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What Is Business Process Outsourcing (BPO)?

Outsourcing BPO: A Business Growth Strategy

Business process is simply a collection of activities that accomplish organizational goals once they are completed. Both human stakeholders and various technological, digital, mechanical, and workflow systems accomplish these processes.

In essence, businesses operate and accomplish tasks through various business processes. Success and/or failure, therefore, is largely dependent upon the efficiency of a company’s business processes.

Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) offers companies of all shapes and sizes affordable and innovative solutions to almost all business processes. These include areas such as human resources, customer experience operations, and a multitude of core functions.

Outsourcing Myths

For those of us who aren’t well-versed in the practice of business outsourcing, go ahead and forget everything you think you know about it. That may be a bit overboard, but we want you to know that outsourcing is certainly not a bad word.

Despite its reputation, outsourcing is a necessary business function that can tremendously improve your business processes and, as a result, your business’ efficiency when done correctly. Unfortunately, outsourcing is often associated with decreased quality and even a move motivated by greed.

While it is easily possible to fall within those two categories when outsourcing, the opposite is also easily possible. Let us explain:

Outsourcing is usually explored in company boardrooms initially as a way to cut costs and save money without taking hits to essential metrics. In fact, outsourcing companies often have more resources to dedicate to their core competencies and, as a result, streamline and improve the work done by their full-time teams.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with that. Reduced costs can give businesses increased capital to innovate and grow. This positively impacts the customer directly.

However, outsourcing correctly requires an approach that prioritizes quality, efficiency, and customer satisfaction. If these three elements are not prioritized, outsourcing quickly lives up to its wrongfully earned reputation.

Smartsourcing

At AwesomeOS, we like to call this style of outsourcing smartsourcing. In other words, a company identifies areas within its operations or business processes that need improving. At the same time, they identify those business processes where they are strong.

Outsourcing business processes where the company is weak, and ensuring the right outsourcing partner is chosen, will lead to more proficient business operations.

For instance, if a business struggles with recruiting top talent to innovate new products and is slipping behind the competition, outsourcing human resources and recruiting can tremendously improve its overall operations and revenue growth.

Commonly Outsourced Business Processes

Almost any element of the business process, including customer support and quality assurance, front-office and back-office functions, supply chain management, and payment processing, can be outsourced or offshored by a BPO service provider.

As we mentioned previously, business process is summed up simply as all of the tasks and functions that make the engine of a company move forward. They make the magic happen.

Different types of BPO can be as simple as the way a closet is organized to as complicated as how a computer algorithm determines when a robotic arm attaches a part on an assembly line.

Let’s take a look at some of the more common business processes companies successfully outsource to a BPO company partner.

Customer Experience

Customer experience is truly one of the most important elements and business processes of any company, anywhere, of any size. From small “ma and pa” main street businesses to Fortune 100 companies, the quality of customer support often defines the company’s reputation.

There are a thousand ways a company can go wrong outsourcing customer support business processes. The path that leads to all of them is paved by sacrificing quality in favor of affordability.

It would be difficult to find someone who hasn’t had a bad experience with customer experience outsourcing, which only further stresses the importance of smartsourcing and choosing the right BPO provider.

At AwesomeOS, we specialize in providing top-tier customer care business processes to our clients’ customers, all while providing enhanced customer experiences.

Several factors play into ensuring customer experience outsourcing serves to enhance customer experiences, including language barriers, call center wait times, and customer experience representative proficiency.

We do this by offering extensive training programs to all of our agents to ensure that they provide quality customer service specific to your company's needs. It’s important to us that all of our customer support specialists receive the proper education and training needed to prepare them for their next opportunity in order to deliver top-tier service to customers.

This is one business process that a company cannot afford to cut corners or outsource lightly. Sure, it may be cheaper to outsource to an offshore BPO company, but your customers will easily become frustrated when they cannot communicate effectively with the person they’ve called to help them.

In other words, cost savings cannot reign supreme over quality and customer satisfaction, or else your competitive advantage will be significantly impacted in a negative way.

Information Technology

Technology advances at a pace that is truly impossible to keep up with. Not only do hardware advancement and innovation happen on what seems to be an hourly basis, but software advances as well.

With these advances comes the need for new equipment, new training, new software resources, new capital investments, and new threats to cyber security. All of these aforementioned needs can be summed into one word – expensive.

It is often far more cost-efficient to outsource most of your information technology business processes than it is to conduct in-house development. Information technology BPO vendors and companies bear the brunt of these expenses in exchange for contract rates that are a fraction of the costs you would endure in-house.

Human Resources

Human resources is a business process that most businesses cannot go without. Unless you are a one-person operation, you need some form of human resource business process.

Federal, state, and local laws and regulations can make human resources operations very tedious and difficult.

In lieu of this, hiring experts and experienced managers to complete these tasks is essential to ensuring you don’t inadvertently violate someone’s worker’s rights. Naturally, these experts and managers don’t come cheap.

Onshore outsourcing or offshore outsourcing services in the BPO industry can optimize this aspect of your business model, granting your company cost-effective access to human resources talent without requiring the same level or volume of capital investments.

Manufacturing

Manufacturing is a commonly outsourced business need, almost equal to that of customer care. While many companies are great at creating, designing, and innovating, not all are great at actually manufacturing those creations.

From major clothing brands to technology sector brands, manufacturing business processes are often outsourced to achieve higher quality manufactured products, reduce operating costs, and increase productivity.

What About Startups?

Well-established companies often utilize the benefits of outsourcing work to third-party service providers, helping them accomplish their goals, objectives, and tasks. What about startups and new small businesses?

The age or size of a company does not dictate whether business process outsourcing is a smart move; in fact, the opposite is true.

As a startup, you have a greater need for BPO than companies that are established because you’re starting from scratch.

It’s similar to when you first move out of your parent's house or your college dorm room and move into your own apartment or house. Because this is your first time living on your own, you’ve got a lot of stuff to buy, like pots and pans, plates, cups, silverware, living room, and bedroom furniture, cleaning supplies, food, condiments, blankets, towels, rags, and you get the picture.

Once acquired, these one-time upfront costs will largely go away, but they require a huge investment initially. This is exactly what it’s like being a startup.

Outsourcing, however, is the parent that can loan you some old furniture, pots and pans, towels, and blankets at a much lower cost and give you a better footing as you set out on your new adventure.

Of course, starting a new business from the dream up is much more complicated than moving out on your own, but you get the picture. The benefits of BPO can provide you with the necessary expertise and core business functions to succeed and survive the early years.

Key Takeaways

Business processes literally make it possible for businesses to function. Without them, nothing would happen. No shoes would be made. No photo would be printed. No computer would be built. No hospital could save lives. No restaurant could serve food.

Improving business processes should be a continuing mission that is never abandoned. Always strive to find areas where your business can improve its processes. Sometimes that will involve outsourcing. Sometimes, it won’t. But it should always be pursued.

BPO can be your best friend or your worst enemy, and we want it to be the former, not the latter. When making decisions on what types of business functions and business processes you want to outsource, ensure that it is done with a focus on providing a greater product and experience for your customers and not only cost reduction.

We’re Awesome

At AwesomeOS, we believe we are awesome at being a BPO company partner that works to be more than some company that provides a service for you and your customers, but an extension instead.

That means we prioritize customer satisfaction, transparency, affordability, enhanced customer experiences, and innovation. Customer care and customer experiences are our products — our core function — if you will. Because of that, we can elevate your customer experience business process to give you a competitive advantage and a lasting, loyal customer base.

Give us a call, connect with our social media or website, and let us join you on your journey to discover how awesome BPO can be!

Sources:

Business Process 101: Definition, Steps and Example [Guide for 2023] | Kissflow

Presbyterian to outsource physician recruitment | Albuquerque Journal

Is the offshore model the solution for Israeli tech’s chronic worker deficiencies | Ctech

Managing outsourced manufacturing in an age of disruption | E&T Magazine