Managed Services, more than just Business Process Outsourcing (BPO)

Recently, KPMG has launched a new advisory service: Managed Services. With Managed Services, KPMG offers advisory services on a continuous basis leveraging three assets: people, technology and data. Characterized by a long-term commitment, often spanning 3 to 5 years, Managed Services takes care of a client’s critical – but not core – business processes. With Managed Services not only do clients benefit from having KPMG’s seasoned experts working alongside their team, but KPMG also lets them share in its top-of-the-line technology and data solutions, leading to higher quality of processes. This raises the question: How does Managed Services distinguish from traditional business process outsourcing (BPO)?

BPO delivery is mainly people centric and, in most cases, focused on short-term results, like cost savings. In addition, most traditional BPOs are focused on transactional processes (low value high volume) e.g., Finance & Accounting, HR processes, Accounts Payable/Receivable processing. 

With Managed Services, while people remain key to deliver, the use of technology, standard processes play a key role in order to deliver niche services. This requires specific skills and in-depth knowledge of the processes for example for Internal Control, Customer Due Diligence or Know Your Customer processes. 

As the successful launches of Managed Services with other member firms have shown, Managed Services fulfills an urgent need in today’s rapidly changing business environment. Market research shows that the global Managed Services market is expected to grow from USD 200 billion in 2020 to USD 492 billion by 2027.

According to Partha Basu (Head of Managed Services in the Netherlands), more and more companies are discovering the upside of this solution, as it offers them resource and technology flexibility, secured risk free environment, compliance with changing regulations, lower cost of operations, and access to better practices. “In return for their trust on KPMG capabilities, we offer them peace of mind and give time back for organizations to focus on their core activities.”