Ian Jacobs is the Vice President and Lead Analyst at Opus Research. He is based in San Francisco, California, USA.

In this conversation with Mark Hillary, Ian explores how BPO is being transformed by AI and asks if we are sometimes focusing too much on Gen AI? CX practitioners have traditionally focused on the customer-facing AI changes - the improvement in chatbots - but there are many other changes taking place inside the enterprise.

Ian also talks about the pilots and experiments in AI that have worked and where more traditional CX is still working well and maybe doesn't need to change...

https://www.linkedin.com/in/iangjacobs/

https://opusresearch.net/

Sid Victor is the Senior Vice President and Head of Support Services at Movate. He is based in Frisco, Texas, USA.

Sid has published his opinion around BPO flexibility on LinkedIn several times. He has made it clear that he feels the future is not human agents OR AI OR any other solution - it is a blend of all the best options and BPOs should be able to offer this blended solution.

For example, should BPOs be capable of offering traditional BPO, Gig CX, and AI all under one roof?

This is what Sid has been talking about for some time. The future for successful BPOs will need to be about more than just offering an automation service or a contact center. They need to offer a flexible mix of everything - building a CX solution using all these ingredients.

Mark Hillary called Sid to find out more...

https://www.linkedin.com/in/sid-victor-3355b73/

https://www.movate.com/

Phil Fersht is the CEO and Principal Analyst at HFS Research. He is based in Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

He recently posted this 'AI continuum' on LinkedIn:

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/pfersht_rpa-genai-agentic-activity-7282865406917115904-5lrX

Mark Hillary called Phil to talk about this and how AI is offering the opportunity for genuine innovation in CX and BPO.

https://www.hfsresearch.com/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/pfersht/

---

March 2010 - Mark Hillary with Phil Fersht podcast

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/phil-fersht-horses-for-sources/id216384010?i=1000404472875

Gregorio Uglioni is an Associate Partner at Forward. He is based in Zurich, Switzerland.

Greg is focused on business transformation and service excellence. He is an outspoken commentator on LinkedIn about the CX and BPO industry in general and his online commentary led to Peter calling him for a conversation.

Greg also hosts the CX Goalkeeper podcast so he is another CX podcaster! Greg's podcast focuses on using the analogy of how a football team (soccer) works together to achieve success and applies this to the CX environment. How can customers and brands both win when they think carefully about their CX strategy?

https://cxgoalkeeper.com/podcast/

https://forwardwith.ch/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/gregorio-uglioni/

Joel Walker is the Co-Founder and Managing Director Platform Services of The Knowledge Group (tkg). He is based in Luxembourg.

Last year Peter saw the tkg vendor selection system, which has details of millions of FTEs working in BPO and CX services globally. The system can help companies find the right supplier based on a large number of variables - it's an independent and impartial advice service that helps CX executives find the best service provider at the right price.

Peter called Joel to talk about CX pricing and how to find the right partner.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/joelwalker/

https://welovetoknow.com/contact/

BONUS EPISODE: CX Transformation in 2025

At the start of 2025, Mark Hillary from CX Files joined Chris Hague from Yoummday and Lian Rowlands from Tayma Solutions to talk about CX trends in 2025.

This discussion was hosted by Yoummday and focused on some of the trends detailed in their CX Report 2025: “Transforming Customer Experiences: The AI Advantage Meets the Human Touch.”

https://www.linkedin.com/in/lian-rowlands-a26119/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/christopher-hague/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/markhillary/

https://www.yoummday.com/

---

🎧 Listen to the original podcast here - youtu.be/dVl4V7NGvhA
⬇️ Download the report here - lnkd.in/efpQBjbP

Veronica Richards is the COO at CALLS Contact Center and VP at WW CALLS Canada. She is based in Burlington, Ontario, Canada.

Veronica is also the marketing director of the Mexico Business Club in Toronto.

Veronica is originally from Mexico and now works with Mexico from her base in Canada so Peter called her to ask about BPO and CX in Mexico in addition to the attractiveness of the consumer market in Mexico - a market with a population of 128 million people.

What opportunities are created by being located so close to the USA and what opportunities are now being created in Mexico itself?

https://www.calls.com.mx/

http://www.wwcallscanada.ca/

https://mexicobusiness.club/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/veronica-richards-9b26969/

Neville Samuels is the CEO of Virtual Staff 365. He is based in Melbourne, Australia.

Virtual Staff 365 offers a virtual staffing service that includes CX. In this discussion with Peter Ryan, Neville explores how virtual staffing can help to create a flexible CX environment that can work for in-house teams or BPOs.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/outsourcingexperts/

https://www.virtualstaff365.com.au/