Genpact’s sustainability services attempt to leapfrog a soaring market

Genpact has the foundation to take advantage of an opportunity in a rapidly growing sustainability services market. That opportunity runs through its established capability in sport, media, entertainment, advertising, and data and analytics (throw in financial services, too). Each of these areas needs the right organizations in the right rooms to exert their influence over the global sustainability context.

We expect sustainability services revenues, headcounts, and clients to grow approximately 240%, 190%, and 210%, respectively, over the next two years (see our recently published market analysis, where the 18 leading firms collectively earn $13 billion annually). Genpact’s foundations give it a platform to match this growth and nail a differentiated angle while others struggle to find a unique sustainability proposition. But Genpact’s success will require further investment to re-pivot internal resources and pursue a clear initiative to embed sustainability throughout its technology and services portfolio.

Sports create powerful global business and government partnerships that provide the opportunity and responsibility to act on sustainability across all ESG factors—especially human rights

Genpact has been a partner of Envision racing, a Formula E electric motorsport team, for more than four years. We highlighted the partnership’s analytics work in 2020 and recently spent time with both partners exploring sport’s role in sustainability. Genpact helps Envision make sense of the vast amount of real-time race-day data by combining analytics, artificial intelligence (AI), and other data services to improve driver and team performance across battery efficiency, steering, competitive intelligence, and many other factors.

The money and potential for innovation in sports are phenomenal. Sports enterprises can find opportunities across the global sustainability context: decarbonization and all environmental, social, and governance (ESG) factors that underpin the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals (see our report on framing sustainability here).

There is power in sport—but there are also problems, translating into a wealth of business and impact opportunities for Genpact and all its services peers. Overall, carbon emissions in sports are low, despite still needing to be addressed. Sport holds the potential for far-reaching innovations and Envision is a fantastic example. But Sport’s connection with human rights violations is deep and concerning. Front-of-mind examples include the upcoming FIFA World Cup for soccer in Qatar, where LGBTQ+ people face prison, and Formula 1 and E holding races in Saudi Arabia. If you look closely enough, unfortunately, you can see human rights violations and failures in any country and, therefore, also links to sports. So, those with positions of influence in the sporting ecosystem, including technology and services partners, have the power, opportunity, and responsibility to work in their ecosystem to address individual cases and drive systemic change.

Back to holistic sustainability: Ecosystem influence and direct work with customers and value chains are more impactful than internal sustainability efforts for most firms—especially the consulting, technology, and services sectors (see our separate take on the sustainability opportunity).

Media, entertainment, and advertising raise the profile and power of sports—and sports’ partners

Sports essentially fall into the media and entertainment industry—especially in the minds of technology and services firms. The influence of media and advertisement in both sports and sustainability makes the opportunities even more obvious for firms with a strong footing in the industry. Genpact, whether as a data and analytics partner or a back-office operations (BPO) partner, has a seat at the table with sports and media firms. See our separate report, based on a series of enterprise leader interviews, about transforming media industry operations.

Genpact’s data and analytics capability is a crucial pillar of the company, able to transcend any industry and play a major role in sustainability

In Exhibit 1, analytics is the most widely adopted technology in addressing sustainability. In combination with professionalizing the processes measuring and monitoring various ESG factors, other technologies, including analytics and AI, can make better sense of structured and unstructured data to bring insight into sustainability decisions and inject sustainability into more organizational decisions. A recent conversation also highlighted the need to focus on the data feeding the models and platforms aiming to make sense of sustainability.

If we had better data, we’d use it.

— Head of sustainable procurement at a major global agriculture and agri-tech firm, referring to the data challenge of building a full picture to integrate sustainability into procurement

Its data and analytics capability gives Genpact a crucial position in sustainability conversations with clients and partners. It can use the capability to expand its sustainability engagements through existing and new clients and to maximize its business impact.

Exhibit 1. Analytics dominates the use of digital technology for sustainability

Sample: More than 22,000 dedicated sustainability services clients of the leading 18 providers in the HFS Top 10: Sustainability Services, 2022
Source: HFS Research, 2022

The Bottom Line: Genpact has built a position of influence on data, analytics, and operations in key industries affecting the sustainability fight. It is time for Genpact to realize the full potential of that capability.

We’ve outlined Genpact’s position and opportunity in sustainability through the sports, media, entertainment, and advertising sectors. It also holds an influential  position in financial services (FS), another critical industry in addressing sustainability (see our report on FS spheres of influence). It is time for Genpact to invest heavily in its sustainability services capability and integrate sustainability into everything it does—internally and for its clients. Pivoting existing capability to sustainability and hiring new talent must be part of that for Genpact to match market growth. An added benefit will be new hiring power for the company—with sustainability and purpose increasingly important for job-seeking employees—as Genpact develops as a sustainability services firm from the potential of its present-day platform.