Call centres and outsourced customer relations. Only E/Y makes money in BPO, with its barometer
Every year since 2017, the SP2C, in partnership with EY, has published the barometer of the economic, social and territorial impacts of outsourced contact centres. The title of the 2024 edition was: outsourced customer relations faced with the challenge of artificial intelligence. The title of the 2025 edition, to be presented on 9 July, will or should be: "Sales on every floor!
Tomorrow, in one of the few towers in La Défense not yet emptied by teleworking, representatives of the world's largest call centre service providers - Teleperformance, Concentrix, Foundever, Konecta, Armatis, etc. - will meet for the 9th edition of a sector study. E/Y, which took over from Bearing Point nine years ago, produces it, and is paid to do so, rather handsomely according to our information. It will be one of the few participants in this meeting to charge a respectable margin for its hours of work.
D2 is lively, D1 looks like the LFP
In this market, we can distinguish between a top 14, the D1, made up of large, world-class players, of which the SP2C is a bit like the MEDEF, as we have written in the past. And D2, which groups together a small number of players with sales of between €5 million and €100 million. As the E/Y study is based on a compilation of declarative data supplied by service providers, it has the merit of existing. If we were to make our own assessment this year, after twenty-five years of existence and frequentation of this market, we would note the following points:
competition and the over-capacity of the BPO market are driving down prices and margins, while the emergence of AI is occupying minds and disrupting the very foundations of the contact centre industry. Carve-outs are likely to multiply. Nothing new compared with our analysis of last year, which can be read here.
ADM Value (Tessi), Alta Etic, Onepilot and Teletech are some of the few students in good shape and profitable growth in D2. None of them are members of the SP2C.
Teletech, which belongs to the Finare group, a major player in the insurance sector, has announced sales growth of 15%. Alta Etic, a service provider based in Marseilles, has recouped the fruits of its labour (+15%), while OnePilot, which brings together independent agents, has also announced double-digit growth, but has integrated the pioneer of this activity in France: Eodom. These players each generate sales of between €10 million and €80 million, while the world leaders each exceed €400 million in the French-speaking FSM market. The global outsourcing market is estimated at €3.6 billion.
Despite their talent and desire, all the other D2 players, what are often referred to as midmarket service providers, are finding it hard to make a go of it.
The market is overcapacitated,‘ says Benoit Foillard, CEO of Ocean Call, ’and we are effectively integrating AI into our offerings, which means that we are doing some of the work for less money, even though we are making investments. Faced with us, we see that very large players are able to lower their prices and offer expensive services to keep the customers who are about to choose us. We are reaping the rewards of our heavy commercial investment, but the truth is that we are not seeing enough growth. If we want to grow, acquisitions are a must".
It's the same story in Morocco, at Myopla, where ‘sometimes spurious arguments are used by larger competitors in the finals of invitations to tender, in order to discredit us’, says Denis Marsault, the company's founder. The fierce competition is reactivating these practices, which are typical of declining markets.
At all these players, to which we could add Amicio, one of the few 100% French specialists in the stage, the CEOs and their teams are on deck. But sometimes that's not enough. Carrefour, which was very happy with the service provided by the SME led by François Bourla, has given in to the siren calls of offshore. It now provides customer service for its subsidiaries in Madagascar (Carrefour Voyages, Carrefour Banque) and Morocco.
The reasons for this hyper-competition are probably well known to Frédéric Donati. Former CEO of Konecta FSM, the founder of Comete.ai, an AI marketplace applied to customer experience, explains: AI will help to digitise, with efficiency and performance, more than 15 to 20% of processes and is already doing so. In the very large markets, such as telecoms and energy, flows are falling. These two factors combined explain the mechanical decline in the volume of work entrusted to the major global and French-speaking specialists. Add to this the fact that an increasing number of transactions are now handled in zone 3 countries, such as Madagascar, and it's easy to see why the market is so tight. And the demand for new capacity in these countries, where numerous projects to create call centres are currently being finalised".
Intelcia laughing, Concentrix stressed, Armatis boarding
It is among the global and European players that the battle is fiercest, and this is putting nerves to the test. The share prices of the world's No. 1 and No. 2 companies (Teleperformance and Concentrix) are showing a loss of 80% compared with the beginning of 2023, and there are no signs of improvement in a sky that AI has clouded. ‘Can the SP2C, which has remained a union dedicated to defending the interests of global players, announce the colour and say things bluntly, it's not certain,’ adds engineer Donati, who cut his teeth at the 9 Telecom group. The first division of BPO resembles the LFP, the Ligue de Football Professionnel (Professional Football League): it is looking for revenue, which the major brands and principals are not prepared to increase.
Acheel, Leonard and speech analytics
Recently, the author of these lines had to deal with Leonard, Chronopost's chatbot. Like many others, Leonard gave up fairly quickly as soon as my request was specific, and so it was in sub-Saharan Africa that an agent tried to give me information about a refund period. Proof, if proof were needed, that agents will still be needed in call-centres and even more in the activities of the future, such as moderation, trust and safety or technical customer service, level 2 and 7/7.
The questions of the moment include who knows best how to recruit and retain them, how to reduce the ambient noise on the floor, which is a real nuisance, and why dynamic SMEs and SMIs are disappointed by the performance of their current suppliers. The co-founder of Acheel, Francky Defossé, recently explained at a professional meeting that he had set up his own call-centre in Fez, Morocco, after realising that 30% of his new customers had signed up after a telephone conversation. And because he had noticed that the big BPO players were not very motivated to take on a ‘small account’ with 20 and now 70 workstations. He went on to explain the benefits of speech analytics in terms of monitoring compliance and improving quality.
We hope that this 9th barometer will have addressed these issues.
Who will be there?
Huggy les bons tuyaux, who keeps us informed, often better than AI, has shared with us the following predictions about this meeting.
Baptism for Claire Calméjane, the new French CEO of Foundever, the world number 3, who is expected to attend her first meeting at E/Y (front page photo).
Karim Bernoussi, CEO of the ‘smallest of the big players’ in BPO, Intelcia, will not be attending. The Moroccan engineer was turned away at the entrance to the club a long time ago. He has a good memory and continues on his way, rather successfully. Recently, at his client SFR, the successful integration of AI into the fibre installation process worked wonders. Carve-out operations are also planned.
David Gillaux or a representative of Armatis will be present. Ethan Hunt, as we've come to call him, recently moved his teams to spacious, flower-filled premises with plenty of bicycle parking. To be agile, both points are decisive.
If, little mouse, you've been accepted into the club, one of the people we think you should meet tomorrow is the Konecta representative. You'll find out why in our next issue.
The SP2C, we hope, will one day devote some of its resources, which amount to almost 400,000 euros annually, to updating its website: the legal notices will be visible there (today, we fall into a void) and a proofreader will proofread the contributions. Roland-Garros, the tournament, is spelt with a single L..
Sales on almost every floor
To sum up, in outsourced customer relations, there are sales on every floor. Almost.
Yesterday Google sent me an email saying that its prices were going up, with effect from 9 July. A one-sided email can take the place of customer relations. Please be advised that the price of your Google Workspace Business Standard subscription will change from 9 July 2025. This new price takes into account the significant added value of AI, as well as the many new features we have launched and will be rolling out in Google Workspace editions.
A month ago, I signed a deed of sale with my solicitor. Docusign, imposed by Septeo, billed each of the SCI partners 76 euros for signing the articles of association and a deed of sale. Septeo was bought out, as was Silae. At a high price. To clear our debts, let's send the Prime Minister on a training course with PSG, Bain, Silver Lake, HIG Capital...
E/Y is the company that has it all figured out. At a time when its clients and financial backers are feeling the pinch, the consultancy produces a regular study every year, drawn up... from its tower. Without ever visiting a call-centre, offshore for example. Once or twice a year, E/Y consultants contact our editorial team to request verified content or data for publication in the magazine. But you have to subscribe. Ouch, there's a catch: to commit to an expense of 160 euros, you'd have to call a board of directors, with partners, and justify it. In truth, no-one in economic circles is passionate about the future of contact centres, so the rigour and methodology of this will not be questioned.
And as we know, during the gold rush, it was the people selling pickaxes and various materials who were the only ones to make money.
The Köln Concert
Fifty years ago, in Cologne, a young woman of 18 went to great lengths and defied all the odds to organise a concert by Keith Jarrett. Who played, even though the Bösendorfer piano was not the one requested (Keith Jarrett only plays on the Imperial model). ECM recorded the concert, which the artist did not want. Vera Brandes, to whom a film pays tribute, contributed to a memorable experience. The Köln Concert is the best-selling improvised jazz record in the world. Vera won nothing in the story. If you're passionate about experiences and customer relations, outsourced and sometimes painful, skip the meetings that serve no purpose and go to the cinema, Montreux or La Roque d'Anthéron.
Manuel Jacquinet.
To find out more:
-The 15 service providers who achieved profitable growth in 2024 in these markets. Issue 137 of En-Contact.
-Outsourced call centres have their own Medef.
-Discover the En-Contact Directory, 5th edition. The 900 service providers in the sector.