Impact sourcing is a proven approach to gain a competitive business edge and talent advantage while creating a positive social impact, according to Everest Group. Newly released research from Everest Group indicates that employers investing in impact sourcing are reporting long-term cost savings, reliable service delivery, improved brand equity, positive social and environmental impacts, easy access to untapped talent, and a stable, engaged workforce with a low attrition rate. Everest Group predicts demand for impact sourcing will continue to rise globally, driven by spiking attrition rates, growing talent demands, and high talent costs currently being observed in the outsourcing industry.
“Everest Group encourages enterprises to prioritize impact sourcing,” said Rita Soni, principal analyst for Impact Sourcing and Sustainability at Everest Group. “Based on our research and the feedback we receive from enterprises that are already actively engaging in the impact sourcing ecosystem, impact workers offer a competitive and cost-effective alternative to traditional outsourcing engagements. Impact sourcing workers deliver a reliable quality of service and, in many cases, very unique and valuable talents and perspectives. This is not to mention the benefits that accrue to the hiring organization from corporate citizenship, societal contributions and shared value among customers and investors.”
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Impact sourcing refers to intentionally hiring and providing career development opportunities to people from marginalized communities while meeting business objectives such as:
- Fulfilling Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), Environmental Social Governance (ESG), and diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging (DEIB) objectives of both the business and their clients.
- Leveraging the uniqueness of the target marginalized group, such as detail orientation of youth on the autism spectrum or diversity of perspective for Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) data services.
Impact sourcing workers comprise employees from economically disadvantaged groups, socially marginalized groups, under or unemployed groups, and other groups with unique factors of employability.
Currently, the impact sourcing market is approximately 350,000 FTEs worldwide.
- The majority of impact workers (85-87%) are being employed by the large traditional outsourcing service providers, either directly for specific project requirements or as a part of their inclusive hiring initiatives. The remaining impact workers (13-15%) are employed by impact sourcing specialists.
- Impact sourcing specialists prioritize the inclusive talent model and help enterprises meet business objectives (mentioned above) while maintaining service quality and cost at parity with traditional Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) and Information Technology Services (ITS) service providers.
- Although the market size for impact sourcing specialists is small, revenues for this segment achieved a compound annual growth rate of 28% between 2019 and 2021. For impact sourcing specialists, Asia Pacific leads as the key impact sourcing location (58% of global FTEs), followed by Africa (17%), North America (11%) and Latin America (7%).
- Unemployed youth (in the age group of 20-30 years) form the backbone (68%) of the impact sourcing workforce.
- Women represent 52% of the impact sourcing workforce in contrast to representing 25-35% for traditional service providers. Single mothers, women who have lost their families, and victims of war and migration have become the breadwinners for their families. They want to be independent, and the impact sourcing industry is helping them to achieve this goal.
- While North American enterprises are at the forefront of collaborating with impact sourcing specialists, firms in emerging markets such as the Middle East and APAC have been proactive in engaging with specialists in recent years. Specialists here provide services across industries ranging from BFSI, healthcare, hi-tech to e-commerce, retail and agritech.
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