CX Files

Peter Ryan recently attended the CCW Berlin show in Germany. He talked to a lot of people at the show and recorded a conversation with a couple of the CCW stars for their views on BPO in 2025 and what to look out for based on the show in Berlin...

This episode featured Peter talking to:

Sherif Kamel

Poland GM @ Raya CX

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Rachel Poku

Founder, CXHero

https://www.ccw.eu/en/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/peter-ryan-montreal/

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

https://rayacx.com/get-in-touch/

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

https://cxhero.co/

Mark and Peter take a diversion from the usual CX discussion to talk about LinkedIn. Why is it filled with garbage today and what can be done about it? Is there a way back for Microsoft to restore the function of the business networking tool?

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

https://www.linkedin.com/in/peter-ryan-montreal/

Last Saturday was International Women's Day 2025.

To mark the occasion, Peter Ryan reached out to three leading women working in CX in three different global locations. Listen to his discussion with them about the challenges and opportunities for women in CX in 2025...

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Samar ElShafie - Egypt

Head of Commerical and Client Relations - Octopus Outsourcing

https://www.linkedin.com/in/samar-elshafie/

https://octopusoutsourcing.com/

Sabrina Labonte - Canada

Marketing Director, Laivly

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

https://laivly.com/

Sophia Mohammed - UK

Client Parter, USMAART

https://www.linkedin.com/in/sophia-mohammed-3a1b851b6/

https://usmaart.com/

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https://www.internationalwomensday.com/

https://medium.com/@markhillary/international-womens-day-and-the-challenge-to-dei-in-2025-262c4bd973a3

Sergei Levteev is the Chairman and CEO of IBA Group. He is based in Prague in Czechia.

IBA Group is a technology company with deep experience building and supporting IT infrastructure. They have managed cloud systems, AI, RPA, and are even supporting old mainframe tech.

Mark Hillary called Sergei to talk about the IT infrastructure supporting CX.

Sergei decided to respond to Mark using the ElevenLabs AI voice system - underlining some of the ideas around how AI can be used to create voice-based systems.

https://elevenlabs.io/

https://ibagroupit.com/

Audrey William is Principal Advisor at Ecosystm. She is based between Sydney, Australia and Singapore.

Audrey has several areas of research focus, including the Future of Work, Unified Communications, Video and Collaboration, Contact Center, CX, Outsourcing and Conversational AI.

Mark Hillary called Audrey to talk about AI in CX - in particular what is happening on the ground in pilots, which are the main tech vendors to watch, and what are the difficulties or blockers that some companies are experiencing - it's not always out-of-the-box!

https://www.linkedin.com/in/audrey-william-3a4a04/

https://www.ecosystm.io/

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/

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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/