Multinational France-based omnichannel outsourcer
Teleperformance SE is a multinational company founded in 1978 with headquarters in France. They provide services for debt collection, telemarketing, customer relationship management, content moderation, and communication.[3]
Its services are operated in over 300 languages and dialects on behalf of companies in various industries.[4]
History
Daniel Julien created Teleperformance in Paris in June 1978.[5] In 1986, Teleperformance established its first international subsidiaries in Belgium and Italy. Two years later, Teleperformance launched subsidiaries in other European markets: Spain, Germany, Sweden and the United Kingdom. In 1989, Daniel Julien and Jacques Berrebi joined forces at the head of Rochefortaise Communication, the parent company of Teleperformance International listed on the Paris Stock Exchange. Ten years later, Rochefortaise Communication and Teleperformance International merged to form SR. Teleperformance. This company became Teleperformance in 2006.[6]
In 1992, Teleperformance USA was established, and Asia-Pacific contact centers were set up in the Philippines and Singapore in 1996. The Group expanded in Europe through numerous acquisitions and subsidiaries in Switzerland, Norway, Denmark, Greece, Spain, the Netherlands and Finland.[7] From 1998 through 2002, the Teleperformance network expanded into Argentina,[8] Brazil[9] and Mexico.[10]
In 2006 Teleperformance USA purchased AOL's 400-employee call center in Ogden, Utah. This purchase was the 23rd call center which the company purchased until this time.[11]
In 2007, Teleperformance acquired a 100% interest in Twenty4help, the European technical support leader; AllianceOne, a leading US accounts receivable management company.[12] In 2008, the group's operations and strategy were centralized for management under the responsibility of Daniel Julien and Jacques Berrebi. Teleperformance acquired The Answer Group.[13]
In 2008 a class action lawsuit was filed against Salt Lake City-based Teleperformance USA seeking unpaid wages for employees, alleging a violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act.[14][15] On 19 May 2010, a settlement was reached for approximately $2 million to be paid to 15,862 workers in 10 US states.[16]
In 2010, Teleperformance acquired Scottish outsourcing call center 'beCogent' for £35 million.[17] It ceased operations in December 2021 mainly due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and remote work.[18] By 2013 Teleperformance had six contact centers in Tunisia.[19] In 2013, Teleperformance acquired full control of TLS Contact.[20] In 2014, Teleperformance acquired Aegis USA Inc., a major outsourcing and technology company in the United States, the Philippines and Costa Rica. The transaction was approved by regulatory authorities.[21] From 2014 to 2016, Teleperformance created and/or opened fifteen new centers worldwide. In January 2019, Teleperformance announced its second premises in Cairo. In March 2015 the company announced the opening of a new offshore facility in Paramaribo, Surinam. The multichannel contact center offers support to Benelux clients in Dutch.[22]
Teleperformance operated a contact center in Melbourne, Australia, from 2016 to May 2019.[23][24] The company announced in July 2016 its plans to expand to Bristol, Tennessee in the United States, creating 500 jobs within the coming five years.[25]
In August 2016 Teleperformance purchased California-based LanguageLine Solutions LLC for $1.52 billion from a US-based private equity firm, Abry Partners.[26]
Corporate affairs
Business trends
The key trends for Teleperformance are (as of the financial year ending December 31):
|
|
Revenue (€ m)
|
Net profit (€ m)
|
Total assets (€ bn)
|
Employees (k)
|
| 2016
|
3,649
|
214
|
4.9
|
216
|
| 2017
|
4,180
|
312
|
4.4
|
223
|
| 2018
|
4,441
|
312
|
5.8
|
306
|
| 2019
|
5,355
|
400
|
6.8
|
331
|
| 2020
|
5,732
|
324
|
7.0
|
383
|
| 2021
|
7,115
|
557
|
8.3
|
418
|
| 2022
|
8,154
|
645
|
8.8
|
418
|
Governance
Jacques Berrebi announced his plans to retire in January 2008. He ended all his operational duties as of 5 January 2009.[27][28]
In 2012, Jacques Berrebi, co-founder with Daniel Julien of Teleperformance Group, retired at the age of 70.[29]
Paulo César Salles Vasques was announced as the new chief executive officer of the group[30] and Daniel Julien remained as the chairman of the board.[21][31]
In October 2017, after the resignation of Paulo César Salles Vasques, Daniel Julien, who remains executive chairman of the board, was also appointed by the board of directors as group chief executive officer.[32]
In June 2023, Bhupender Singh was appointed as Teleperformance Group Deputy Chief Executive Officer.[33]
Controversies
Teleperformance has been repeatedly criticized for privacy violations, surveillance, as well as extremely stressful working conditions for its workers.[35][36]
A group of labour unions filed a complaint documenting unsafe working conditions, monitoring, surveillance, union busting and retaliation against employees in ten countries in April 2020. Due to COVID-19 restrictions, workers in the Philippines, including those supporting Amazon's Ring camera contract, had nowhere to sleep but at their workspaces and were unable to meet social distancing requirements. The Financial Times was able to verify this with video and photos, including in a Cebu City office. After the working conditions were made public, the company promised to make improvements, but NBC News reported after six months the company was providing intermittent shuttle service, not properly sanitizing working spaces, and sending workers home without pay if they were quarantined.[37][38]
While Amazon required support contractors to be onsite, Netflix's contract with Teleperformance allowed employees to work from home.[37][38]
In Colombia, the union Utraclaro, part of the UNI Global Union, has organized Teleperformance employees, including moderators. In 2021, after the union submitted its demands for the company to protect freedom of association, Teleperformance filed a lawsuit against the union in a labor court.[39] In November 2022, the Ministry of Labour launched an investigation into the company.[40] After the investigation, shares in the company dropped by 34%. Following the allegations, Teleperformance announced that it had hired Bureau Veritas to audit its employee management practices, including corporate social responsibility and compliance with local labour laws. In December 2022, Bureau Veritas concluded that "nothing has been brought to our attention which leads us to believe that the use of the international standard ISO 26000 does not comply with the recommendations and guidelines of the standard." .[41] In April and May 2023, the company signed agreements allowing workers in Colombia, Romania and Poland to unionize. The company also stated, in its 2023 first-half results, that the Colombian government had closed its investigation with no findings against it.[42][43]
Workers in Colombia, including those working on contracts for Apple, are reportedly remotely monitored by the company, including by AI-enabled cameras and voice recording using its own TP Cloud Campus platform. The company issued a press release in July 2021 stating that 240,000 employees in 52 countries were using the platform by mid-2021. Workers in Albania, including those working on Apple content, were protected from webcam monitoring at home through their Data Protection Commission.[44][45][46][47]
Content moderation
Teleperformance employs content moderators for platforms including TikTok, with moderators in Tunisia and Colombia and Greece, reviewing explicit content to remove it from the platform.[48][40] Its "Trust and Safety" branch and moderation program were launched in 2019.[49] After an investigation by Forbes reported that the company retained material with child sexual abuse, Teleperformance and TikTok were criticized by the United States Senate Committee on Commerce and by shareholders.[50] In November 2022, the company announced that it would exit "the highly egregious part of the trust and safety business." However, it reversed its decision in March 2023.[51][48]
€8.154 billion (2022)[1]
410,000 (2022)[1]
