Vivek Mehra, vice president of global financial services with Keane Inc, talks to Sudhakaran and Sharath Kumar of CyberMedia News about the company's offerings that help enterprises do smart business.

How do Keane's business and technology solutions help business transform?

Keane's business and technology solutions help clients realize bottom-line operational improvements and transformational business outcomes.

We work where our clients are sitting. This gives us an in-depth understanding of their businesses, their systems, and their industry-specific challenges.

In the insurance sector, we help the companies with customer retention by providing the right tools and service to attract customers and satisfy the agents by helping them track their commissions and benefits.

Combined with an agile global sourcing model, we can say that the insight takes us a step beyond standard services providers.

How do the solutions help companies get out of the shackles of economic downturn?

We help the companies in their business process management and advise them on as to which process can be automated thus taking out the human element to improve efficiency.

Also most of the companies are reducing their IT budgets. How has this affected Keane?

Yes, companies are definitely cutting down on costs, but the base level business processes, which form the core strength of any business, are not affected. And this is where we continue to have business.

But there would be some upfront investment to implement Keane's technology solutions...

Sure, there would be some upfront investment, but such investments pay back in a short time. Also there are open source solutions in the market that help the business movement and hence the cost factor would be taken care of that way too.

Could you please elaborate on Keane's integrated approach of combining business process outsourcing and business process improvement?

First of all, it depends on what is the process being considered. There are many aspects like the company, people, tool, technology etc. When you document that as part of the integration process, you will see a lot of overlapping. And we help avoid that overlapping by building a common platform in the design of a process.

Our primary focus is not the "labor arbitrage" approach of merely moving work elsewhere to save money. We focus on substantially improving the way its clients work, assessing and then refining, retooling, and in some cases re-inventing critical operational processes.

Basically we combine business process outsourcing (BPO), business process improvement (BPI), and technology enhancement to transform business operations, maximize benefits, and minimize business disruption for clients.

Also there would be many companies which work on the similar platform. So by integrating that platform taking into consideration the needs of these companies, the cost factor can also be taken care of.

We provide customized solutions based on client needs, offering a spectrum of service models from discrete projects to an extension of the client's operations to full transformational outsourcing engagements.

How is Keane helping companies to address the challenge of integrating IT architectures in a post-merger scenario?

Internationally, we have been doing merger and acquisition for the last many years. We help the companies in their process of acquisition integration from the day one of the acquisition itself, by lifting and shifting so that there is no complexities in the post-acquisition scenario and the work-flow continues.

We help them in simple inter-operatability. Sometimes it could be simple data migration and other times it could be data management.

Also there are instances where you cannot keep two systems together. Suppose, two banks merge. The merged entity cannot keep two core banking solutions. In such cases, we take what is the best in the breed and integrate. We have done this right across multi-verticals.

Is Keane focusing on specific verticals. Where are you witnessing higher growth opportunities?

We have clients across many verticals. However, our main focus is financial services and insurance. In India also we give more focus on finance, healthcare, insurance and retail.

The healthcare sector has not been affected as badly as other sectors in North America. But concerns remain on escalating costs increased complexities. Keane has front-end Admission Discharge and Transfer (ADT) solution in a number of hospitals across North America and Europe. This has helped in upgrading the hospitals' existing back-end billing solutions.

This is a browser-based system that helps the hospitals to streamline patient registration system from the point of admission through the discharge or transfer of the patient. The system enables the management of critical patient data to improve patient safety and quality of care, as well as billing and insurance information, to streamline billing processes on the back-end.

How do you see the business potential in the emerging economies in the prevailing global scenario, where the developed economies are passing through a phase of struggle?

Definitely emerging economies have great potential. However, the bulk of our business comes from countries like North America, Europe and Australia.