Future of BPM is outcomes, not labour: Genpact
CHENNAI, INDIA — Genpact is repositioning its business process management (BPM) model around delivered outcomes rather than labor reduction — with Global Agentic AI Officer Vijay Vijayasankar warning that enterprises deploying AI on top of broken processes will amplify underlying dysfunction rather than deliver the productivity gains they expect.
Genpact: process reengineering must precede AI deployment
A joint research report between Genpact and HFS Research, surveying 2,002 enterprise executives across 16 industries, found that 85% of leaders believe four forms of enterprise debt — technology, data, process, and talent deficiencies — limit their organizations’ ability to realize AI value, yet only 6% have approved remediation plans in place.
The data behind the debt claim is direct: 33% of enterprise data is currently AI-ready, 48% of processes still require manual or semi-manual intervention, and 40% of employee time is affected by inefficient or manual workflows — figures that frame Genpact’s outcomes-first positioning as a diagnostic of how widely enterprise operations fall short of AI readiness.
The $18 trillion global value unlock that HFS Research estimates AI could deliver depends entirely on whether enterprises address their process, data, and technology debt first — and Genpact’s BPM thesis is that outcomes-based contracts, not labor headcount reduction, are the commercial structure that forces both parties to solve that problem.
“We have to re-engineer the process to make use of AI,” said Vijayasankar. “Otherwise, at best, there will be minor improvements. But the more likely scenario is extreme chaos.”
Genpact’s ‘engine room’ model redefines human and AI roles
Genpact’s agentic operations model positions AI agents as the execution layer — processing transactions, running workflows, flagging exceptions — while human experts validate outputs, train models, and manage the governance layer that AI cannot self-certify.
The model explicitly rejects the premise that BPM value comes from replacing human workers, framing it instead as a transformation of human roles from process execution toward validation, exception handling, and responsible AI oversight.
Genpact defines two new role archetypes: AI builders, who combine domain expertise with technology fluency, and AI practitioners, who combine domain expertise with technical understanding deep enough to collaborate with AI systems — a workforce development framework that positions BPM talent investment as a precondition for AI delivery capability.
For BPO operators competing on cost rather than outcomes, Genpact’s repositioning is a competitive warning — clients who understand that AI value depends on process quality will increasingly choose partners who contract on delivered outcomes rather than labor hours, and those contracts require a fundamentally different commercial and delivery model.
“We are proud engine room people. We are not the showroom people,” said Balkrishan “BK” Kalra, President and Chief Executive Officer, Genpact.
For BPO operators and outsourcing buyers tracking the AI-driven transformation of service delivery, Genpact’s outcomes-first positioning marks the leading edge of a commercial shift — from headcount-based labor arbitrage toward outcome-contracted, AI-executed delivery, a transition the World Economic Forum frames as the central productivity challenge of the current technology era.
