Item 1. Business
ITEM 1. Business
ExlService Holdings, Inc. (“EXL,” “we,” “us,” “our” or the “Company”), incorporated in Delaware in 2002, is a leading data analytics and digital operations and solutions company. We partner with clients using a data and AI-led approach to reinvent business models, drive better business outcomes and unlock growth with speed. EXL harnesses the power of data, analytics, artificial intelligence (“AI”), and deep industry knowledge to transform operations for the world’s leading corporations in industries including insurance, healthcare, banking and financial services, media and retail, among others. EXL was founded in 1999 with the core values of innovation, collaboration, excellence, integrity and respect. We are headquartered in New York and have approximately 54,000 employees spanning six continents.
We deliver data analytics and digital operations and solutions to our clients, driving enterprise-scale business transformation initiatives that leverage our deep expertise in advanced analytics, AI, generative AI and cloud technology. Data, AI, analytics and digital have become core to virtually every significant move a business makes to serve customers, optimize business processes, stay competitive and grow. Our vision of being an indispensable partner for data and AI-led businesses reflects the long-term priorities of our clients' businesses across industry sectors, and we continue to evolve our offerings to drive business outcomes through advanced analytics and AI-powered solutions on the cloud. Our data and AI-led value creation framework enables better and faster decision making, leveraging our end-to-end data, analytics, AI capabilities and deep industry knowledge to drive improved business outcomes, and re-designing of operating models to integrate advanced technology into operational workflows. We embed digital operations and solutions into clients’ businesses and introduce our data and AI-led approach to transform operations with every new engagement, which helps our clients achieve better customer experience, higher productivity, cost efficiency and improved business outcomes.
We manage and report financial information through our four reportable segments or strategic business units: Insurance, Healthcare, Analytics and Emerging Business, which reflects how management reviews financial information and makes operating decisions. Our strategic business units align our products and services with how we manage our business, approach our key markets and interact with our clients. These business units develop client-specific solutions, build capabilities, maintain a unified go-to-market approach and are integrally responsible for service delivery, customer satisfaction, growth and profitability. By integrating data and analytics directly into our client workflows, we drive more intelligence into our clients’ increasingly digital operations that drive superior customer outcomes, optimize costs and power resilient and agile business models.
Digital Operations and Solutions
Our digital operations and solutions, which we deploy for our clients from our Insurance, Healthcare and Emerging Business strategic business units, are focused on solving complex industry challenges. We use a focused industry vertical approach, and our solutions are designed to help our clients realize their business and innovation goals and improve their strategic competitive position.
Some of our data and AI-led digital operations and solutions include: a) multi-modal data ingestion using AI, and converting unstructured content into curated and usable data, b) real-time and comprehensive data insights, including end-to-end data management and building a 360-degree view of our clients’ customers, c) omni-channel and frictionless customer experience including self-service, conversational AI and smart agent assist, d) intelligent and AI-powered redesign and automation of transaction processing and e) automated quality, compliance and audit. Some of our clients’ operations that we have transformed using the above solutions include underwriting operations, claims processing, accounts payables processing, utilization management, member and provider contact center services and collections and accounts receivables. We either manage and digitally transform these operations for our clients by deploying our solutions through a software-as-a-service (“SaaS”) model via our partners’ cloud network or a client’s on-cloud deployment model, to digitally transform their retained operations.
The key digital and AI capabilities that allow us to drive data and technology-led transformation for our clients include generative AI, reinforcement learning, hyper-automation, cloud data management, conversational AI, robotics, enterprise architecture development, integration platform as a service and AI for Operations. Some of our key solutions are:
• Generative AI platform for the development and deployment of our proprietary solutions, including, among others, Smart Agent Assist, Claims Assist, Conversational Business Intelligence and Code Harbor.
• Xtrakto.AI is a patented and AI-powered solution designed to alleviate the challenges of managing unstructured data.
• PayMentor is an AI-powered collections and receivables management solution designed to enhance the debt collection process.
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• Digital Finance Suite automates and streamlines financial processes and key finance and accounting tasks, which helps customers gain real-time visibility into financial operations leading to faster decision making and reduced risks, among others.
• Data and AI-led Customer Experience: Delivers AI-infused customer experiences across multiple customer journeys and touchpoints.
• Digital Lending and Embedded Financing: AI-powered financing solution that reimagines and delivers a seamless and end-to-end origination, service and payments journeys for multiple credit and loan products across industries.
• Data and AI-led Automation Solution eliminates friction and fragmentation in transaction processing using some of our proprietary workflow solutions.
We use AI, data, and cloud technology, including our suite of solutions and accelerators, in a standardized, reusable and shared engineering and delivery infrastructure, enabling us to leverage our investments across multiple clients.
Our strategic business units, through which we provide digital operations and solutions, are described below:
Our Insurance strategic business unit serves property and casualty insurance, life insurance, disability insurance, insurance brokers, reinsurers, annuity and retirement services and insurtech companies. We provide end-to-end digital transformation solutions and data and AI-led operations services across the insurance industry in areas such as claims processing, premium and benefit administration, agency management, account reconciliation, policy research, underwriting support, new business acquisition, policy servicing, premium audit, surveys, billing and collection, commercial and residential survey and customer service using digital technology, AI, including generative AI, ML and advanced automation. We provide end-to-end third-party administration for life and annuity insurance policies, which includes digital customer acquisition services using a SaaS delivery model through our LifePRO® and Life Digital Suite platforms that help clients administer life insurance, annuities and credit life and disability insurance policies. We also provide subrogation services to property and casualty insurers using a business process-as-a-service delivery model and our proprietary Subrosource® software platform, the largest commercial end-to-end subrogation platform. Subrosource® integrates with client systems, manages recovery workflow, increases recoveries and reduces costs. We provide a suite of data and AI-led finance and accounting services that include financial planning and analysis, decision support, GAAP and statutory reporting and compliance services in addition to core finance operations. We bring a data and AI-led and practical digital approach to finance and accounting, enabling our clients to simplify and scale their finance and accounting processes, drive stakeholder centricity, improve controls and compliance, reduce operating costs and deliver rich data and AI-led insights to our clients’ businesses.
Our Healthcare strategic business unit primarily serves U.S.-based healthcare payers, providers and pharmacy benefit managers organizations. We combine deep healthcare domain expertise with data and AI-led insights and technology-enabled services to transform how care is delivered, managed and paid. We provide services related to care management, utilization management, disease management, payment integrity, revenue optimization and customer engagement directly addressing the market need for improved healthcare outcomes, patient and provider experience and access to the healthcare system in the healthcare market and optimized healthcare spend.
We offer digital operations, SaaS and platform services designed to serve the healthcare industry. Our integrated care management offering, including our proprietary clinical data, connects payers, providers and members to increase efficiencies and effectiveness across all aspects of care management, including medical, pharmacy and behavioral health. Our data and AI-led digital operations and solutions infuse advanced analytics, AI, generative AI, cloud, ML and robotics capabilities to improve efficiency, business outcomes and the consumer experience in healthcare across patient/member management, contracting and network management, health and care management, claims administration and business operations.
Similar to our Insurance strategic business unit, we also provide finance and accounting services, digital transformation and advisory/consulting services for our clients in the healthcare industry.
Our Emerging Business strategic business unit provides data and AI-led enterprise solutions in the areas of finance and accounting, customer experience management and revenue enhancement to clients primarily in the banking and capital markets, utilities, retail and consumer packaged goods, technology, media, and telecom, travel and leisure, manufacturing, transportation and logistics and business services industries. These enterprise solutions complement our domain-specific industry solutions enabling our clients to deliver superior performance.
Our data and AI-led finance and accounting services include high-end analytical services, including financial planning and analysis, management reporting, advanced forecasting and decision support, data management, regulatory reporting and risk and compliance services in addition to core transactional finance operations. Our Digital Finance Suite, which is
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powered by our integrated cloud-based hyper-automation and insights platform, helps chief financial officers transform finance into a digitally enabled, scalable data and AI-led function with lower cost to serve, superior business outcomes and improved stakeholder experience.
Our client experience management solutions that run on our proprietary EXL CONNECX TM platform, help our clients improve their end-customer experience across the front, middle and back-office, integrating data flows, redesigning customer service processes and leveraging digital omni-channel platforms. To deliver these solutions, we combine our deep industry knowledge with advanced analytics and digital capabilities, including robotics, proprietary and partner-driven AI and ML solutions.
Our revenue enhancement solutions include lead generation, inside sales and digital marketing, pricing, customer and marketing analytics, billing and proprietary revenue assurance solutions, which helps deliver direct topline and margin impact to our clients’ business.
We also provide industry-specific digital operations and solutions. For our clients in the banking and financial services sector, we provide a range of digital solutions, including residential mortgage lending, title verification and validation, retail banking and credit cards, trust verification, commercial banking and investment management. In the retail and consumer packaged goods sector, we provide supply chain management services and analytical services including merchandising, pricing and demand forecasting. For our clients in the utilities sector, we offer digital operations and solutions related to end-to-end customer life cycle management including onboarding and terminations, engineering field services, customer service, billing and debt management and collections. In the technology, media, and telecom sector, we manage media and advertising reconciliations, order entry, fulfillment and licensing management operations. For our clients in the travel and leisure sector, we provide corporate and leisure travel services, including, reservations, customer service and fulfilment services. In the transportation and logistics sector, we provide our clients with freight billing, collections, claims management, freight audit, freight scheduling, supply chain management and revenue assurance services.
Analytics
Our Analytics strategic business unit helps clients build data-led businesses using AI, generative AI, advanced analytics solutions and services, and cloud technology. By leveraging our suite of end-to-end analytics capabilities, we aim to drive better business outcomes for our clients by unlocking deep insights from data and creating data and AI-led solutions across all parts of clients’ businesses.
Our Analytics teams deliver predictive and prescriptive analytics in the areas of customer acquisition and life cycle management, risk underwriting and pricing, operational effectiveness, credit and operational risk monitoring and governance, regulatory reporting, and data management.
We enhance, modernize and enrich structured and unstructured data and use a spectrum of advanced analytical tools and techniques, including our in-house and third-party AI, generative AI, and ML capabilities and proprietary solutions, to create insights, improve decision making for our clients and address a range of complex industry-wide priorities, including:
• Superior customer experience, driving engagement, loyalty and increasing cross-sell through a deeper understanding of consumer behavior;
• Solutions for risk models, stress testing, Basel risk-weighted assets, reserves, and economic capital calculation;
• ML models for fraud monitoring, loss mitigation, and implementation and execution of fraud strategies;
• Enhanced decision-making in underwriting, claims processing and policy renewal through cognitive image analytics; and
• Payment integrity services in the U.S. healthcare industry ensuring accurate reimbursement and help prevent fraud, denials, and revenue leakage.
Our Analytics team is comprised of approximately 9,100 professionals, including data scientists, data architects, business analysts, statisticians, modelers and industry domain specialists.
We help our clients leverage internal and external data sources, enhance their data assets, identify and visualize data patterns, and utilize data and AI-led insights to improve their effectiveness. Our Analytics services for our clients include:
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• Identification, cleansing, matching and use of structured, semi-structured and unstructured data, available internally to our client’s organization and also externally;
• Integration of data insights and predictive models into real-time, decision-making processes to drive measurable business impact;
• Design and implementation of services that enable data visualization and management reporting enabling business users to segment, drill down, and filter data;
• Deployment of analytics professionals and data scientists who utilize analytics tools, cutting edge statistical techniques and methodologies in ways designed to help customers better understand their data to generate actionable business insights; and
• Harnessing the power of AI, including generative AI to elevate decision-making paradigms, enabling our clients to achieve a sustainable competitive advantage amid rapid technological innovation.
Our Analytics engagements span both project work and longer-term arrangements where we provide ongoing analytics modeling and services for a year or longer. We utilize our deep industry knowledge to drive these engagements across our various competencies, including, data management and cloud enablement, AI, generative AI, ML, advanced analytics and insights, data-enabled marketing solutions and strategic data assets.
Our Analytics services support: (1) retail banking, commercial banking and investment banking and management for the banking and financial services industries; (2) marketing analytics, clinical analytics, patient engagement, pharmaco-economics outcomes and cost optimization solution in the healthcare industry; (3) marketing and agency analytics, actuarial, servicing and operations, customer management and claims and money movement in the insurance industry; and (4) marketing analytics, supply chain, logistics and digital operations and solutions in the retail and consumer packaged goods, media and telecom and utilities and manufacturing industries.
We have seen a significant acceleration in the shift to digital and cloud-based solutions across all our target markets over the past few years. Capturing data and enriching data has become a key differentiator for clients and their speed of decision making necessitating the adoption of AI, including generative AI and ML techniques. The accelerated adoption of cloud-based solutions has increased our clients’ needs for a suite of cloud migration and enablement capabilities.
We expect the trend in increased demand for analytics solutions to continue, and to capture these new opportunities, we have built a scalable and customizable multi-cloud cross-sector generative AI platform with pre-built accelerators and packaged solutions. Our AI and analytics solutions include Bank Transaction Insights, which provides insights from bank data and Customer 360 Insights, which provides agent and customer relationship insights.
Our EXLClarity TM platform supports risk adjustment and quality management for payers and providers and helps to optimize their revenue. Our payment services support payment integrity and maximize performance and financial-related results by leveraging our multi-payer dataset and applying digital solutions, such as AI, natural language processing and robotics. These services involve verifying the correct party pays the claim, membership eligibility, contractual adherence, and detecting and preventing fraud, waste, and abuse. Our EXLVantage TM platform offers population health analytics for enhanced care and network optimization. These analytics models integrate with campaign management and marketing analytics to support member acquisition and clinical program interventions.
We offer end-to-end data management services to support data strategy, ingestion, normalization, quality, security, governance, visualization and data architecture development and deployment via agnostic tools and flexible delivery models. We continue to strengthen our expertise in data and product engineering, ML operations, cloud enablement and managed services. We have expanded our footprint within our existing clients in the insurance, healthcare, banking and financial services, retail and consumer packaged goods, media and telecom, utilities and manufacturing industries by cross-selling our enhanced data management and cloud enablement offerings.
Business Strategy
EXL is a leading data analytics and digital operations and solutions company and is a key strategic partner for data and AI-led businesses. We reinvent business models, drive better business outcomes and unlock growth with speed for our clients through advanced analytics and AI -powered digital solutions on the cloud. We do this through our data and AI-led value creation framework to enable better and faster decision making, leveraging our end-to-end data and analytics
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capabilities to drive improved business outcomes, and we re-design operating models to integrate advanced technology into operational workflows. Below are some of our strategically focused considerations:
Expanding our Services in Large Addressable Markets
We continue to focus on the insurance, healthcare, banking and financial services, retail, media and technology industries, among others, which are large markets with high demand, as well as pursuing opportunities in emerging industries. We also continue to build our client portfolio in finance and accounting and consulting services in all our business segments. We are strategically equipped to help clients apply relevant digital technologies to enterprise processes and business priorities at every step of the digital transformation journey, by bringing together domain expertise with data, advanced analytics, cloud, AI and ML. Demand for our services is expected to continue to exhibit growth in the next several years.
Integrating our Data and AI-Led and Domain Capabilities
The combination of our data and AI-led capabilities and domain expertise has been central to our market differentiation. We are also well-positioned with our suite of advanced analytics, data and AI-powered digital solutions on the cloud to create integrated services and solutions under one brand.
Cultivating Long-term Relationships and Expanding our Client Base
We continue to maintain our focus on cultivating long-term client relationships as well as attracting new clients. We believe there are significant opportunities for additional growth within our existing clients, and we seek to expand these relationships by:
• Increasing the depth and breadth of the services we provide across our clients’ value chains and geographies;
• Offering the full suite of EXL services, which includes AI-powered digital operations and solutions, consulting and data analytics services; and
• Supporting our clients’ geographic expansions by leveraging our global footprint.
We intend to continue building a portfolio of Fortune 500 and Forbes Global 2000 companies in our focus industries that have complex and diverse data-led processes and, accordingly, stand to benefit significantly from our services. We also intend to cultivate long-term relationships with medium-sized companies in our focus industries by leveraging our data analytics, and digital operations and solutions offerings.
Optimizing our Global Delivery Footprint and Operational Infrastructure in the Countries and Regions where we Operate
Our network of delivery centers and operational footprint is designed to serve the needs of our business, including delivering for our clients, driving efficiencies and adapting to hybrid working model. As part of our ongoing evaluation of facilities usage and business needs, we continually optimize our network and footprint.
Pursuing Strategic Acquisitions and Relationships
We intend to continue making selective acquisitions in our focus industry verticals that enhance our competitive differentiation and that meet our strategic and financial criteria. We consider selective strategic relationships with industry leaders that add new long-term client relationships, enhance the depth and breadth of our services and solutions and complement our business strategy. Through our Connected Intelligence Partnership programs, we expand our technology and innovation ecosystem with select partnerships, alliances or investments. We expect that the digital assets and intellectual property this ecosystem provides will enhance our go-to-market opportunities, expand the scope and effectiveness of our services and solutions, help us to win new clients, and allow us to enter new industry verticals and geographic markets.
Our Industry
Digital operations and solutions
As a provider of digital operations and solutions, we work with clients to execute enterprise-scale business transformation initiatives that enable improved customer experience, revenue growth, operational efficiency and reduced
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risk. Our asset-based operations services combine the industry-specific knowledge of our global workforce with an ecosystem of partner and proprietary digital solutions. These digital solutions help clients achieve their desired outcomes in three key ways: 1) leveraging advanced analytics that combine publicly available data, proprietary data sets and clients’ own data to help power faster, more strategic decision making, 2) integrating AI/ML-driven natural language processing to help streamline manual, labor-intensive workflows and improve end-customer engagement and experience, and 3) implementing AI/ML-powered operating models that help our clients transition from legacy business operations and get to value faster.
This comprehensive approach acknowledges the critical role that digital capabilities play in both the operational business process and consumer-facing customer engagement and user experience, as our clients’ customer touch points, interactions and experiences have increasingly shifted to digital channels.
Digital transformation is a long-term strategic commitment for a company that, once begun, is generally not subject to cyclical spending or information technology budget fluctuations. Increased global demand, cost improvements in international communications and the automation of many business services have created opportunities for digital operations providers with offshore delivery capabilities, and many companies are moving select office processes to providers with the capacity to perform these functions from overseas locations.
Data Analytics
As a provider of advanced analytics, AI and data services, we help companies access and deliver real-time data and insights at multiple points in their overall workflows so that all parts of the organization are working from the same data pool. Leveraging a large number of high-frequency, granular, non-traditional data elements aggregated across proprietary data sets, client data and publicly available sources, advanced analytics enables clients to deliver personalized customer experiences at scale, settle consumer issues efficiently and rapidly adapt their business strategies in response to market changes.
The enhanced generation of business data across multiple formats, substantial reduction in data storage costs, growing enterprise demand for data and AI-led decision making and availability of sophisticated analytics tools, have enabled companies to make better decisions. By leveraging our end-to-end service offerings, we develop industry-specific AI and advanced analytics solutions and generate data insights, which makes us well-positioned to benefit from this global trend.
Sales, Marketing and Client Management
We market our services to our existing and prospective clients through our sales and client management teams, which are aligned by industry verticals and cross-industry domains such as digital solutions, finance and accounting and consulting. Our sales and client management teams operate from the U.S., Europe, Australia and South Africa are supported by our business development teams.
Our sales, marketing and business development teams are responsible for new client acquisitions, public relations, relations with outsourcing advisory companies, analyst relations, lead generation, knowledge management, content development, campaign management, digital or web presence, brand awareness and participation in industry forums and conferences. As of December 31, 2023, we employed approximately 250 sales, marketing, business development and client management professionals, with the majority of these employees based in either the U.S. or India. Our professionals generally have significant experience in consulting, analytics, digital operations and solutions services and digital technology within our focus industries.
Clients
EXL generated revenues from approximately 560 clients and 550 clients in 2023 and 2022, respectively (with annual revenue exceeding $50,000 per client). We won 63 and 59 new clients during 2023 and 2022, respectively.
Our top three, five and ten clients generated 16.4%, 22.9% and 34.0% of our revenues, respectively, in 2023. Our top three, five and ten clients generated 16.3%, 22.9% and 34.9% of our revenues, respectively, in 2022. No client accounted for more than 10% of our total revenues in 2023 or 2022. Our revenue concentration with our top clients remains consistent year-over-year and we continue to develop relationships with new clients to diversify our client base. We believe that the loss of any of our ten largest clients could have a material adverse effect on our financial performance. See Part I, Item 1A, “Risk Factors” under “Risks Related to Our Business––We earn a substantial portion of our revenues from a limited number of clients.”
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Our long-term relationships with our clients typically evolve from providing a single, discrete service or process into providing a series of complex, integrated processes across multiple business lines. For digital operations and solutions other than consulting, we generally enter into long-term agreements with our clients with typical initial terms between three to five years. Consulting engagements have typical terms of six to twelve months. Agreements for our analytics services are either project based or have shorter initial terms, which are typically between one to three years. However, each agreement is individually negotiated with the client.
Competition
Competition in the data analytics and digital operations and solutions industry is intense and growing. See Part I, Item 1A, “Risk Factors” under “Risks Related to Our Business––We face competition globally from other providers and from our clients, who may build shared services centers to perform digital operations and solutions and analytics services themselves, either in-house or other arrangements.” Many companies, including certain of our clients, choose to perform some or all of their front-, middle- and back-office analytics and processes internally, utilizing their own employees and digital applications to provide these services as part of their regular business operations. We believe our key advantage over in-house business processes and analytics management is our ability to orchestrate relevant domain, data, digital, advanced analytics and human design expertise to enable delivery of sustainable outcomes that allow companies to focus on their customers, core products and markets. We compete primarily against:
• large global companies with digital operations and solutions and operations capabilities, such as Accenture, Cognizant Technology Solutions, Genpact Limited, IBM, Infosys, NTT DATA, Tata Consultancy Services, and WNS (Holdings);
• niche industry-specific digital operations and solutions providers such as Cotiviti and Optum Health;
• niche analytics services and digital platform providers; and
• leading accounting and management consulting firms.
We compete against these entities by working to differentiate ourselves as a strategic partner for businesses with deep industry expertise, sophisticated data and analytics capabilities, innovative digital operations and solutions and technology strong client relationships, leading industry talent, superior process capabilities and differentiated technology, which enable us to respond rapidly to market trends and the evolving needs of our clients.
Intellectual Property
Our intellectual property consists of proprietary platforms, software, data, databases, models, methodologies, know-how, names, designs, domains, user interfaces, applications and operating procedures among other materials. We consider many of our business processes and implementation methodologies to be trade secrets or proprietary know-how and confidential information. We seek to protect our intellectual property through a combination of patent, trademark, copyright and trade secret laws, as well as through confidentiality procedures and contractual provisions. Clients and business partners typically agree in writing to confidential treatment of our information. Our employees and independent contractors are required to sign work-for-hire agreements containing confidentiality covenants as a condition to their employment and engagement, respectively. We also have policies requiring our employees, independent contractors, and associates to respect the intellectual property rights of others, including obtaining appropriate licenses when using, selling or distributing third-party materials.
The solutions we offer our clients often include our software, data and other intellectual property assets developed by our data scientists and engineers, combined with software and data licensed by us or by clients from third parties. We also leverage strategic partnerships with third parties to facilitate our solution offerings to clients, including, among others, robotics and process automation software providers, financing platform providers, and AI solutions providers. We typically retain ownership of any pre-existing proprietary intellectual property assets, including modifications or enhancements to such pre-existing proprietary assets developed while providing client services. Independently or while working on client engagements, we also often develop new tools, methodologies and models, including AI and ML models that can be leveraged for various use cases. We endeavor to negotiate contracts that give us ownership or broad licenses to use, develop, demonstrate and offer such newly developed intellectual property assets to or for other clients.
We operate in a highly competitive and rapidly evolving global market. We seek to continue providing value to our clients with our deep industry knowledge, ability to advise clients on how to transform their processes and deliver transformation that drives business value, and ability to provide innovative services and solutions, including digital offerings
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that incorporate AI and ML capabilities. We also rely on our reputation, client references, ability to sustain long-term client relationships, as well as our global reach and scale, and competitive pricing to maintain our competitiveness in our industry. While our proprietary intellectual property assets are important to our business, we believe EXL as a whole is not materially dependent on any particular intellectual property, other than our EXL brand. Our intellectual property portfolio is comprised of patents, trademarks, copyrights, and domain names to protect our brands, including our EXL brand, which is one of our most valuable assets.
Human Capital Management
At EXL, our organizational ethos is distinctly shaped by five core values: innovation, collaboration, excellence, integrity and respect. In line with our core values, we recognize our workforce’s pivotal role in driving our success. We prioritize the ongoing development and progression of our employees, because we believe it to be critical to our sustained performance and longevity.
As of December 31, 2023, our team is approximately 54,000 strong, with more than 50 offices spanning across six continents. This encompasses approximately 34,900 employees located in India, 10,700 in the Philippines, 2,600 in the United States, 4,300 in South Africa and 1,500 employees are based in other locations in which we operate.
As part of our expansion into Ireland in 2023, we formed a new collaboration with University College Dublin, one of Europe’s leading research-intensive universities, as part of the Irish government’s Human Capital Initiative, which aims to strengthen ties between higher education and enterprises to address future skills needs.
To date, our operations have remained uninterrupted by labor-related issues, a testament to our favorable employee relations within our organization.
Diversity, Equity and Inclusion
Our diversity, equity and inclusion philosophy aims to create a fair and inclusive work environment that harnesses the power of diversity to drive organizational success. We recognize that the world we live and work in is diverse and fueled by innovation. To thrive in this environment, we foster a culture that values diverse perspectives, embraces differences and promotes leadership opportunities in a way that reflects the communities in which we operate.
We consider diversity, equity and inclusion to be a key factor in our recruiting and retention goals and overall business growth strategy. As of December 31, 2023, our United States reporting workforce comprised approximately 16.2% underrepresented minorities and our global workforce was approximately 43% women.
EXL is committed to providing a supportive working environment and career opportunities for our employees. Our Diversity and Inclusion Council consists of a global, diverse mix of leaders and oversees our diversity, equity and inclusion program. We provide trainings to our employees on topics aimed at improving diversity, equity and inclusion, such as managing unconscious bias, and have formed employee resource groups for select employee communities that are aimed at supporting diverse groups and interests. EXL has several programs to promote career advancement for women, including leadership development for women at the mid- to senior- levels, a separate program to improve the retention and engagement of new mothers through employee friendly parental leave and similar policies, and our WE (Women at EXL) platform, which is designed to enable women at EXL advance their career and achieve professional growth through discussion, collaboration, networking, training, development and mentorship opportunities. We believe that maintaining diversity in our leadership is one of the most important gateways to build an inclusive business. In recent years, we have placed a special focus on women leadership development from mid to senior levels through actively developing women leaders. We also rigorously track attrition risks of women at the rank of Vice President and above and work at minimizing attrition through diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives and benefits.
We actively work to foster the representation of underrepresented groups as well as promoting the inclusion of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (or questioning) (“LGBTQ+”) employees at all levels of the organization. In addition to EXL’s employee resource groups, we maintain “The Umbrella Project,” an initiative for allyship and inclusion alongside our LGBTQ+ colleagues.
We maintain a supplier diversity program in the United States designed to provide opportunities for qualified diverse businesses.
Recruiting, Developing and Engaging our Employees
We have an integrated talent management framework that employs active collaboration between our recruitment, capability development and business human resource functions. We deploy innovative methods to recruit, train and retain
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our skilled employees. We focus on recruiting the right talent and developing them further on relevant competencies through our learning academies, rigorous promotion standards, client and industry-specific training and competitive compensation packages, which include incentive-based compensation.
Our talent strategy is a key driver for EXL’s long-term business strategy of turning data into a sustainable competitive advantage for our clients. To deliver on this complex work, we focus on identifying the critical skills and roles necessary to our business so that we can attract and retain the talent needed.
We leverage shared resources across our services through personnel who have skill sets applicable to a wide variety of data, digital, cloud and AI/ML services. We also have specialized experts in various domains, in our chosen industries and subject matters through our training academies. We have established a comprehensive set of practices, processes and programs, which have made learning easily accessible, collaborative and embedded in workflows. Our employees participate in trainings and upskilling virtually. Our employee relations function helps us understand our employees’ needs, concerns and interests, so that we can respond to specific needs and concerns as they arise.
We focus on recruiting, training and retaining our professionals. Our talent acquisition strategy framework revolves around a “Build, Acquire, and Partner” approach. We have developed effective strategies that enable an efficient recruitment process. The recruitment and training process evolved to an online model in 2020, which we have since adopted as our permanent model. Some of the strategies we have adopted to increase efficiency in our hiring practices include AI/ML-based intelligent screening mechanisms, remotely proctored online techniques and automated trainings. Our hiring policies focus on identifying high-quality employees who demonstrate a propensity for learning, contribution to client services and growth. In certain circumstances, we use an AI-driven infrastructure to enable our human resources function anticipate and find critical talent when and where we need them. Candidates must undergo numerous tests and video interviews before we extend offers for employment. We also conduct background checks on candidates, including criminal background checks where permitted and as required by clients.
We have adopted a hybrid working model, which we refer to as our “future operating model,” that provides our employees with a degree of additional flexibility. We continue to use and improve digital-first and multi-channel approaches to keep our employees across the globe informed and engaged and moved from an enterprise-centric approach to human capital management to one that is employee-centric.
Employee Benefits and Experience
We offer our employees competitive compensation packages that include incentive-based compensation and offer a variety of benefits that vary by facility, including free transport to and from home in certain circumstances, subsidized meals and free access to recreational facilities located within some of our operations centers.
In addition, we maintain several geographic specific employee health and wellness offerings, including an internal helpline with a central information hub for resource availability, enhanced insurance coverage including parental insurance for our employees in India, among others.
Capability Development
We continue to promote opportunities for large-scale upskilling and reskilling of our employees, while also fostering a learning environment conducive to individual skill-building and career advancement. In 2022, we implemented a fundamental shift in our capability development approach, transitioning from a corporate-driven model to an ecosystem of democratized self-learning, where our employees have access to our digital learning ecosystem. This enables our employees self-driven learning and growth experiences based on their personal goals and skills by using AI to anticipate and build market-relevant skills and capabilities, curated libraries and intelligent web-sourced content. Our employees are supplied with specialized learning pathways to build digital capabilities, skill mapping to direct them to courses as needed, chat groups where they can collaborate and discuss the latest trends, practice questions, practice labs for real-world and hands-on experience, supervisor dashboards and leaderboards, and learning on the go.
Our talent development strategy is comprehensive and aligned to EXL’s overall business strategy. We aim for our employees to develop expertise around the specific technologies, tools and frameworks required to successfully execute projects for our clients, as well as a mindset focused on agility, speed, creativity, innovation and collaboration. We create thought leaders with high industry acumen who are better able to address our clients’ business priorities. We also provide a career-linked learning path to our employees from new hires to tenured employees to senior levels of leadership.
Our domain academies focus on building domain expertise through certifications and specialization. These include our Insurance Academy, Travel Academy, Finance and Accounting Academy, Healthcare Academy, Analytics Academy,
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Utilities Academy, Consulting Academy, Sales Academy and Digital Academy. These academies focus on achieving excellence and developing skill sets that can be used across the different domains. Our training includes behavioral and functional components to enhance and ensure job readiness as well as also boosting ongoing productivity and effectiveness. We also focus on promoting better diversity, equity and inclusion through our training programs. We have a global presence catering to the specific learning requirements of each geography. We provide learning through our blended learning methodology comprising of virtual, classroom, on the job coaching and technology-led learning.
Our talent, training and development objectives focus on “addressing roles critical to strategy,” “placing the right people for the right roles,” “creating a future ready workforce” and “raising EXL’s baseline” by continuously building EXL-wide culture around a strong understanding of digital technologies.
Employee Retention
Our attrition rate for employees who had been with EXL for more than 180 days was 25.8% and 31.6% for the years ended December 31, 2023 and 2022, respectively. The attrition rate in 2023 decreased from 2022, which we believe reflects better employee engagement. As competition in our industry increases, our turnover rate could increase. See Part I, Item 1A, “Risk Factors” under “Risks Related to Our Business––We may fail to attract and retain enough sufficiently trained employees to support our operations or professionals with sufficient leadership capabilities, which may result in loss of revenue and an inability to expand our business” and “Employee wage increases may prevent us from sustaining our competitive advantage and may reduce our profit margin.”
Sustainability Strategy
The world we work and live in is powered by innovation. We believe success in such a world will come through passing along social goods to the communities in which we operate, and ensuring that we conduct our operations in a sustainable and safe manner. These initiatives reflect our core values and will make us a stronger, more impactful organization to work for and allow us to deliver exceptional results for our clients, employees, communities and stockholders.
Our most recent Sustainability Report is available on our website. The information contained on our website is not included in, or incorporated by reference into, this Annual Report on Form 10-K.
Community Activities
EXL finds meaningful ways to help the communities in which we operate. Our community activities focus on passing along the skills that our employees use in our operations to members of the communities in which we operate to help transform lives. On our own, with outside partners and in partnership with our clients, we support market-relevant technical and life skill development and education initiatives, disaster relief efforts and global health initiatives. These programs align with the expectations clients have of service providers and benefit our other stakeholders. In 2023, we continued many of these activities in hybrid and virtual formats. Examples of our programs include:
• Skills to Win Initiative: This skill development initiative provides participants from communities in which we operate in the United States, the United Kingdom, the Philippines, India and South Africa with market-relevant skills for the digital economy. In 2022, we added a coding skills focus to the Skills to Win Initiative, aimed at elevating women and non-binary members of our communities in technology in the United Kingdom, the United States and South Africa, which was further expanded to the Philippines and India in 2023.
• Education as a Foundation Initiative: This classroom-based initiative currently delivered through online and offline learning platforms provides school-aged students from communities in which we operate with data and analytics skills, language learning and career guidance.
Environmental, Health and Safety
We strive to continuously improve our environmental, health and safety initiatives (“EHS”), with a focus on reducing our carbon footprint, energy conservation, waste minimization, green infrastructure and operations. Our EHS team tracks and assesses our progress with respect to key performance indicators for energy, greenhouse gas emissions and water and waste generation targets annually. We have also established Company-wide and worksite-specific workplace safety objectives that are integrated into our EHS Management System. Where practical, we seek to integrate EHS with our business activities, focusing on conducting our activities in an environmentally responsible manner and ensuring the health and safety of our employees, contractors, customers, visitors and the communities in which we operate. In addition, we seek to maintain a responsible supply chain by stating our expectations for all our vendors in our Supplier Standards of Conduct
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and by collecting information from our new suppliers with respect to policies and performance on human rights, labor rights and environmental issues.
All our delivery centers worldwide are currently ISO 45001:2018 certified, meeting international standards for occupational health and safety, and ISO 14001:2015 certified, meeting international standards for effective environmental management systems. In 2023, we received a five star rating from the British Safety Council for best practices in occupational safety for our operations centers in the United Kingdom and India. While we expect to maintain these certifications and standards, there may be changes to our delivery centers or applicable rules or standards that could affect such certifications and standards.
Regulation
Our operations are subject to rules, regulations and statutes in the countries where we have operations and where we deliver services as a result of the diverse and complex nature of our service offerings. More often, however, our clients contractually require that we comply with certain rules and regulations applicable to us in delivering our services to them.
We provide third-party administrator insurance services from India and the Philippines and are currently able to provide these services in the United States for 49 states (and the District of Columbia) and 48 states (and the District of Columbia), respectively by location. Additionally, our subsidiary in the Philippines is able to provide utilization review services in the United States for 48 states (and the District of Columbia). Further, through domestic subsidiaries, we are licensed or otherwise eligible to provide third-party administrator services in all states within the United States, as well as utilization review, claims adjuster and insurance producer services in select states. We maintain licenses in various jurisdictions (or require certain categories of our professionals to be individually licensed, as applicable) in service areas such as debt collection, utilization review, workers’ compensation utilization review, claims adjuster, mortgage loan processing and underwriting and telemarketing services. Our facilities in the Philippines, as well as one domestic subsidiary, are accredited by the Utilization Review Accreditation Commission (URAC) and National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA), the leading healthcare and education accreditation organizations. We continue to obtain licenses and accreditations required from time to time by our business operations.
Our operations are also subject to compliance with a variety of other laws, including tax laws in the countries where we conduct our business. See Part I, Item 1A, “Risk Factors” under “Risks Related to the International Nature of Our Business––Our global operations expose us to numerous and sometimes conflicting legal and regulatory requirements, including, accreditation or licensing standards that govern our business, and violations of these requirements could harm our business.”
We currently benefit from certain corporate tax holidays for our operations located in qualified Philippines Economic Zone Authority units. We are managing our business in accordance with the guidelines issued in 2022 by the Philippines Fiscal Incentives Review Board to continue availing the tax holidays.
We have established a headquarters for international business in Dublin, Ireland, and qualify for a reduced tax rate subject to certain conditions. We continuously monitor our operations to ensure we continue to qualify for the reduced rate.
We currently operate in the Philippines and Ireland where we will be subject to a minimum tax rate pursuant to the Pillar Two Framework prescribed by Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (“OECD”). The OECD continues to release additional guidance on the Pillar Two Framework, with implementation generally effective for 2024. We will continue to evaluate any potential impact on our operations.
See Part I, Item 1A, “Risk Factors” under “Risks Related to the International Nature of Our Business––Our financial condition could be negatively affected if governments in the countries we operate in introduce new unfavorable tax legislation, including legal restrictions for repatriation of our earnings.”
Available Information
We file annual, quarterly and current reports, proxy statements and other information with the Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”) under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended (the “Exchange Act”). The SEC maintains a website (http://www.sec.gov) that contains reports, proxy and information statements and other information regarding issuers that file electronically through the EDGAR System. You may access the information filed by us with the SEC by visiting its website.
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We also maintain a website at http://ir.exlservice.com. Information on our website does not constitute a part of, nor is it incorporated in any way, into this Annual Report on Form 10-K or any other report we file with or furnish to the SEC. We make available, free of charge, on our website our Annual Reports on Form 10-K, Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q, proxy statements, Current Reports on Form 8-K and amendments to those reports filed or furnished pursuant to Section 13(a) or 15(d) of the Exchange Act, as soon as reasonably practicable after such reports are electronically filed with, or furnished to, the SEC. Our website also includes announcements of investor conferences and events, information on our business strategies and results, sustainability efforts, corporate governance information, and other news and announcements that investors might find useful or interesting.
In this Annual Report on Form 10-K, we use the terms “EXL,” “we,” “us,” “our” or the “Company” to refer to ExlService Holdings, Inc. and its subsidiaries.
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