Teleperformance A Pathway to Future-Ready Solutions: Piety Gonsalves is the CEO of Teleperformance (GCC). With over 30 years of rich experience in the Middle East, Piety truly understands customer behavior and requirements, and this in-depth experience is a leading factor in Teleperformance’s growth and success story.
Let’s learn more about Piety Gonsalves and Teleperformance through our interview below.
Getting Insights at The Ideas
Could you tell us a bit about Teleperformance and your career journey?
“To give you a brief, Teleperformance is a global company with over 420,000 employees. The company provides customer acquisition management, customer care, technical support, debt collection, social media services, and other digital services. We operate in 88 countries, serve 170 markets and have been recognized as Great Place to WorkⓇ 3 years in a row.
I have been in the UAE for over 30 years. I started as an IT Engineer, moved from IT into operations and continued my journey. I’ve been the CEO for Teleperformance – Middle East for the last 11 years, including starting the operations in the region.”
What’s the goal of Teleperformance?
“Teleperformance’s goal is to be a leading CX player in the region, with a laser-focus on becoming the partner of choice for organizations across industries, and most importantly, creating employment for nationals in the region.
Teleperformance has 2000+ employees in UAE and Saudi Arabia with focus on women empowernment who have been provided the flexibility to work from home, with an overall 35% of our workforce continuing to work from home. We have been recently recognized by the UAE government for being among the top 3 private sector companies contributing towards employment of UAE nationals in line with our commitment to being a people-centric organization.”
Team Success & High Energy
Your company has reached such an excellent point in business, and we believe that teamwork is important for this. Thus, we want to ask you about your views on what makes the team successful.
“My team has been the major contributor towards our success and growth.
The top priority for us is to have our employees happy and engaged. The more empowerment and freedom you give them to think and to make mistakes, the more they learn.
Being close-knit as a team and bonding amongst the team-members is a very successful mantra for a great organization. We conduct several employee engagement programs, and have been certified as a great place to work three times in a row. We are a great place to work for UAE nationals, women, and millennials. This is truly a testament to our whole-hearted commitment towards being a very people-focused organization.”
How important are employees’ energy levels to your Company’s success?
“To keep the employee’s energy levels high, it’s important that they keep learning; if employees don’t learn, they’re not engaged. 75% of our workforce is millennials, hence we need to adapt and align to the need of the millennials. Majority of the new roles are filled internally which provides our employees the required career progression. This gives the employees the motivation and energy level to work and reach new heights.
We have many rewards and recognition programs where we recognize and incentivize our employees for performance and success. We have a program called AIM (All Ideas Matter), wherein employees can give their inputs or ideas for improvements and growth. If their idea is successfully implemented, they get rewarded. So, there is a lot that we do around our employees.”
Paving Way Through Challenges
Okay, that’s a wonderful aspect that we got to know about your company. We think that along with teamwork, several other aspects can even help companies move through challenges. What keeps your company moving forward even during challenges?
“The ability to sense changes well in advance and being future ready has helped us to overcome challenges, including the pandemic. We were providing front line support during the pandemic, hence it was important to ensure business continuity which we achieved successfully.
Teleperformance being such a large organization helps us to overcome challenges by leveraging global best practices and access to a global talent pool. We, at Teleperformance, work very closely with our partners to ensure we are aligned and contribute to their vision and goal.
I think from that perspective, every organization will have challenges, but how you break down the challenge and the problem and bring in the right people is what normally helps, in my view.”
Bringing In The Technology Aspect
After getting to know about how Teleperformance tackled its challenges, we were curious about understanding how technology is helping your business. How do you think technology is leading to changes in businesses? Do you feel it’s helping your company grow?
“In our business, technology is an enabler. We call ourselves a high-tech, high-touch company ensuring the right balance of technology and human effort.
Our purpose is to improve the services between a customer or citizen and the company or government with which they are interacting. We use a lot of state-of-the-art technology, and for us “Each Interaction Matters”.
We are a people-centric organization. We have the latest, state-of-the-art technology and constantly strive to be up there with the best technological innovations and solutions; while being aware that our employees are equally important.
The output of whatever technologies that we use helps us offer a better, more enhanced customer experience.”
Digitization also comes to mind when we talk about technology in the current scenario. How are you adapting to digitization?
“We are the leading company when it comes to digitization. Continuous Improvement is a culture in our organization.
Powered by TAP (Technology, Analytics and Process Excellence) framework and LEAN Six Sigma methodology, we offer transformation solutions and consulting for creating meaningful interactions through RPA & Automation, Artificial Intelligence and Advanced Analytics and this drives digitization.
So, digitization has been long part of our DNA and is not something new for us. It is an integral part of the work that we do. Every department has encouraged transformation, which leads to benefits we can offer to our clients.”
Standing Out From The Crowd
What makes your business unique?
“Our employees and our values. We have a set of five values:
Integrity – “I say what I do, and I do what I say.”
Respect – “I treat others with kindness and empathy.”
Professionalism – “I do things right the very first time.”
Innovation – “I’m curious and I innovate,”
Commitment – “Am I engaged?””
Added to this, simpler, faster, safer solutions that drive real results makes us unique”
Could you tell us something about the services that you offer?
“We are an outsourcer and manage the customer & citizen experience – pre-sales, sales and customer service, soft collections and many activities around the customer experience. That includes, for example, middle office and back office. We work very closely with the government in UAE & KSA to provide citizen services.”
A Piece of Advice For All
Would you like to say anything else to our viewers?
“You are who you are; don’t try to be someone else. If you have not made a mistake recently, you are probably not learning. Don’t be afraid to make mistakes. Don’t listen to the naysayers.
The top sports brands examples I give our employees are Adidas – Impossible is Nothing & Nike – Just Do it.”
Connect with Piety Gonsalves on LinkedIn.
Find Teleperformance on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook & Instagram.
