How have the past six months been for WNS? Did you encounter regulatory constraints while transitioning to WFH?

I’d like to answer this by drawing parallels with the galactic explosion of a star, Supernova. A Supernova ushers in irreversible change – it gives rise to new stars, planets and pretty much everything else in the universe. The operative words here are ‘change’ and ‘new.’ The year 2007 presented what Thomas Friedman famously called the ‘Supernova,’ a year marked by technology revolution. The COVID-19 pandemic has proved to be far bigger Supernova moment – I would like to call it Supernova 2X. It has literally brought the future forward in days, if not hours! During the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, we faced three unprecedented challenges as a business:

• Ensuring utmost safety and well-being of our 41,000+ employees
• Ensuring business continuity, in the midst of a pandemic, with lock-downs imposed in each of the countries that WNS is based out of
• Changing the contours of the BPM business – overnight – to working from home

In response to the crisis, WNS’ COVID-19 Task Force led by me, COO, CPO and other senior leaders from the company was established within 24 hours from the time the WHO declared COVID-19 a pandemic. Some of the key focus areas for the 24x7 operational task force included:

• Formulating Business Continuity Planning / Work from Home (WFH) strategy (including asset procurement)
• Planning for the operational impact globally
• Dealing with clients’ demands as their businesses were to get financially and operationally impacted; many clients relied on WNS for their year-close

We focused on enabling a seamless transition of work from our offices to employees’ homes – this included devising robust end-point strategies to minimize residual risks, deploying customized WFH solutions to ensure information security and data privacy, and boosting internet connectivity speeds at employees’ homes to offer consistent levels of delivery. Collaboratively we have created more than 200 unique solutions to service our clients through WFH.

WNS was probably the first player to have 100 percent working from home in the shortest timeframe. Nasscom estimates that this is possibly the largest work from home project anywhere in the world. Today, 85 percent of our workforce is working from home.

We did encounter regulatory roadblocks while enabling the swift transition to the WFH model. The move called for a number of decisions that outsourcing companies, their clients and the governments had to take to enable virtual working. In India, for example, IT / ITeS companies operating out of Special Economic Zones (SEZs) are offered special tax incentives in a phased manner. Companies stand to lose out on these tax incentives if they move their operations out of the SEZs – to employees’ homes in WFH scenarios. Nasscom with its set of leaders, and myself, had multiple conversations with the Indian Government’s Department of Telecommunications (DoT) to relax the policy norms around WFH for IT / ITeS employees as a measure to contain the spread of COVID-19. After intense negotiations, the DoT – operating under the aegis of the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology – eventually gave a blanket approval allowing employees operating from SEZs to WFH. This momentous shift in policy proved to be a game-changer for the IT / ITeS industry from an India perspective.

WNS caters to sectors like healthcare, banking & insurance and travel - with the first and third taking a significant hit during COVID. How did you continue serving these key clients?

We are witnessing an uptick in demand in BFS, Healthcare & Life Sciences, Retail & CPG, Insurance and Shipping & Logistics verticals. Though Travel & Hospitality has been adversely impacted as an industry, we are seeing an increased demand for analytics, finance and accounting, and customer experience solutions from it. The industry is focused on a quick recovery. With the US and UK opening up, demand is gradually picking up across the other industries we serve too. We envisage a need for additional cost reduction (from client point of view), the need to accelerate digital models, new operating models and commercial constructs that will help create variability in overall costs as key drivers for business growth – one that could even be significantly better than what it was pre-pandemic. For example, in the Travel industry, we’ve been noticing a key shift – today, clients are increasingly more receptive towards AI to stay competitive. In their bid to fast-track recovery, they are open to leveraging AI to explore new revenue streams or augment existing ones. We’ve built an AI-based dynamic ancillary pricing engine for one of our airline clients. Their current services used to pitch ancillary products to customers lack insights-led personalization. They do not factor in aspects such as destination, duration of flight and class of travel. Our dynamic engine leverages this intelligence to create a compelling proposition for the airline’s ancillary products. The COVID-19 crisis disrupted supply chains across industries on a very large scale, leading to a surge in e-commerce adoption. As the direct-to-consumer space gains critical mass, companies have to know their customers to deliver superior experience. Consequently, AI-based personalization engines are currently in demand as companies seek to leverage granular customer insights to augment sales. Clients are also banking on AI to address challenges caused by the supply chain disruption. Due to COVID-19, there was an overwhelming spike in demand for a certain set of products. Retailers were struggling to meet the demand, often leading to frequent stock-outs. AI-based tools are now offering retailers real-time visibility into the supply chain, allowing them to intelligently manage their inventories. Lately, there has been an uptick in the demand for data monetization services. Players in the BFSI and Travel sectors have a rich repository of customer data that can be harnessed to extract actionable insights. Companies are increasingly tapping into new sources of revenue such as this and are assisted by AI-led models in this endeavour. Forecasting is a key decision-making tool for businesses. Due to COVID-19, businesses’ forecasting estimates were disrupted and rendered irrelevant. To address this need, we have created an AI-led platform, COVID Recovery Tracker, which provides demand recovery insights for the Travel and Retail industries. The tracker offers just-in-time actionable insights gleaned from various data sources such as historical travel data, product category searches and mobility data. The platform offers interactive dashboards to quickly address key questions faced by players in these industries. During this time, we have launched some truly differentiated products that are an industry-first such as our domain-led hyper automation, WNS Quote-to-Sustain, our next-gen F&A offering that accelerates the shift to a digital finance function while expanding the boundaries of traditional order-to-cash processes and WNS EXPIRIUS, our unique customer experience solution that integrates human-assisted design and domain expertise with AI-driven conversational insights. Our approach towards maintaining customer focus in the current scenario can be divided into two phases. The first phase is immediate recovery – how we have helped clients navigate deftly through the turbulence and enabled them to survive and thrive amidst the chaos. We call it HyperSurge. The second phase is revival for the future – we call it HyperLead – how we will enable clients to HyperLead competition in the new normal.

The use and deployment of AI has been more significant than ever, and WNS has been very adaptive that way. Can you elaborate how AI played a key role in your organisation's WFH transition?

During the COVID-19 crisis, we launched two key AI-led initiatives in HR – Amelia, our HR Bot and GLINT, a full-stack AI-led digital learning and knowledge platform. The AI-powered chatbot Amelia seeks to redefine Human Resources (HR) and employee experience. The chatbot was launched during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic to raise awareness among our employees. Amelia’s threefold objectives were to deliver purposeful automation in HR along with personalization, empower employees to make faster, accurate decisions and drive a digital culture in the organization. We are using Amelia to ensure better connect with our employees, to keep them updated about the latest happenings in the organization and to capture their feedback. Amelia also solves employees’ queries at a time and place of their choice. The queries can be around policies, practices and systems. GLINT offers an immersive learning experience through tailored modules that are mapped to our specific business needs. It uses the power of AI to aggregate, create and curate, transfer and apply learning with three core objectives – create a future-ready workforce, enhance performance and culture of collaborative innovation. I’ve mentioned our swift move to the WFH model. It was a mind-boggling exercise given the logistics involved. The use of an AI-based asset allocation tool by WNS’ IT team has helped it to prioritize deliveries during this turbulent time. The tool leverages a host of in-built rules to decide in real-time which allocations should be prioritized over the rest.

Broadly speaking, what are your takeaways from this pandemic pertaining to workplace adaptability and digital resilience?

Despite all the disruption caused by the COVID-19 crisis, there was also an unmistakable silver lining. While businesses could have easily fallen into a decision paralysis during the crisis, the reverse actually happened. There was an unprecedented speed and unison in decision-making. The predictions of forward-looking business leaders has unrolled in mere weeks. The present and the future are Digital-only – digital is no longer a choice, it is an absolute must-have. Amidst their zones of comfort, reluctance and resistance in attitudes to WFH, clients also understand that COVID-19 has struck business at the same time across the world. Therefore, while the scale of impact has been huge, the understanding that extraordinary circumstances need extraordinary responses has also been quick. BPM players like us, started communicating with clients very early in the game. Plus, our existing and very mature BCP frameworks were swiftly transformed to war-room scenarios. And yes, our strong digital foundation made the immediate shift to virtual collaboration and execution possible. Companies that made early investments in digital ended up being more resilient to the crisis. While the scale of impact was immense, across the globe, but so was the response. COVID-19 has added a new dimension to workplace adaptability. Before the crisis, businesses used a large ‘hub’ model where people were brought to sprawling campuses to work. Then suddenly, overnight, as COVID-19 struck and the way we needed to recover, everything went home to the edge of the hub, so to say. The new-age BPM needs to have a purposeful blend of a ‘Hub-Spoke and Edge’ model. This is what we have put in place at WNS – we call it the hybrid model. We will look at what HAS to be done from office (HUB); what can be done from home (EDGE); and what can be done from smaller satellite offices (SPOKE). This will retain employee bonding and maintain the fabric of an organization, which will be very important for large players like us. We are also fine-tuning our operating model around being asset-light, digitally led and scalable. Over the past few months, our transformation-led frameworks have been evolved to include three additional factors that will determine WHAT part of the work will be done and from where, given the ‘work from anywhere’ economy, WHERE will it be performed – office or home or somewhere in between and WHO will perform this work – full-time, part-time, contractual, gig.

What according to you will be the Future of Work? And do you think this change is here to stay?

Yes, this change is irreversible. Let me answer this by touching upon the talent aspect first. The Pre-COVID talent model was still traditional defined typically by labour arbitrage. We did have niche, high-end knowledge workers on a consulting mode such as analytical experts and data scientists. Everything largely functioned in an ‘in-office’ working mode, irrespective of whether it was offshore, nearshore or onshore. Not anymore in the new-age BPM. We will see jobs going to people more than people going to work. We all were talking about it pre-COVID, but never expected a ‘dramatic’ shift happening within weeks, and that too without any ‘change management!’ In fact, India’s IT-BPM industry saw close to 92 percent recovery within a couple of weeks of complete lock-down. Business didn’t stop and we found a way. In the future of work, we will see the rise of new models of engagement, new work rules, versatile compensation models for project and gig-based work, and contractual / turnkey roles without other statutory compensation from organizations. The worker profile is also evolving. Today, millennials are the chief wage earners in India with a 47 percent share in the working-age population. Young people are open to joining the gig economy and many would even consider taking gig assignments to supplement existing employment. The employment model is thus ripe for a change as well and we think it is time for significant changes to labour laws to support this change.

How will this new normal impact the workforce of the future? Could you touch upon the new skills that would be imperative for better employability in the future?

The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the adoption of cloud, distributed technologies, AI and RPA across industries. Companies are willing to invest in these technologies now to build resilient operating models. Therefore, the demand for individuals skilled in these areas is on the rise currently. India will be the largest source of digital talent for the world. There will be a spike in demand for talent in big data, analytics and cloud computing. It is estimated that in the next four to five years, there will be a fresh talent supply of 1-1.5 million individuals adept at digital technologies As mentioned earlier, the impact will manifest in aspects such as ‘where’ people will work, ‘what’ kind of work arrangements will become the norm and ‘which’ skills will be required to ensure future-readiness. The new normal of WFH can help businesses create new streams of talent and mainstream a huge untapped workforce at optimized costs. This could pave the way to the ‘gig economy’ where technology enables the integration of efficient, remote consultants into the workforce. In India, we are closely working with the government at an industry-level so that smart policies can be created to normalize WFH. Currently, 74 percent of the country’s digital workforce are concentrated across Bangalore, Delhi / NCR, Pune and Hyderabad. However, this scenario will change as educational institutions across the country are accelerating the adoption of digital technology into their curriculum. Programs such as Nasscom's FutureSkills are also enabling India to accelerate the journey of building skills required for the Digital-only World. The bottom-line is that we must be able to adapt – be it in new skills, new technologies, new ways of working or even new jobs and careers. As is common knowledge, technical excellence and a strong engineering culture are critical building blocks for a purposeful digital culture. This is where the importance of STEM literacy comes in. However, while an engineering degree is valuable, the sense of empathy that comes from music, arts, literature and psychology will be equally important for building successful career paths in the future. A holistic learning approach based on STEAM will enable the future workforce to think critically, enabling them to solve problems effectively and use creative thinking to drive high-impact outcomes. Amidst the rapid technology and business changes, some degree of skill mismatch is bound to be inevitable. However, a wide skill gap can adversely impact a firm’s performance, technological investments and competitiveness. Bridging the skill gap calls for close collaboration between academia, business and policy makers. Business must interact with educational institutions to enable a future-ready and skill-based curriculum.

Can you tell us your plans to mobilise a larger section of employees (gig workers, freelancers, new mothers etc) now that WFH seems to be a long term reality?

Currently, we are transforming our operating model to effectively manage business variability in solutioning, pricing and contracting. We are doing this through the hybrid operating models of work-from-office and work-from-home, and an intelligent workforce blend of full-time employees and gig workers. Having said that, we do not plan to ask large number of employees to work from office till the time the pandemic is safely behind us. This flexible model will enable us to tap in to new talent pool such as the young workforce and retired people with domain knowledge who want to work for few hours remotely. Also, the 110 Million strong potential workforces of women with secondary degrees can find employment. They can devote 3-4 hours per day, but currently don’t participate in the workforce. Another interesting aspect of the gig economy is the opportunities it can create in Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities. Individuals in Tier-2/3 cities can join the workforce in the SPOKE model that I spoke about earlier. Since an employee can now work from anywhere as long as connectivity permits, even companies that don’t have offices in hinterlands, will not think twice about hiring talent for gig working from any part of India. Today, India is the largest destination for digital services delivery, with 75 percent of the market. Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities in the country currently hold 14-16 percent of the market share, and we expect this proportion to grow by 15-20 percent. While Tier-1 locations are preferred for sophisticated digital technology services, Tier-2 / 3 cities are mostly leveraged to provide Social and interactive (41-43 percent), Cloud (21-23 percent), Analytics (16-18 percent) and Automation (10-12 percent). An exciting offshoot of gig workers is the way services sectors can get a tremendous boost through platform-based models. These include low-skill gigs that work largely on-site, vocational-skill and horizontal gig marketplaces, and corporate gigs or freelancers such as web designers and creative professionals. For the services sector, the share of gig roles could be as high as 20 percent of the total employee base.