EdgeVerve AI Next – addressing violent disruption in Global Business Services

Once upon a time the outsourcing of a business process, such as Accounts Receivable, was known as Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) and was largely a labour arbitrage play, with the work offshored, unchanged, to lower cost countries. Over the past decade or so, the application of technologies such as Robotic Process Automation (RPA) and Machine Learning led to a marketing makeover and the term Business Process Services to convey the idea of the management and improvement of end-to-end processes.

At the same time large enterprises started evolving a strategy for centralising and optimising shared business functions. Called Global Business Services (GBS) this strategy was especially useful for organisations growing by acquisition. With the development of generative AI and agentic AI, the whole “business services” opportunity stands on the brink of radical change. I recently caught up with Sateesh Seetharamiah, CEO of Infosys subsidiary EdgeVerve to get his take on AI-led ...