Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) has taken the business world by storm. Organizations across the globe are increasingly looking to leverage the benefits of outsourcing. Understanding the advantages that Business Process Outsourcing can have on business competencies in an effort to generate more revenue streams for sustainable market growth is key. In this article, we delve into how outsourcing enhances businesses, highlighting key benefits of BPO such as cost savings, enhanced efficiency, and applying industry expertise.
With a total global market size of outsourced services reaching a staggering $261.9 billion as of 2022, BPO benefits are becoming increasingly evident. Now more than ever, BPO is a vital strategy for bolstering a company’s overarching operational objectives. Some companies categorize outsourcing into two separate camps, non-critical outsourcing or core outsourcing. Regardless, all outsourcing must be strategic, and for each business, the approach will vary.
Recent studies highlight the evolution of the primary motivators behind BPO. According to Forrester’s Adobe-commissioned research, a significant shift toward CX has emerged among businesses. A notable 66% of businesses focusing on customer experience reported improved customer retention. Furthermore, these strategies aren't just about retaining consumers but also maximizing their value. The same research points out that 60% of these businesses witnessed an increased customer lifetime value.
As business needs evolve, BPO adoption is driven not just by traditional benefits but also by factors like tech advancements, specialized expertise, budget adaptability, and savings in training and infrastructure. But as always, for both parties to obtain maximum value from an outsourcing partnership, it requires a client’s readiness to invest and a willingness to be flexible on the part of a service provider.
Business process outsourcing (BPO) means transferring entire business functions, like marketing or accounting, to external companies. Beyond the obvious operational advantages, the BPO benefits are manifold. Unlike merely hiring freelancers for tasks, BPO involves entrusting larger functions. Originally prevalent in manufacturing, BPO is now common within various sectors, involving both back-office functions like accounting and front-office roles such as customer service.
There are three main types of BPO: "Offshore" (outsourcing to a distant country), "Nearshore" (outsourcing to a neighboring country), and "Domestic" or "Onshore" (outsourcing within the same country). A business typically begins BPO by identifying areas that could benefit from external expertise, then researching and reaching out to specialized BPO providers.
The BPO relationship starts with discussions to tailor solutions to the client's unique needs. Formal agreements, such as master service agreements (MSA) or service-level agreements (SLA), outline the broad terms. Once a BPO is chosen, more detailed contracts, like a statement of work (SOW), specify project details, ensuring a successful, adaptable collaboration.
Outsourcing has become a prevalent practice for various business processes and it is increasingly common for organizations to outsource a wide range of business processes. Here are the business processes most frequently outsourced by enterprises.
Call centers play a crucial role in enhancing customer experience with a company's products or services. They address queries and resolve issues, and their success relies on staff being knowledgeable, professional, and clear. In today's always-on world, continuous support is key to customer satisfaction. Many small businesses lack the means for 24/7 support or multilingual assistance, which leading call centers readily provide.
Sales is a popular area for business process outsourcing. Training an in-house team is costly and demanding, both in time and resources. Outsourcing offers a cost-effective solution, providing immediate access to trained sales experts who can quickly adapt to your brand's voice. With reduced expenses, scalable options, and a dedicated team aiming for results, we support businesses in growth through superior sales and sales processes, lead generation, and appointment setting.
This tedious process involves copy-pasting data from a source to a target system. While it’s a straightforward task, data entry can also be very time-consuming and meticulous. Outsourcing this process to a BPO partner increases the delivery speed and improves accuracy while saving on workforce costs.
Outsourcing HR processes to BPO experts can create a strengthened workforce that is both skilled and satisfied. This increases productivity while reducing turnover.
Human error is a constant headache faced by companies with in-house payroll processes. One of the advantages of BPO services outsourcing here is minimizing mistakes during training periods. Instead, experts handle payroll with minimal errors while also helping businesses avoid payroll tax.
Marketing is a difficult and complicated field that is challenging to handle in-house. Many businesses outsource these processes to BPOs who expertly strategize and execute marketing plans across all channels.
With growing security challenges online, many businesses choose to outsource their IT needs. IT support encompasses technical assistance like system management, tech troubleshooting, and setting up hardware and software. By entrusting these tasks to experts, businesses can lessen their supervision worries.
Partnering with a reliable and experienced vendor brings many advantages of BPO services. Outsourcing allows firms to concentrate on their primary strengths, save money, and boost service or product quality. Plus, it opens doors to the latest technology and industry best practices.
Before considering outsourcing, it's essential to fully understand your business needs to identify which tasks to hand over. Selecting a reputable and skilled BPO provider is also crucial. With the right approach and execution, outsourcing can greatly improve a business's operations. Let's explore these benefits further.
One of the top benefits of BPO for most companies is cost-effectiveness. Overall, outsourcing can often get a job done cheaper and more efficiently. With contractors, companies can leverage a level of expertise or specialization without the financial burden of a long-term employee commitment. Outsourcing on a contractual as-needed basis is usually a fraction of the cost of handling certain business processes in-house with dedicated employees.
Experienced contractors with a specialized skill set typically get tasks done faster as well. They spend less time on a job overall which in turn reduces overall business costs. As experts in their fields, specialized contractors are less likely to make the same mistakes as a less experienced in-house employee might.
Building and maintaining employee infrastructure is a costly overhead business expense. Outsourcing minimizes this expense for business, as the contractor accepts the responsibility for the business processes, and hence, develops and maintains the required area-specific infrastructure.
Technology is often very expensive, posing another limitation for companies looking to grow. When businesses outsource, the contractor largely bears the cost of maintaining current technology, including software and communications equipment. Outsourcing partners also bear responsibility for making necessary infrastructural changes to suit a business's needs. Additionally, the service provider is already familiar with the technology, further increasing efficiency while reducing operational costs.
There is also a huge wage disparity between professionals working in developed countries versus those in developing countries. For example, in India, labor costs are up to 60% cheaper when compared to labor in more developed countries. The key then is finding a balance between saving labor costs while maintaining high-quality work.
When you combine all of these factors—expert agents working with the latest technology and getting the job done faster—you end up with greater efficiency. And a more efficient process, by definition, saves you money.
How does business process outsourcing increase company productivity and efficiency? When you outsource to a competent and skilled professional or third party, you double your resources for far less than hiring full-time workers. You also free up employees’ time to focus on other important areas.
Highly skilled experienced experts are capable of delivering consistent quality results. And they are far less prone to making costly mistakes in comparison to less experienced in-house employees.
For example, Information Technology (IT) services range from infrastructure to management to support. Instead of overseeing the IT process within your business yourself, you could outsource the entire process to an experienced IT services provider. Outsourcing IT processes can boost business productivity and efficiency by giving you access to the latest software, hardware, and processes without worrying about upgrades, maintenance, or training staff.
For another example, instead of hiring full-time Human Resources (HR) staff and building an entire HR team, you might consider outsourcing your HR-related processes to an experienced HR business partner serving businesses in your industry. Outsourcing HR processes increases productivity by speeding up essential HR processes, such as payroll or recruiting.
The key to successful outsourcing is to take inventory of all essential and non-essential business tasks. Businesses must feel confident in what can or cannot be outsourced to remain in control of the anticipated outcomes.
Looking to expand your team, but don't have the time or resources? Consider outsourcing the task to a recruitment partner that offers Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPO). RPO is a subsection of business process outsourcing where an organization transfers part or all of its recruitment processes to a third-party service provider.
An RPO partner can help you with meeting hiring deadlines without sacrificing productivity. Most RPO partners are flexible to work with on allowing for ramp-up or paring down on an as-needed basis.
Today's customers are 24/7 ready, they are browsing online and making buying decisions at all times of the day, all while expecting instant resolutions to their queries. Providing customers with around-the-clock customer service results in massive growth opportunities for your customer base, sales boost, and satisfaction rates increase.
Offering 24/7 support usually requires financial investment upfront before you experience the BPO benefits of having your support team available at all hours of the day and night. This is where business process outsourcing can step in making it easier for you to respond to the evolving market needs. Most Customer Support Operation (CSO) teams use their own advanced call center technology, enabling their agents to execute a company’s existing processes more efficiently to maximize Return on Investment (ROI).
Outsourcing your CSO also mitigates fluctuations in your workforce. These labor shortages could be caused by weekends, holidays, or personal reasons. BPO support eliminates this problem as they’ll ensure proper staffing requirements are met for any job. Time zone differences also present challenges for global customers, but with 24/7 customer support, companies are able to facilitate engagements and expand their reach outside their immediate region.
An outsourced 24/7 customer support team also reduces queue times while increasing the amount of resolved tickets. This is because an outsourced team will be able to handle customers at any hour of the day. This prevents large amounts of customers from squeezing their concerns into a limited time window. With a CSO call center, customers are ensured to receive high-quality support without having to take time and resources away from other core business functions, such as software development and marketing.
One method that's seen a surge in popularity among businesses is the delegation of back-office functions through outsourcing. Impressively, 85% of global businesses have tapped into this approach, witnessing substantial BPO benefits and enhanced outcomes.
By allocating non-essential responsibilities to expert service providers, enterprises can pivot their attention to primary competencies. This realignment not only fuels rapid expansion but also carves a distinct competitive advantage in the market.
The resources freed up by handing over business processes to BPOs allow a company to instead focus on its core functions—directly channeling resources into revenue-generating activities, such as marketing, customer care, and product optimization. It also facilitates growth, enabling faster time-to-market.
Outsourcing is more accessible and affordable than ever. Business Process Outsourcing is no longer a tool reserved exclusively for multinational companies with massive budgets.
Technology has made it possible and affordable for even small start-ups to work with a BPO provider. Access to experts and tools such as cloud computing, process automation, and supply chain management that would otherwise have been out of their reach is no longer the case. Moreover, A survey by Grand View Research in 2022 revealed that artificial intelligence is shaping the latest trend in outsourcing, enabling service providers to manage their customer interactions through cloud-based IVR systems and chatbots.
Business process outsourcing allows start-ups to focus on growth. Working with a provider minimizes risk while maximizing the advantages of BPO. As the outsourced services enable significant operational savings, budgets can instead be directed to other important operational areas. You save on labor costs as outsourced teams reduce in-house turnover, which is often particularly high in start-ups. As these outsourced teams don’t need to be trained, start-ups can hit the ground running with their outsourced experts.
BPO companies typically specialize in the services they offer, bringing a level of proficiency that can be invaluable to businesses lacking in-house capabilities. Partnering with a BPO provider not only ensures tasks are handled by professionals but also sidesteps expenses tied to training in-house staff for the same tasks.
BPO firms often distinguish themselves by focusing on a particular business function and adopting the most advanced technologies in that domain. This positions client companies to tap into top-tier, often otherwise unattainable, tech solutions. Among the game-changers in the BPO landscape is artificial intelligence (AI). Through AI and automation, numerous tasks can be performed seamlessly at the push of a button, making things much more efficient. While these systems mark a new era of productivity, it's crucial to strike a balance. Machines, though efficient, might occasionally make mistakes in ways that vigilant human oversight can catch. Thus, blending automated processes with human insight offers a formidable advantage for BPO endeavors.
The risk management expertise offered is considered one of the main benefits of business process outsourcing, allowing companies to collaborate with seasoned professionals skilled at managing associated risks. Take IT, for instance: outsourced IT specialists often possess nuanced strategies for risk prevention, possibly outpacing the insights of the company's in-house team. This specialized knowledge ensures a robust defense against potential threats, fostering a secure operational environment. Moreover, by leaning on these cybersecurity experts, businesses not only safeguard their operations but also gain valuable insights into best practices and innovations in risk management.
Through BPO companies equipped with technologies like artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), and automation, businesses can obtain faster and more sophisticated reporting, including financial and cash flow projections. These enhanced reports provide deeper insights, enabling informed decision-making. Moreover, with real-time data processing, companies can stay ahead of trends and make timely adjustments to their strategies.
Outsourcing, with the manifold benefits of BPO, is no longer viewed merely as a cost-cutting measure, but rather an important and strategic tool for businesses looking to drive growth in a hyper-competitive environment.
BPO empowers you to maintain globally competitive and consistent operations by reducing costs, allowing access to affordable industry experts, raising productivity, as well as helping to source talent for key positions, and helping start-ups scale faster.
Outsourcing certain business processes by running them through a business process outsourcing company like Helpware, you minimize risk by utilizing experts in their respective fields who can provide high-quality services at significant cost savings to your organization. Outsourcing doesn’t have to be an all-or-nothing approach, which is why Helpware offers strategic consulting services and support for your company through every step of the process. In addition, the Helpware team can assist with your recruitment and training needs to save you time and money.
Helpware is committed to changing perceptions of what outsourcing is and what it can be. We build amazing cultures in each of our locations across the globe.
Experience faster business growth today! Get in touch with Helpware, and let us show you all the advantages of business process outsourcing.