28 Nov 2022
Dear Shareholder,
Over the past few days, many of you have asked why Teleperformance is getting into negotiations with UNI Global and have also enquired about TP Colombia. While we have answered a few of our shareholders directly, we thought it was best for me to write to all shareholders and provide better context for these discussions and provide some more details on TP Colombia.
Let me start by highlighting the structural dynamics of the Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) industry that make it a hugely competitive industry:
- Customers: TP is in a B2B client servicing business where it supports some of the biggest brands and governments in the world as their first-responder. As TP's staff interacts with the end-customers and citizens of these clients and the outsourcing partner relationships are typically long term, these clients select their outsourcing partners after an extensive diligence across all facets of the business, and this diligence is usually conducted by big cross-functional client teams over many months.
- Competition: Globally, the BPO industry is estimated to be about $261Bn in 2022. TP, with its circa $8bn in revenue, accounts for only about 3% of the global BPO market. Even in the more narrowly defined outsourced CX industry (estimated to be $94Bn in 2021 by Everest), TP's market share is only about 7% and there is a high degree of competitive intensity, both for clients and staff.
- Liquid and educated labour: TP's staff is typically educated and computer literate, and an overwhelming majority of them are millennials (hence, social media savvy). This is not the profile of staff that can be 'exploited'. In addition, given the competitive intensity, this staff has the full flexibility to move to alternative providers if they are not satisfied with one service provider.
In such a competitive industry, TP has been delivering significantly above industry-average growth rates for 42 consecutive quarters. While it is possible to deliver such performance for a relatively short time (say 2-4 quarters) by taking short-cuts, to deliver this type of consistent solid performance, the entire supply chain - from being able to hire staff in larger numbers, to training them, recognizing and rewarding them, and keeping them engaged to deliver high levels of customer experience - has to work seamlessly. This level of consistent performance in a competitive labour and client market is not possible without managing our staff with utmost care. And this fact is further validated by external benchmarks like the Great Place to Work (97% of our employees work in a Great Place to Work certified subsidiary) and Glassdoor (TP's score of 4.2 is one of the highest in the industry).
Similarly, it is not possible for any global company, let alone a CAC40 company, to be successful for such an extended period if it was not compliant with local laws and regulations. That is why TP has an ongoing cadence of internal audits. As is common in our industry, TP has also been regularly audited and inspected by multiple government bodies across the globe, and these audits have invariably had a satisfactory outcome without any major deficiency.
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Teleperformance SE (Societas Europaea). Share capital of €147,802,105. 301 292 702 RCS Paris.
21-25 rue Balzac, 75406 Paris Cedex 08 France. Siret 301 292 702 00059. Code APE 6420Z.
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Coming to ESG, TP was possibly the very first in its industry to promote ESG commitment within the company, long before it was identified as a fundamental factor by the wider corporate and investment community: through our Citizen of the World and Citizen of the Planet initiatives in 2006 and 2008, respectively; our partnerships with UNICEF, the Red Cross, Feed the Children, and multiple NGOs in the countries in which we operate; by being a signatory of the United Nations Global Compact in 2011; by launching internal employee satisfaction surveys in the early 2000s; by becoming champions of diversity and inclusion; and by massively favoring internal promotion (filling 71% of open positions internally).
Despite all the above, why then have a global framework agreement with UNI Global?
We live in a world where an accusing tweet, without evidence, damages solid reputations built through decades of exemplary behavior and performance, and despite all objective certifications.
Further, a global company can strictly respect the law and yet be challenged locally for one reason or another, creating tensions that are exacerbated by social media and become potentially very harmful for all parties.
TP is a group of over 440,000 employees today, and if TP were a city with this many inhabitants, it would be a very large city - in fact, among the top 5 cities in France (bigger than Nice) and a top 15 city in the UK (bigger than Edinburgh). Of course, like in any large city in the world, even the safest and most beautiful ones like Nice and Edinburgh, there are undesirable incidents and disagreements every day. Does this mean that these cities are not among the very good cities to live and visit?
TP, despite it being among the best in its industry on all objective parameters, because of its size and span, can have some isolated incidents/ gaps somewhere in the world and such incidents can then be blown out of proportion to create a perception that may be diametrically opposite to the objective facts.
Our objective of a global framework agreement with UNI Global is to facilitate and frame the different local discussions to avoid specific isolated local situations disproportionately impacting the global reality of TP.
This dialogue with UNI Global, which has signed similar global framework agreements with the likes of Carrefour and Orange, is also in line and a natural extension of our global ESG commitments.
Finally, on the specific point of Colombia, I want to highlight that TP Colombia holds the following international certifications, all of which are up to date:
- ISO 9001:2008/2011/2015 (Quality management system): Revalidated on 02/19/2022. The most updated version of this certification has been awarded to TP every year since 2008.
- ISO 14001: 2015 (Environmental management system): Revalidated on 19/02/2022. The most updated version of this certification has been awarded to TP every year since 2019.
- ISO 45001: 2018 (Occupational health and safety): Revalidated on 19/02/2022. The most updated version of this certification has been awarded to TP every year since 2019.
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Teleperformance SE (Societas Europaea). Share capital of €147,802,105. 301 292 702 RCS Paris.
21-25 rue Balzac, 75406 Paris Cedex 08 France. Siret 301 292 702 00059. Code APE 6420Z.
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- ISO 27001: 2013/2015 (Information security management): Revalidated on 30/11/2021. The most updated version of this certification has been awarded to TP every year since 2013.
- SGE21 (Ethical and socially responsible management system): Revalidated on 19/05/2022. The most updated version of this certification has been awarded to TP every year since 2021.
- PCI- DSS Compliant (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard)
- VEREGO (Corporate Social Responsibility): Revalidated on 1/12/2021. The most updated version of this certification has been awarded to TP every year since 2017
- GPTW 2022 - GPTW Certified for the sixth consecutive year. In addition, Teleperformance Colombia was the fourth best company to work for in 2020 and the seventh best company for women in the same year. In 2022, TP Colombia is again in the Top 10 Best Companies to Work For)
TP Colombia has always been recognized in the country (both at the national and local levels) as a positive contributor to the development of the country and its communities. Even during the Covid pandemic, TP Colombia (at its expense) bought and administered a total of 66,228 vaccine doses - 38,736 doses to TP employees and 27,492 doses to TP employees' close family members, suppliers in our operations, and people in vulnerable situations.
Faced with the recent allegations, we immediately initiated an internal audit and requested an external audit from a large global standards and compliance audit firm. The results of the internal audit have already been published and there are no significant adverse findings. The results of the external audit will also be published as soon as these are available (by mid December). We have also invited a selection of institutional investors to Bogotá to "see and touch" the reality of TP Colombia, and to judge us on facts, not on a "tweet".
Are we perfect? Certainly not, or else we would be living in another world.
Are there areas for improvement without destroying the business model? Most likely, and we will continue to work on them following our principle of "continuous improvement".
At TP, we are transparent. All around the world, we contribute every day to a better world.
We are also very resilient, knowing that "whatever does not kill us, makes us stronger".
Thank you for your support,
Daniel Julien
Chairman and CEO
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Teleperformance SE (Societas Europaea). Share capital of €147,802,105. 301 292 702 RCS Paris.
21-25 rue Balzac, 75406 Paris Cedex 08 France. Siret 301 292 702 00059. Code APE 6420Z.
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Teleperformance SE published this content on 27 November 2022 and is solely responsible for the information contained therein. Distributed by Public, unedited and unaltered, on 28 November 2022 00:05:25 UTC.