BPO firm launches AI-led performance unit

CEBU, Philippines — American outsourcing firm Concentrix Philippines is reorganizing how it manages workforce and customer-experience performance, creating a new unit that brings learning, quality, analytics, governance and artificial intelligence (AI) under a single operating framework as companies seek faster and more measurable gains from technology.

The company recently introduced its Performance Engineering Team (PET), a capability designed to integrate previously separate functions and use data and AI-enabled insights to identify performance issues earlier and improve operational outcomes.

The move comes as the business-process outsourcing (BPO) and customer-experience industry faces pressure to move beyond labor-based delivery models towards technology-enabled services that can demonstrate productivity and business impact.

Larah Sta. Maria, vice-president for transformation and shared services at Concentrix Philippines, said the initiative was intended to shift the organization from responding to performance problems to anticipating them.

“Performance can no longer be managed through isolated functions; it must be engineered through the seamless integration of people, process, data, technology and governance,” Sta. Maria said.

Under the new model, learning teams are expected to move beyond course delivery towards improving employee performance, while quality and analytics functions will focus more heavily on producing actionable intelligence.

Governance, meanwhile, will be used to strengthen operational resilience and decision-making rather than being limited to compliance.

Concentrix said the framework is built around four principles: engineering performance rather than simply managing it; integrating functions and technology; using AI-driven insights to improve predictability; and employing governance to support confidence and agility.

The company reported early gains from pilot programs in the Philippines this year, including as much as a 20 per cent reduction in time to proficiency, a 30 per cent increase in capacity for higher-value work and an 8 per cent improvement in quality scores. It also reported same-day issue detection and resolution times that were up to 30 per cent faster.

Concentrix cautioned that the figures were based on internal measurements from participating programs and are not guarantees of future performance.

The creation of PET reflects a shift in the outsourcing sector, where clients are increasingly looking for technology and AI to augment human operations rather than simply adding more capacity.

For Concentrix, the initiative also provides an internal test of its strategy of combining human expertise with AI and data analytics — a model the company is promoting to clients as the industry moves towards what it calls “intelligent transformation”.

Concentrix, listed on the Nasdaq under CNXC, provides technology and services to more than 2,000 organizations globally. The company says it combines human and AI-enabled solutions across major industries, drawing on more than two decades of operating experience. — (FREEMAN)