For numerous businesses, focusing on their key mission - serving clients and delivering value - is pretty much a challenge in an environment that also requires hosting several secondary responsibilities. Truth be told, chances are that a company simply cannot fulfill all its clients' projects by itself. Furthermore, there are certain back-office tasks (such as handling regulatory compliance and processing sensitive customer data) that are rather time-consuming.
This may be happening because there aren't enough employees or they don't have the specific skills needed.
So, what's a business to do? Well, it an increasingly popular solution is starting business process outsourcing - hiring third-party vendors that specialize in various business-related operations.
There's are many reasons why BPO is gaining steam. Here are some of them:
More focus on the organization's core competencies. Partnering with a BPO provider allows companies to concentrate on their key competencies. Outsourcing frees up precious time and resources, which can be used on taking the business to the top.
Thanks to BPO, you can focus on exploring new revenue areas, increase customer and employee satisfaction, as well as accelerate other projects. This leads to enhanced productivity, as better skilled and/or educated people perform tasks efficiently.
This is one of the major drivers that start companies down this path. BPO providers have competitive fees, as they cater to multiple clients. Moreover, cost reduction is also possible through using technologies that lower and maintain administrative costs under control. This way, businesses are able to keep pocket-friendly rates, increase productivity, hence significantly raising revenue.
These third parties' expertise lies in outsourced services. Many BPO providers rely on workflow automation solutions and advanced information management, both of which allow them to do the job considerably faster and better than the client businesses themselves.
If a company would invest in this technology itself, that would be a costly and risky action. Not to mention that there are certain technological resources organizations might not have exposure to unless they team up with BPO partners.
BPO providers have the necessary expertise and resources to continuously update their solutions, being able to correctly use the latest technology advances and charge pocket-friendly rates.
As skilled employees have more time on their hands and advanced technologies are adopted, resource utilization becomes optimal.
There are several ways to outsource, so you can opt for the one that best suits your business needs.
You're probably confused right now, as you're used to seeing these two terms split by a vs. or an or. However, you can actually outsource in-house. Here's how it goes: let's say that your company has to develop a new software application. Some of your in-house staff has the required expertise to do it, but it lacks the time to complete the project. Thus, you decide to pay them extra working hours, so that they develop the application.
In this case, outsourcing is done by self-employed experts or professionals who are seeking employment opportunities. These individuals have the knowledge and skills that are necessary for getting the job done.
Are also known as private label services or products. White labeling is when a service or product removes its branding (or doesn't use branding to start with) from the end product and instead uses the branding requested by your business.
A good example is represented by the Great Value products you find in Walmart: these are not produced by Walmart, but by various companies that put the items in Great Value packaging on Walmart's behalf. In the online world, white labeling is when your business buys services from a white label company and presents them to the clients under your brand name.
After you decided upon the type of solution you'll use, it's time to take the next steps in order to create an outsourcing process for your business.
The outsourcing market is on the climb, thus the BPO method is chosen by more and more companies. Whether you go for in-house, freelance, or white label services, business process outsourcing will help you focus on your core mission, and achieve strategic objectives and performance milestones.