By Peter Ryan, lead analyst, IT services at Ovum

It is no secret that to date the interest in home-based agent delivery (either in-house or outsourced) has been pretty sparse among financial services firms. In fact, in Ovum’s most recent home agent market study (Profiting From Home Agents in CRM Outsourcing), we forecast that the percentage of home-based outsourced agents supporting financial services clients will increase from 10 percent in 2011 to just 12 percent by 2015. This falls very short of the heady levels of expansion forecasted for other sectors such as retail or communications, both of which have readily embraced the home agent business model.

This is why we are encouraged to see NAB look seriously at how a home agent model can be leveraged within their business. Not only are the potential cost savings pronounced, but the flexibility that this model would provide financial services firms is substantial in terms of ramping up and down capacity as needed, as well as increasing a firm’s onshore footprint (an aim of many retail banking executives in the current climate). Should NAB decide to pursue the home agent option, we believe that it would provide an industry reference point for outsourcers to bid on financial services work that they would otherwise have found untenable.