analyst Bill Martorelli, is the sophisticated approach that it takes to BPO, wrapping business intelligence and analytics around its portfolio of BPO services so that its value proposition goes beyond mere labor arbitrage. And unlike IBM and Accenture who like to get "multi-tower" relationships with clients, bundling together human resources and information technology services along with finance and accounting BPO, Capgemini is more apt to engage with clients on a smaller level. "Capgemini has taken a more technology-centric vision to BPO," says Martorelli. "They've put together a BPO toolkit, which allows them to integrate more seamlessly with the ERP package at the customer's location."
Capgemini, which is based in Paris with revenues of $10.2 billion, is creating a new North American business unit. David Poole, its deputy global BPO leader, will head up the unit.
© 2025 ALM Global, LLC, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to [email protected]. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.
