How one teleservices agency successfully manages growth: An interview with Daniel Julien

Call Center Solutions, Aug 1999

While the merger and acquisition activity that has taken hold of the teleservices industry in the last few years has left a number of companies shattered in its wake, we are pleased to report on a teleservices agency that has prospered in this environment because of a wellthought-out business model. We recently spoke with Daniel Julien, president and CEO of Teleperformance International (www.teleperformance.com), who founded Teleperformance 21 years ago and now manages it together with COO Christophe Allard. Teleperformance, based in Paris, started out with 21 lines, and has grown to more than 8,000 workstations within more than 100 call centers in 29 different countries, conducting programs in 25 different languages. In 1998, the SR.Teleperformance Group had revenues of U.S. $358 million (345 million Euros). This is expected to rise to more than U.S. $465 million (450 million Euros) in 1999. Its 1998 EBITDA was U.S. $37 million (36 million Euros).

Spend even five minutes with Mr. Julien and you will see why Teleperformance has succeeded where others have failed. His enthusiasm for the business cannot be contained: "We are people from the industry - we are totally crazy about the business," he said recently over lunch. "We are obsessional about our management model, our numbers." Read on to find how this "obsession" has paid off in spades for Teleperformance.

CCS: Briefly explain your unique business model that has made Teleperformance so successful.

Julien: Our business model is totally dedicated to the 'creation of added value' for the different partners of the company.

First, we create value for our clients, not only in delivering a high level of teleservices, but also in being very proactive in helping them to design the most effective solutions in market research, telesales and customer management. We have created a database that contains key information on the top 10,000 telemarketing and teleservices campaigns we have managed over the last 20 years, and so we know very well what works and what doesn't work, how to improve a program and how to minimize costs.. and we share, all over the world, our experience with our clients.

Then we create value for our employees: for us, the true value of a teleservices bureau lies not so much in the computers and ACDs as in the people. We truly believe that, from the bottom to the top, the employees have to be very experienced in telemarketing and teleservices, very dedicated to the services they provide and very enthusiastic. This only happens if you make them successful. We, at Teleperformance, believe in education, internal promotion, real autonomy and empowerment within the business units ...and all of this creates a very strong corporate culture.

And finally, we create value for our shareholders by working hard to achieve a level of growth above the average of our market and a level of profitability that is also above the average. This is done through internal growth, thanks to our wide range of services, innovation, a strong sales approach and our capacity to deliver the same quality of services in 29 countries and 5 continents. But this is also the result of successful external growth coming from choosing very good partners.

CCS: To what do you attribute your success in merger and acquisition activities while other companies are failing? What makes you so successful year after year?

Julien: What's true is that over the past few years we have enjoyed an overall growth rate of 50 percent, while maintaining our profitability.

Frankly speaking, it comes first from working very hard to promote our competitive advantages, but it also comes from real success as a result of our policy on mergers and acquisitions.

Basically, we differ from the other consolidators in our industry in one way: 'We never want to acquire a company, we always want to find partners.' It means we never acquire 100 percent of a company, but only a majority stake, and we want the founder to remain in the company, to continue to manage the company and to develop our 'common baby,' taking advantage of the founder's experience and our strengths. For us, it's always a real 'people story,' involving individuals. It's the creation of a 'win-win partnership' for the present and the future.

The result is that we have managers, all over the world, who are also shareholders, but we don't have an 'ethnocentric vision' of the world. The world is a mosaic; we need to have common values, common strategies and common methodologies, but we have to respect the cultural differences - we are very proud to have more than 30 different nationalities involved in the management of our companies.

CCS: How do you manage your growth?

Julien:

1) We believe in very operational business plans - over one-year and three-year periods.

These business plans are our road maps. They are prepared by all the individual members of a business unit, and then we consolidate them.

We always give, as input, the key developments in the market, in technology, the challenges, the goals... and then, every business unit's role. So, the strategy is always the result of team work done all over the world.