Serco acquires Excelior

UK-based Serco Group, which earlier bought Mumbai-based back office services provider Intelenet Global Services, has further expanded its global BPO capabilities by acquiring Excelior, the contact centre business of Australian firm Skilled Group for a total consideration of A$13.2 million including an earn-out payment of up to A$5 million payable over the next two years upon achieving certain revenue targets.

Skilled Group stated that the sale of Excelior was in line with the company’s strategy to focus on its core business after divesting the non-core assets. Skilled Group, which provides labour hires and workforce services in Australia and New Zealand has over 160 offices with revenues of around A$1.9 billion.

Proservartner Point of View: Serco have a strong footprint in the public sector, and are developing a global footprint across their capabilities. The Excelior acquisition provides onshore capability in Australia to support Customer Contact requirements, and Serco do need to consider the brand that they are hoping to develop in BPO.

A contact centre brand is very different to a company that focuses on finance & accounting; HR; procurement; or legal process outsourcing. One envisages that there is a significant market for these services for the existing Serco client base, and it should be appreciated that providing Customer Contact will not enable them to be strongly considered for the other functional migrations.

That said, Serco, through the Intelenet acquisition does have capability and experience in other traditional back office functions, and this will need to be leveraged for the synergies of to be realised.

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