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No other offshore BPO firm has experienced the kind of ups and downs that EXL Services has. In its short life span, it has seen allentrepreneurship to acquisition by a big firm; bankruptcy of the parent to an overwhelming response to the IPO that was delayed by one and a half years since its first filing. The annual revenue growth also showed an almost sinusoidal pattern. So if FY 06 was a year of (by Indian standards) a sluggish 18% growth, last year was a complete reversal with a robust more than 84% growth. Part of the reason for this volatility in growth is because of the companys tendency to tread a different path, which means a lot of experimentation and some amount of tactical failures before it stabilizes.

More than 70% of EXLs revenue comes from two verticalsfinancial services and insurance, it being one of the top three offshore firms in the latter. Considering that it is largely a non-voice player, it was a perfect precondition for trying out platformizing the offering, like its peers have done. But EXL chose to take the consulting route. It is probably the only BPO firm which has significant (7.5%) revenue coming from advisory services, something that large IT firms are still struggling to achieve.

The other differentiated approach for EXL has been its inorganic strategy. While topline growth and skills/platform acquisition have been the two major reasons behind acquisitions in the industry, EXLs acquisition of Inductisa firm that is into very high-end analytics and algorithm design, and not just number crunchingwas a strategy of buying value. The research and analytics share is now more than 13% of its overall revenue, while its headcount share is just 3%. It also strengthened its client portfolio with the addition of names like Discover, Amex, and Dun & Bradstreet.

EXL appointed key executives last year including Pramode Metre as VP, and chief sales and marketing officer; Sridhar Kadaba as VP, risk advisory services; and Matt Appel as the CFO, even as founder Rohit Kapoor took on the additional role of chief operating officer. DQ

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