San Francisco, Calif. — Lattelekom SIA, the principal telecommunications service provider in Latvia, and Exigen Group, a global provider of business process software and services, have announced the execution of a Letter of Intent (LOI) to create a strategic partnership to deliver transformational Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) services to the EU and Eastern European markets.
Pursuant to the LOI, Lattelekom and Exigen expect to offer a range of managed business services to telecommunications and financial services organizations across Europe from a single, shared platform, or business utility structure. By aggregating high volumes of transactions over a fixed cost infrastructure, customers, or "tenants" of the utility, will benefit from increased automation and economies of scale.
Both companies will contribute services and operational and business process expertise based on their core competencies. As one of the largest telecommunications providers in the Baltics, Lattelekom will provide its current applications infrastructure and call center capabilities as an anchor tenant for the new venture. These functions are currently managed and supported by over 600 employees. Exigen Group will contribute Exigen® Business Process Utility software and methodology, and industry-specific applications built from experience with over 200 companies worldwide in the insurance, digital media, telecommunications, financial and government sectors. Together, the two organizations will provide configurable business solutions for the Demand Management and Operations areas of the BPO market, which include processes such as customer care, loan origination and claims processing.
"Telecommunications and information technology are important contributors to the productivity and growth of corporations, the economy and society in general. The emerging knowledge economy, and the experience gained from creating these new innovations and services across Europe, is expected to result in an entirely new market and industry for our country," said Krisjanis Karins, Minister of Economics for the Republic of Latvia.
"The European BPO market is expected to grow to US$41B by 2007 as more and more enterprises are looking to focus their investments on business processes which differentiate them with their customers while outsourcing processes which do not differentiate them," said Cathy Tornbohm, Principal Analyst at Gartner. "The business utility processing model will enable these organizations to benefit from economies of scale in outsourcing process, from continuous improvements and potential cost savings."
"With Latvia now a member of the EU, we have a great opportunity to leverage Lattelekom's operations into the BPO market with a new strategic partnership, and to service clients across the entire continent," said Nils Melngailis, CEO at Lattelekom. "We can achieve sustainable marketplace advantage and provide competitive services to our existing customers, while creating value-added services for new BPO customers."
"This partnership brings to the European market a broad range of outsourcing and business services tailored to meet specific industry and country requirements," said Greg Shenkman, CEO at Exigen Group. "As tenants of the Business Process Utility, customers can benefit from greater scalability and lower transaction costs, creating greater value to customers than traditional outsourcing or servicing models."
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