EXL Hypes Up AI Potential In Dublin

Rohit Kapoor has come a long way since he lost his job at the age of 34 after relocating from India to the US. “We had one child, I had just taken on a mortgage on my house, I was on a work permit, and I was suddenly on the streets,” he told Investor’s Business Daily recently. Now Kapoor (57) is CEO of analytics and digital solutions company ExlService, which has c.48,000 employees and plans to add up to 200 more roles in Dublin.

After his redundancy shock, Kapoor’s first enterprise was email processing for large online vendors like 1-800-Flowers. The gap in the market was that for a brief period at the turn of the century it was cheaper to process emails in India than in America.

When that opportunity disappeared, ExlService pivoted to transaction processing, more commonly known as business process outsourcing.

EXL floated on Nasdaq in 2006, and the company has c.30,000 employees based in India and 9,800 staff in the Philippines, with 2,700 employees in the United States and 2,900 employees in South Africa and other countries.

Back office processing for insurance and healthcare companies used to be EXL’s mainstay, and still accounts for 40% of revenue. The larger growth driver in recent years has been data analytics.

“We enhance, modernise and enrich structured and unstructured data and use a spectrum of advanced analytical tools and techniques, including our in-house AI capabilities and proprietary solutions to create insights and improve decision-making for our clients,” says the company.

“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.”

It seems to be a popular offering. EXL’s annual turnover increased 25% to $1.4bn in 2022, with the

CEO delivering a net profit of $140m for shareholders. In Dublin, EXL is establishing a headquarters for its international business, and with taxpayer assistance from IDA Ireland the company plans to hire up to 200 AI and data engineers, and other technology positions, over the next three years.

“We will look to train AI experts in Ireland to unlock the transformative power of generative AI, revolutionise industries and drive new business opportunities,” Kapoor enthused. “Dublin’s exceptional talent pool will help us shape the future of technology and propel our clients to the forefront of the global AI landscape.”