I spoke on a panel at CXOutsourcers in Ottawa in May — the annual gathering of BPO leaders, analysts, CX consultants and technology firms convened by Peter Ryan, Traci Freeman and Mark Angus. What surprised me was not the content. It was the consensus.
With no coordination between speakers, the same five signals dominated every panel and presentation. And three enterprise buyers presented in the same room — a financial services firm running 16,000 seats, a telecom at 2,000, a CPG brand at 10 — describing three genuinely different partners. What they agreed on was narrower and more expensive than any of them said out loud: the thing you are selling is no longer the thing they are buying.
Start with the market they are buying in, because it is easy to misread. Peter Ryan and Mark Angus put the global BPO, ITO and shared-services market at roughly $1.1 trillion in 2024, heading toward $1.5 trillion by the end of 2027. Healthy. But 60% of enterprises that already outsource expect their footprint to stay flat or shrink over the next twelve months. The money is concentrating rather than spreading — toward providers who are AI-enabled, vertically specialized and transformation-led, and away from everyone else regardless of what the headline number does.
Then read the commercial shift as a valuation question rather than a procurement trend. Sixty-three percent of buyers now say they prefer outcomes-based relationships; 39% are actively reducing purely labor-based contracts. Revenue priced against outcomes is not valued the same way as revenue priced against seats. Your buyers are repricing your book before the market does, and they will finish first.
One finding cuts directly against how most mid-sized operators read their own odds. Asked how interested they were in engaging providers at different scales, buyers rated the $100M–$499M and $500M–$999M tiers above the $1B-plus giants. Size is not the advantage it is assumed to be. Specificity is.
The five signals
What buyers need varies significantly by size, industry and stage — and treating them as a monolith is a mistake. But five shifts showed up in every room.
1. From cost management to value creation.
Buyers are no longer asking “how do we reduce contacts?” They are asking “where does better CX drive revenue or loyalty?” The question changes from how do we handle demand to how do we create value from it. Sixty-three percent are prioritizing customer retention initiatives, 67% say repeat customers spend more, and 39% are actively transforming CX from a cost center into a profit center. BPOs still pitching efficiency as their core value proposition are answering the wrong question — regardless of buyer size.
2. From labor arbitrage to outcome economics.
As brands look to their BPO partners to drive value, they want contracts that reinforce it. Sixty-three percent of buyers prefer outcomes-based relationships, 58% are increasing shared-risk engagements, 47% are prioritizing business impact metrics, and 39% are reducing purely labor-based contracts. The industry is moving away from per-seat and hourly models toward shared risk and quantifiable impact: retention, CSAT, productivity, revenue.
Considerable work remains on how these models get structured, particularly for services that do not generate revenue directly. But the openness to the concept was the notable part.
3. Niche specialization is a growth lever, not a limitation.
Sixty-four percent of enterprise buyers prioritize vertical expertise when sourcing providers. Fifty-one percent specifically want industry operational experience and industry-specific case studies. Forty-seven percent demand measurable ROI evidence and operational proof points before awarding contracts.
Most BPOs resist niching because they are afraid to say no to revenue. What they do not see is that saying yes to everything is what has been making growth harder. Generic “we can do anything” claims are actively working against providers in selection processes — and specialization is the growth lever, not the constraint. Buyers are looking for micro-vertical, service-line and demographic depth: healthcare claims, fintech customer operations, gaming player support, senior and vulnerable customer programs, churn reduction, trust and safety.
4. Governance is a gate, not a checkbox — and agentic AI without guardrails is a non-starter.
Cybersecurity maturity is now evaluated before commercial sourcing discussions begin. Seventy-one percent of buyers prioritize cybersecurity during vendor selection, 63% require formal AI governance frameworks, and 46% are adding stricter data residency rules. Asked to rank the competitive advantages a provider must have to win their business, buyers put information security and compliance expertise above price.
Not every brand is ready to buy AI today, but all of them want to know their partner can deliver it when they are — the trust test playing out account by account, long before the RFP. Having an AI capability is not enough: 62% require human oversight safeguards, 61% mandate explainable AI governance controls, and 49% are actively delaying high-risk autonomous deployments. Enterprises will fund AI-enabled service delivery. They will not fund ungoverned autonomy. This is not a small lift — new processes, new roles, agent and manager training — but the BPOs treating AI governance as a sales asset will take share from those treating it as a compliance task. It is also, more often than capability, where AI deals actually stall.
5. Proactive transparency has replaced relationship chemistry as the primary trust currency.
Buyers are tired of partners who surface problems only when asked. The new standard, articulated explicitly by the telecom buyer, is “0 reactive days.” Partnership health is measured by proactive optimization, not green dashboards. Brands expect their partners to mine the data already in their possession and surface what it is telling them — to find internal flaws and friction points before the client does.
The data
What 815 enterprise buyers said
Sample: 815 enterprise CX decision-makers across North America, Western Europe and Asia-Pacific, spanning 19 verticals, with revenues from $10M to over $5B. Figures below are individually attributed — four separate findings in this research sit at 63%, so the measure matters as much as the number.
CX as a growth engine
are prioritizing customer retention initiatives
say repeat customers spend more
are transforming CX into a profit center
Outcome economics replacing labor arbitrage
prefer outcomes-based relationships
are increasing shared-risk engagements
are prioritizing business impact metrics
are reducing purely labor-based contracts
Niche specialization as a selection criterion
prioritize vertical expertise when sourcing providers
value industry operational experience and industry-specific case studies
demand measurable ROI evidence and operational proof points
Governance as a front-end gate
prioritize cybersecurity during vendor selection
require formal AI governance frameworks
are adding stricter data residency rules
Limits on agentic AI autonomy
require human oversight safeguards
mandate explainable AI governance controls
are delaying high-risk autonomous deployments
What buyers say is hardest about sourcing
struggle to locate service partners that can scale with AI-augmented human services — their single biggest pain point
struggle to find providers who can solve hiring shortages with top talent
cite insufficient market intelligence on providers
Cite this data as: 2026 Buy-Side Demand Surveys conducted with GBS.World Marketplace buyers, presented by Peter Ryan (Ryan Strategic Advisory) and Mark Angus (Genesis Global Business Services) at CXOutsourcers 2026, Ottawa. Sourcing pain-point figures are from the 2026 Ryan Strategic Advisory CX Technology and Global Services Survey. Market sizing draws on GBS.World / Genesis GBS, Gartner and Deloitte.
What each buyer actually asked for
Three buyers, three scales, three different definitions of a good partner. The table is the fastest way to see how far apart they are.
| Financial services 16,000 seats |
Telecom 2,000 seats |
CPG brand 10 seats |
|
|---|---|---|---|
| Buying | Risk-managed execution at scale | Owner-operator behavior | A scaling partner, not a support vendor |
| The gate | Governance and cybersecurity maturity, assessed before commercial terms | DNA match — does the partner act like an owner? | Vertical fluency and business intelligence capability |
| Contract model | Outcome-based; provider owns staffing, training and service levels | Continuity — the team that pitched stays embedded in delivery | Capability, not commercial structure, is the constraint |
| Access | Earned incrementally; limited data first, expanded on proof | Open, conditional on velocity | Full, immediately — they need the help |
| Deal-breaker | A technology-first pitch that displaces internal IT | Bureaucracy, approval chains, order-taking | Inability to operate above the queue |
| How they decide | 3–5 reference calls; verification that RFP leadership actually runs the account | Whether supervisors diagnose root cause or just report metrics | Whether you understand their business model well enough to help build it |
Source: buyer presentations, CXOutsourcers 2026, Ottawa.
Large Enterprise — Financial Services (16,000 seats)
The most demanding buyer in the room, and the most procedurally rigid. Their requirements reflect the complexity of operating at scale in a heavily regulated environment.
They are not handing over system access to unproven partners. The engagement model is incremental: demonstrate value with limited data access first, earn expanded access over time. Internal technology teams have strong ownership of the tech agenda — BPOs that arrive with technology-first pitches trigger resistance. The move is to support the existing tech agenda, not propose to replace it. Which is precisely why “we’re tech agnostic” reads as no position at all to this buyer: they are not asking you to be neutral, they are asking you to have a view that fits theirs.
Contract structures have shifted to outcome-based models. Providers are now responsible for staffing decisions, training costs and service levels — not just hours logged. Cross-sell opportunities are gated behind baseline performance. And selection is rigorous: expect 3–5 reference calls and scrutiny of whether the leadership team presented in the RFP is the leadership team that actually runs the account post-signature.
Governance is table stakes at this tier. Cybersecurity, AI governance frameworks, data residency controls — these are evaluated before commercial discussions begin, not after.
Mid-Market — Telecom (2,000 seats)
This buyer is asking a different set of questions, centered less on compliance architecture and more on operational character. Three requirements defined their presentation:
- DNA match. They want partners who act like owners. Bureaucracy kills velocity. The BPO must operate as an extension of an entrepreneurial mindset, not as a vendor processing requests through a chain of approvals.
- Expertise continuity. The strategic depth demonstrated in the pitch must be present in daily operations. No drop in leadership quality after the RFP closes. Whoever sold the account needs to remain embedded in delivering it.
- Supervisors as SMEs. Frontline leadership that coaches the “why,” identifies root causes and fixes process rather than just reporting metrics. The distinction: partners who find problems versus partners who report them.
"We've moved past order takers. We need partners who find our internal flaws and friction points before we do."
Partnership health is measured by proactive optimization — not by whether dashboards are green. This is the gap between being called a strategic partner and operating as one.
Startup / Growth Stage — CPG Brand (10 seats)
The smallest buyer in the room, and arguably the most forward-looking in how they are thinking about AI and the BPO's role in their growth.
Their priorities are organized around three layers: helping the team (agent efficiency), helping leadership (business intelligence) and helping customers (experience and retention). They are not looking for a support vendor — the same vendor-versus-partner line that gets drawn the moment a BPO quotes without asking why — they are looking for a scaling partner who can operate across all three simultaneously.
Specific AI needs include summaries so agents have instant context, auto-suggested macros, real-time translation for new markets, tone-of-voice and brand consistency checks on every reply, and QA coaching rather than QA logging. At the leadership level: voice-of-customer analytics, end-to-end journey mapping, and business intelligence they can take to the leadership table.
For this buyer, vertical fluency and BI capability are the differentiators. They are not evaluating governance frameworks — they are evaluating whether you understand their business model well enough to help them build it.
Eight takeaways for BPOs
1. One pitch does not fit all buyers.
The needs of a 16,000-seat financial services firm and a 10-seat CPG startup are structurally different. Enterprise buyers need governance, compliance architecture and incremental trust-building. Growth-stage buyers need vertical fluency, AI depth across all three layers, and a partner who can scale with them. Pitching the same capability story to both is a positioning failure.
2. Reframe your value proposition around outcomes, not operations.
Outcome-based contracts are replacing staffing models. Buyers are holding providers responsible for results — service levels, staffing decisions, training costs. BPOs that still lead with headcount flexibility and cost-per-seat math are misaligned with how buyers now measure value. This holds across all three segments, and it changes what your revenue is worth as much as what it earns.
3. Specialize deliberately, or compete on price indefinitely.
Sixty-four percent of buyers prioritize vertical expertise. Generic capability claims are being filtered out before the shortlist. Pick the verticals where you have genuine depth, build verifiable proof points, and stop claiming expertise you cannot substantiate — the domain-specialization work that most BPOs skip past on the way to something shinier. For smaller buyers in particular, speaking the language of their industry — subscription mechanics, churn economics, brand protection — is what gets you in the door.
There is a demand-generation point buried in the same research, and it is the most actionable finding in the set. The single biggest pain point buyers report is locating service partners that can scale with AI-augmented human services (56%), followed by finding providers who can solve hiring shortages with top talent (51%) and insufficient market intelligence on providers (42%). Buyers are not struggling to choose between you and a competitor. They are struggling to find you at all.
4. Treat AI governance as a market differentiator, not overhead.
At the enterprise end, governance is evaluated before commercial terms. A documented AI governance framework, explainable AI controls and clear human escalation architecture are competitive advantages, not compliance overhead. Providers who have done this work clear the front gate. Those who have not are screened out before the conversation starts.
5. In enterprises and regulated industries, earn access incrementally.
Financial services and BFSI clients will not grant system access to unproven partners. Internal technology teams resist externally-driven tech agendas. The entry point is demonstrating value within constraints, then expanding from there. Arrive as a supporter of their tech agenda, not a replacement for it.
6. The bar for “proactive” has been raised — across all segments.
The telecom buyer said it plainly: 0 reactive days. Partnership health is proactive optimization, not green dashboards. The enterprise buyer wants navigation-style partnership — problems surfaced before they surface them. The startup wants a business intelligence partner, not a ticket handler. In every case the standard is the same: find the problem before the client does — the difference between reporting a problem and actually owning it.
7. Build for human-AI collaboration, not human replacement.
Contact center agents are becoming advisors, problem solvers and brand ambassadors. AI handles speed and volume; humans handle ambiguity, complexity and high-stakes decisions. BPOs that frame headcount reduction as the primary AI use case are misreading what buyers want.
8. Become the early warning signal for your clients.
BPOs sit on a massively underutilized asset — data. Late payment patterns that uncover a customer in trouble before it hits the P&L, quality issues with a supplier that predate a massive disruption, weak signals across support, billing and CRM data that can be connected to detect early signs of churn. Mine it.
What this means for your position
None of these eight are new capabilities. They are one capability expressed eight ways: the ability to describe your value in the buyer's terms instead of your own.
That is a positioning problem, not an operations problem, and the buyers who attended CXOutsourcers are already rewriting their vendor criteria around it. The questions have changed. The providers who come out of this well will be the ones who recognized the shift early and built for it deliberately — and the market has now told them, in numbers, exactly which criteria to build against.
Where to Start
The eight questions above are the ones your next buyer will ask. The Commercial Gap Check is a free, ten-question self-assessment across go-to-market narrative, sales process, business strategy, and account management — it tells you how many of them you can currently answer. Results shown immediately, no email required.
Sources: buyer presentations and session notes, CXOutsourcers 2026, Ottawa. Survey data from the 2026 Buy-Side Demand Surveys conducted with GBS.World Marketplace buyers (n=815) and the 2026 Ryan Strategic Advisory CX Technology and Global Services Survey, presented by Peter Ryan and Mark Angus. Full attribution in the data block above.
FAQ: Acting on What Enterprise Buyers Want in 2026
We don’t have outcome-based pricing today, and the article says even buyers admit the mechanics are unsettled — where do we actually start?
Start with the metric where the outcome-to-revenue link is easiest to draw — retention, CSAT, or productivity you already report — and structure a shared-risk pilot on one account rather than rewriting your commercial model all at once. Buyers in this research were more interested in providers willing to move in this direction than in providers who had already perfected the mechanics.
The data shows $100M–$999M providers rated above $1B-plus giants — does that mean we should stop chasing the largest enterprise accounts?
No, it means scale isn’t the disqualifier some mid-sized operators assume it is, and it isn’t the differentiator either. The 16,000-seat buyer in this research still wanted rigorous governance and incremental access — the opening is being specific and credible at whatever scale you compete, not out-sizing the largest name in the room.
How fast can a generalist BPO credibly claim vertical expertise if it doesn’t have deep history in that niche yet?
Not by claiming it in a pitch deck. Buyers are asking for industry-specific case studies and operational proof points, which means you need at least one reference account and a documented result before the claim survives due diligence. Pick one vertical, build the proof there first, and resist claiming depth in three verticals at once.
What does “0 reactive days” actually look like day to day, not just as a slogan?
It means someone on the account is reviewing your own operational data — volume trends, complaint patterns, churn signals — before the client asks about them, and bringing a finding or recommendation to every touchpoint rather than waiting to be asked. It’s a discipline and a cadence, not a single technology purchase.
Related reading
For the full case, see the sales pillar on why most BPO go-to-market motions need a rewrite, not a tweak.
Amanda Quinn
Founder of Evostr. Amanda spoke on the buy-side panel at CXOutsourcers 2026 in Ottawa, where the presentations cited in this article were delivered. She works with mid-sized BPO operators on the shift from selling hours to selling outcomes.