What is BPO (Business Process Outsourcing)? BPO is the short form of Business Process Outsourcing. Business Process Outsourcing is a method for contracting to outsource any of your business operations. In previous, BPO was used only in the manufacturing industry, but now BPO solutions are available in all kinds of industries and businesses. In other words, business process outsourcing has changed the present scenario of the marketplace. Moreover, you may be surprised to know that Quality Assurance after software development or game development is also a BPO service. Get started with the BPO overview to know more.

Are you familiar with the term Business Process Outsourcing (BPO)?

Or do you know the basic terms of business process outsourcing companies but want to know the details?

Or, do you know the details of the Business Process Outsourcing process but want to learn about the pros and cons of BPO?

If you are in any of these three categories, you must read this BPO guide.

If you are a business student and found BPO solutions, you might think that this article is not related to me. But I can assure you that you will also be benefited from reading my BPO guide carefully.

This BPO overview is for all of you.

You will get here every inch of detail about the BPO overview and the BPO industry from the neck and crop and why hire BPO services are getting very popular among business worldwide.

So, read this BPO overview carefully, learn the BPO process and spin the ideas for growing your business, knowledge and profit.

What is BPO?

BPO
Figure 01: BPO – Business Process Outsourcing

Before going to further details of the BPO overview, let’s know what BPO actually is.

In BPO, B is mentioned for business. It can be any kind of business. That means BPO can be offered for all kinds of businesses.

P goes for the process. Process refers to the series of actions that should be done to reach any goal.

O is for outsourcing. Outsourcing means working from a distant place with a contract.

So, BPO refers to the idea of hiring someone or business process outsourcing companies to maintain any of your business processes.

In a business, there are a lot of processes to perform like, HR, Talent Acquisition, Accounts or Quality Assurance (QA) etc. But if any business is not able to perform all of these processes and decides to hire someone remotely to perform a specific role or maintain any specific department, it can contact business process outsourcing companies to handle that specific department or role.

This is called business process outsourcing.

So, in short, it means hiring third-party contractors to maintain front or back office functions.

It helps manufacturers by hiring third-party vendors who have the resources to help them get their products to the market faster and at cheaper production costs. It also helps them to avoid many in-house problems.

So, In a word, business process outsourcing means distributing your headache among the right persons who agree to solve this.

This BPO overview will help you to learn from history to the future. To know all the details, go through the BPO guide.

What is a BPO Company?

So, what is a BPO company?

Suppose you have a business of any size, like small, medium or large. You have 15 (Fifteen) or more or fewer workers in your office to perform various duties. But you do not want to maintain your HR department in your house. That’s why you are looking for some who will perform your HR duties remotely. So, you do not have to fix a room for them and other facilities that you provide in-house employees.

Business process outsourcing companies are the vendors that provide you with those kinds of business process services.

There are various kinds of processes in a business. If any business organization does not want to go through all of the business processes. In that case, they can hire other business process services companies ready to perform that specific role and remove the client’s headache for that specific work. The BPO industry is getting more popular nowadays.

I will include history here in this BPO overview so you can understand the topic from the core.

History of BPO

To learn the BPO overview, you must learn it from the history of the BPO industry.

In the 1970s, the outsourcing industry appeared first as a term.

In early 1988, law firms, businesses and microfilming companies started to be consulted for outsourced data entry to alleviate the costs. And then offshore data entry services were getting popular in US firms. Maintaining a long-term relationship with the providers was also getting priority worldwide.

In the 1990s, the idea of outsourcing call centers to foreign markets increased. Since the US companies took initiatives to reduce their labor costs, they started to hire BPOs from countries like Bangladesh, the Philippines, and India.

What are the Categories of BPO?

Categories of BPO
Figure 02: Categories of BPO

There are three types of business process outsourcing depending on the distance of the vendors and the business process outsourcing companies. You can also call them business process outsourcing companies categories. I am including these categories in this BPO overview for you.

These are:

  • Offshore
  • Onshore/ Domestic
  • Nearshore

Offshore BPO

Offshore outsourcing describes the situation when an organization contracts for business process services provided by a BPO company in a foreign country. These types of BPO companies are called offshore vendors.

Onshore/ Domestic BPO

Onshore outsourcing services refer to the extent to which both the vendors and the buyers are from the same country.

Onshore BPO is also called domestic outsourcing.

Nearshore BPO

Another category I added to my BPO overview is the domestic category. It shows the proximity of the BPO company and the hiring company. Whenever business companies hire BPO companies from the neighboring country or nearby country, it is called nearshore business process outsourcing.

What are the BPO Models?

BPO Models
Figure 03: BPO Models

Here I am adding two models depending on the services offered by the business process outsourcing companies in this BPO overview. Which will help you to learn about BPO management.

These models are:

  • Horizontal Services
  • Vertical Services

Horizontal Services

When a BPO provider offers only one service to many customers in different industries at once, the situation is called horizontal services. Customer support is the most popular example of horizontal service.

Banking and government organizations, retail, startups and e-commerce companies are all clients for horizontal services.

Vertical Services

Another model I will describe in the BPO solutions is vertical services. Vertical services are exactly the opposite side of horizontal services. When a BPO provider offers different services to customers in the same industry, it is called a vertical business process outsourcing service. Back-office support for banks is an example of vertical services.

Loan processing, customer support and fraud detection are the vertical services for the bank.

What are the Types of BPO?

Explaining the Business Process Outsourcing Types in the BPO overview
Figure 04: Types of BPO

Depending on the services and contract type, I am including five kinds of business process outsourcing in this BPO overview. These types are:

  • KPO (Knowledge process outsourcing)
  • LPO (Legal process outsourcing)
  • RPO (Research process outsourcing)
  • PMO (Project management outsourcing)
  • ITES (Information Technology Enabled Services)

What is KPO?

The KPO services mean Knowledge process outsourcing. That indicates knowledge-based outsourcing.

In this BPO service, you can hire a  third-party provider for its expertise in a particular field related to highly knowledge-based fields. The education, healthcare, engineering, finance and insurance sectors business process outsourcing are the perfect example of KPO.

What is LPO?

You might have known about the position of legal advisor. Business companies hire a lawyer or someone adept at laws and regulations and solve the company’s legal issues.

Legal process outsourcing is something like that. BPO companies help business companies by giving them legal support. So, LPO offers a service that involves performing legal functions for clients, like preparing documents, legal research and legal advice.

LPO generally perform back-office tasks like HR or regulatory compliance.

What is RPO?

RPO refers to research process outsourcing, one of the most important BPO processes. In this service, the BPO industry offers research services to its clients.

That means the business companies depend on research but do not want to go through the process directly. Or do not want to perform the processes in-house.

They can contact business process outsourcing companies that offer RPO services.

The areas like investments, pharmaceuticals and marketing firms usually need this service.

What is PMO?

PMO is the short form of project management outsourcing.

That means you do not want to perform your project management in-house. So, you hire some people or contact a BPO company or business process outsourcing company to manage your project management data from a distant place.

These kinds of BPO services are called pmo or project management outsourcing.

What is ITES?

Another type of business process outsourcing is ITES.

ITES means Information Technology Enabled Services

BPO services also offer information technology-enabled services (ITES). In this category, IT infrastructure plays a key role in outsourcing. ITES BPO stands for providing support and services to client companies to process large volumes of data.

ITES business process services include customer support centers, helpdesks, data warehouse services etc.

What are the Benefits of BPO?

Figure 05: Benefits of BPO

There are a lot of advantages of business process outsourcing. In this state of my BPO guide, I will introduce you to the benefits of business process outsourcing and why you should hire a BPO or why BPO is important.

So, these are:

  • Financial benefits
  • Improved flexibility
  • Increased competitive advantage
  • Higher quality and better performance
  • Ease Employee Workloads
  • Access to innovations in the business process
  • Expanded coverage
  • Language Requirements

Financial Benefits

Most business organizations, like the BPO industry, save their costs. It can be in many ways, such as tax, space rent, and other facilities that they must offer their employees.

If you want to hire an employee to perform a certain job function internally, that will cost you a specific amount. But BPO solutions can reduce these costs by outsourcing this job to an external party or company in a less cost-intensive country. Which will reduce the overall cost of performing that job function.

Improved Flexibility

Imagine a situation, according to the market demand for on-season business; you might need extra support. But the extra employees will not be necessary after the ongoing season. In that situation, what should you do?

BPO solutions are flexible in solving that kind of problem.

BPO management can guide you on how to modify the outsourced business process and react to dynamic market changes.

It also helps you identify the nature of your business, whether you need short-term staff to help you cover busy seasons or unforeseeable spikes in demand.

BPO companies can quickly scale up temporary teams for the busy season or provide shared services where employees aren’t specific to your company but are available to help as required.

Increased Competitive Advantage

Imagine your company as an idea-generating farm. But you do not have the workforce to produce the amount according to the market demand.

In these cases, the BPO industry can solve your problems in a minute. You can easily contract with business process outsourcing companies for the production only or include sales and accounts etc.

You just provide your ideas, and the BPO management will turn your ideas into production, in other words, profit.

Higher Quality and Better Performance

The business process outsourcing industry makes operations more manageable. 

You can hire specialized knowledge or skills from third-party providers that may otherwise not be immediately available to you.

The BPO industry is composed of practitioners with superior educational and professional backgrounds. So that you will get the right combination of:

  • Skills
  • Knowledge
  • Values

That makes them highly qualified for your staffing needs.

The hyper-specialization of BPO companies means they can deliver higher-quality work. Whether it is data entry or web development, or back office operations.

You can combine higher quality and better performance from BPO management to remove your pain and reach your goal easily.

Ease Employee Workloads

Do you know that by distributing the work to third-party business process outsourcing vendors, you can reduce the work pressure on your employees?

That will help them to focus on their core duties and generate innovative ideas. The most interesting thing is that the BPO guide helps you reduce employee workloads but brings the ultimate profit to you.

Access to Innovations in the Business Process

You will be surprised to know that the BPO industry always keeps an eye on new technology. So that they do not miss any tools or skills related to the market demand.

In doing that, the BPO process invests heavily in modern tools to enhance its services in the business process areas you hire them for.

And that helps you to grow your company with market trends and address potential challenges through technological innovations.

BPO solutions are more likely to know about advancing their specialized business process areas. It has been proved that BPO management is more likely to invest in new technologies, such as automation, that can improve:

  • Speed
  • Cost
  • Quality

By hiring a BPO company, you can utilize these three things in your business:

  • Their innovative ideas
  • Modern tools
  • Skills at a low cost and time.

Expanded Coverage

Do you know that business process outsourcing has broken the boundary of localization?

Suppose you belong to a country. That does not mean you cannot start a new business in a completely new environment in any other country, right? 

So, now what is BPO solutions doing here?

The BPO industry eliminates the challenges associated with starting a business in a new location, market or environment.

You can establish your company in a new community through a third-party provider while following legal and professional standards.

Suppose you need 24/7 call center operations. In that case, you can often quickly gain that capability by contracting with BPO solutions with:

  • Around-the-clock capabilities
  • Enabling a follow-the-sun business model
  • Multiple geographic locations

That will allow you to keep your footstep worldwide. And will let you set up a virtual office anywhere in the world.

Which ultimately helps you deliver a better customer experience to more customers via regionally tailored services and enhanced support and assure your global presence.

Language Requirements

If you run a business, it is very natural that you will hire employees for the business from your local area, I mean from the same country.

But, the BPO industry offers you to hire experts from worldwide. So that you can utilize them to overcome your language barrier. That will help you to expand your business over the main office.

It will greatly benefit you to grow as market demand and make the whole country your market.

Future Directions of the BPO Industry

Experts think that BPO will never go away. Compared to the encyclopedia books with the Blockbuster videos, we can say that our world will never go backward from technology. The idea of globalization and the invention of the internet has made it much easier to bring the whole world together.

In this BPO guide, I aim to provide you with BPO solutions with its future direction.

BPO is also a reflection of the idea of ‘Globalization’ by Marshall McLuhan. The world is moving around so fast. And the internet plays the role of fuel in this process. Business outsourcing services help hire employees with low wages and skills from different areas.

Though, many think that RPA will replace the idea of BPO. But the human brain’s need will never be replaced by RPA (Robotic Process Automation).

The BPO industry is also expanding among third-world countries, as mentioned in the BPO Trends Section.

So, you can assume now that the BPO industry will not be replaceable by anything. The next world will be BPO’s world.

What are the Risks of BPO?

You have already understood the benefits of BPO solutions through this BPO guide. But there are also some challenges in this field. So, I am including these challenges in this BPO guide.

These risks are:

  • Communication
  • Overdependence
  • Unanticipated Cost
  • Regulatory Compliance
  • Security and Compliance
  • Increased Potential for Disruption
  • Customer Satisfaction and Quality

Communication

Effective communication with the outsourced providers is very important to meet your goal.

Sometimes you may face communication problems with your BPO network, or there may be cultural barriers.

In the case of offshore business process outsourcing, you may face a language barrier that can affect your efficiency. And it can be costly sometimes.

Overdependence

You must ensure that the key objectives of your assigned work are performing well. But after contracting with the external provider, you depend on them. Overdependence on the external provider can cause you to lose more cost and quality.

Unanticipated Costs

Sometimes the organizations fail to estimate the ratio of their work. When they contract with a third-party provider to do the work, they identify that it is not that simple. In these situations, the organization must increase the anticipated cost. So, low cost should not be your first priority.

Regulatory Compliance

When you hire a BPO vendor, you are interconnected with many factors of the company, including regulatory requirements. So, ensure that the vendors you are hiring align with the laws of your organization and that the BPO vendors adhere to the rules that govern your organization’s outsourced work.

Security and Compliance

As you have to share some sensitive data with the BPO management, that can create another point of entry for bad actors. In these cases, you should always be careful while choosing business process outsourcing companies.

Increased Potential for Disruption

Your organization must monitor for issues that could interrupt or permanently end the relationship with your outsourced provider. This interruption can be financial or workplace problems at the outsourced provider, natural disasters, geopolitical instability,  or changes in economic circumstances. You must consider such risks and devise strategies to cope with these situations.

Customer Satisfaction and Quality

As you contract with the business process services before seeing their work, there might be a chance of creating dissatisfaction with them, or the quality of their work might not satisfy you. So, before contracting, verify them.

How to Overcome the Risks?

Now you are familiar with both the advantages and the risks of BPO management. But you can overcome the risks and gain the final goal of your organization. So follow this BPO guide and let BPO solutions solve your problems without any risks.

  • Study the BPO company you are planning to hire.
  • Go through their website and previous work.
  • Research their previous client.
  • Find whether they worked with an international organization like UNICEF, UN etc.
  • Find the impact of their previous work and client satisfaction.
  • Build up strong communication with your vendors.

Where is BPO Used?

Now you have the BPO guide, and you know what actually business process outsourcing means, right? But you have to know the sectors where BPO solutions are used. That’s why here I am adding the sectors of BPO where they are being used in my BPO guide. Business process outsourcing is usually performed in two operations.

These are:

  • Back office operations
  • Front office operations

Back Office Operations

Back office operations BPO stands for performance carry-out outside of the front work. That means it indicates behind the scene actions.

The back office functions aren’t client-facing. The examples will be more understandable.

Some of the back office operations are:

Front Office Operations

Unlike back office operations, front office operations face clients directly. They can also perform the revenue-generating process for the company. That means the actions and responsibilities in an office that usually come to the front to perform our front office operations.

The examples will help you understand more clearly. Front office operations examples are:

  • Sales
  • Marketing
  • Customer service
  • Staffing

Difference Between BPO and Call Center

Difference Between Business Process Outsourcing and Call Center
Figure 06: Differences Between BPO and Call Center

Are you confused about the difference between business process outsourcing services and a call center? Basically, the call center is one kind of BPO solutions. For example, a manufacturing company can hire a contact center to outsource its customer service.

But business process outsourcing is a vast area. Not only the customer service or call centers but also accounting, payroll or similar administrative tasks can be outsourced under BPO.

As mentioned above, business process outsourcing can perform many actions, such as back-office and front-office operations. The call center is an action of the front office services.

How Does BPO Work?

Outsourcing business process services depend on a variety of reasons like the ages, types and sizes of the organization. It also depends on the market forces and economic conditions.

For example, a startup company needs to contact the BPO solutions to outsource back-office and front-office functions since it does not have the in-house resources to perform them. 

So, why does an established company opt to outsource BPO solutions?

Established companies hire business process outsourcing companies to do a job better or cheaper.

Management experts suggest enterprise executives:

  • Identify the front or back office functions that can be outsourced
  • Determine if shifting that task to an outsourcing provider makes sense.
  • Shift the work from in-house to the external provider

These functions impact management, staff, existing workflows and processes. It can also affect the organization’s finances not only by shifting from the internal function to the outsourced providers but also by corporate taxes and reporting requirements.

The organization may need to invest in new technology to enable a smooth workflow for the outsourced provider. The cost of that technology depends on the scope of the function being outsourced and the infrastructure of the technology in place at both enterprises.

  • Now prepare a list of requirements
  • Share that with the third-party vendors
  • Calculate the cost and gain

BPO solutions work in two ways.

Time and Materials Contracts:

This type of contract usually depends on the time. That means for what time range you are hiring a vendor and what materials they need to perform the responsibilities.

Fixed-price Contracts:

In this type, you can hire a company to perform specific work for you and offer a fixed price for doing that job.

But it will be great if you go for a service-level agreement. The service-level agreement refers to the idea of payment depending on the service quality and the metrics for determining success.

Some organizations also negotiate with the BPO providers on whether they have the following:

  • Specific workers on teams dedicated to their work
  • Workers are available 24/7 or only during set hours
  • Workers location.

What is the BPO Process?

It will be beneficial if you know the BPO process before contracting with the BPO vendor. In the middle of this BPO overview I am adding the BPO process for you.

Business Process Outsourcing
Figure 07: Process of BPO

The BPO process follows 5 steps. Follow this BPO guide to hire the right BPO vendor.

These are:

  • Identify needs
  • Weigh the costs and benefits of outsourcing
  • Evaluate BPO solutions options
  • Choose a vendor
  • Manage the relationship

Identify Needs

In the very first step, you should identify your problem, in other words, the pain point. After detecting your need, you can decide that you should contact business process outsourcing companies.

Weigh Costs and Benefits of Outsourcing

Now you are aware of your needs. In the second step, you should measure the weight of the costs. You can measure it through research, market trends and the benefits you are going to achieve by doing the job. And you should measure the cost according to your in-house team.

Evaluate BPO Options

Now, you research what is BPO and why you should choose it. After the research, you will find that many BPO companies offer various kinds of business services. So, you should decide what options you will go for and the benefits you will achieve.

Choose a Vendor

After knowing what is BPO and all the details about it, you should choose a BPO vendor with whom you will sign to do the specific service. Before going to the agreement, please go through the risks and the ways to overcome the risks mentioned above.

Manage the Relationship

Remember that after assigning your vendor to work, you are not done. In my opinion, you should be more careful in this step than in the previous steps. Because managing the relationship with your contracts will eventually reach your ultimate goal. And not only before achieving the goal but also after reaching the goal, you should maintain the relationship with the BPO networks for further contracts and new idea generation.

Which BPO Services Businesses can Provide?

Now you know all the terms and processes to hire a BPO company to outsource your business process. But before contracting with any BPO provider, you must know the services a BPO company can provide.

Here are the top BPO services that businesses can provide:

How to Choose a BPO Service Provider?

Explaining the Ways of Choosing a Provider
Figure 08: Choosing a BPO Service Provider

In this part of my BPO solutions, I am providing ideas on how you can choose the right provider for your company. Business process outsourcing networks are very effective in supporting your business objectives. It also helps you to be more innovative, agile, flexible and competitive.

So, while contracting with a network, you should not think about the cost only. You must consider how well the provider can deliver you on those other points. To know them, you must follow the BPO guide so that you can evaluate them to determine if they have the following requirements:

  • Adequate understanding of your organization’s business and industry
  • Capacity to meet the current requirements
  • Capacity to meet future needs
  • Understanding and ability to meet regulatory and compliance requirements
  • Understanding and ability to address data privacy need
  • Reporting metrics to decide whether it is delivering on contractual standards
  • The geographical locations.

Why Do Companies Outsource Their Business Processes?

Now I intend to explain in the BPO solutions why companies are interested in outsourcing business processes. Business process outsourcing is getting more popular in recent years. Business companies outsource their processes for several reasons it is a strategic decision to gain competitive advantages. If you follow this BPO guide, you can also be benefited in several ways:

  • Decrease costs
  • Expand global presence
  • Become more flexible
  • Enhance speed and efficiency
  • Focus on core competencies

Decrease Costs

Business process outsourcing helps businesses decrease costs, as keeping your permanent in-house employee is more costly than outsourcing.

So, companies hire business services networks.

Expand Global Presence

Outsourcing can grow your company globally. To expand their global presence, business organizations contact business process outsourcing networks. It helps to increase their opportunities worldwide.

Become More Flexible

BPO increases flexibility. You can adjust the operative direction of how the required processes will be performed. If your current vendor has the same problems adjusting to new requirements, there is always the chance of changing vendors.

Enhance Speed and Efficiency

When you hire an outside vendor, they will invest their time and resources in perfecting their specific services. As they are more experienced and have specialized machines and optimized processes. So that they should be able to perform tasks faster and more efficiently than in-house teams.

Focus on Core Competencies

Naturally, different companies within the same industry define their core differently. For example, in a digital agency, some focus on web design as one of their core strengths and outsource only web development. So outsourcing services increase to focus on the core competencies of a business company.

BPO Market Size

As mentioned above, business process outsourcing is getting more popular in recent years. It is predicted that the global business process outsourcing market will also continue to expand in the coming decades.

Reference of Global Business Process Outsourcing Market Size
Figure 09: Global BPO Market Size

In 2021, the global business process outsourcing market was valued at $245.9 billion (Two Hundred and Forty-Five Point Nine). From 2022 to 2030, it is projected to expand at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 9.1%( Nine Point One Percent) and will reach $525.2 billion (Five Hundred and Twenty Five Point Two).

In this stage of my BPO guide, I will describe the current market trends.

Previously, the BPO industry had significant concerns about covering up skill shortages, political gridlock and increased trade protectionism.

But now, the BPO industry clearly shows increased optimism about market growth and reduced regulations. Innovative technologies like process automation and cloud computing encourage businesses to gain benefits.

It will be clearer if you go through all the business process outsourcing trends that I have added to my BPO overview.

Trend 1 – New Technologies are Emerging

The BPO industry has provided businesses with cost-effective solutions over the years. To reduce costs and accelerate growth, BPO companies use emerging technologies such as social media, cloud computing, software development, eCommerce development and automation.

There are three major trends expected to emerge in BPO technology in 2022.

  • Emphasis on Process Automation
  • Focus on Social Media Management Tools
  • Investments in Cloud Computing

Emphasis on Process Automation

You might be familiar with process automation. In recent years RPA has been gaining popularity in the BPO industry.

RPA refers to Robotic Process Automation. RPA helps to complete work faster by using bots and artificial intelligence on a user interface. Which is at a cheaper rate.

Focus on Social Media Management Tools

Previously, Interactive Voice Response (IVR) was used to transfer a call to the correct representative.

But now, companies want to invest in real-time customer engagement. It will allow them to gain first-hand product insights and turn issues into new products or solutions, which will help them to address future problems. And consumers are also demanding multi-channel communications, including social media, live chat etc.

So BPO companies are focusing more on tools and capabilities to offer consumers a wide range of social media management services.

Investments in Cloud Computing

Most Small & Medium Businesses (SMBs) are now adopting virtual storage and systems to counter a lack of data centers, hardware and software. They also lack the personnel which is required to implement new technology.

Research says that 77% (Seventy-seven percent) of enterprises have at least one application or a portion of their enterprise computing infrastructure in the cloud.

Trend 2 – Multitasking to Overcome Skill Shortage

Before, BPO and call center were synonymous. But now, business process outsourcing includes internal business functions like HR, accounting, coding, web design, and other tasks.

Since automation performs various roles, the existing BPO employees suffer from a skill shortage. Not to lose the current BPO employees, the renowned BPO companies emphasized increasing their employees’ skills and building them as a multitasker.

Trend 3 – Startups Becoming BPO Customers

Startup companies usually work under a lot of pressure to succeed in a limited time with limited resources. In the past few years, startups have come up with an enormous surge.

These small businesses often look overseas for cost-effective labor with a small budget to hire talent. Many companies are using the talent outsourcing model to build their successful business ideas.

In 2022, the trend is becoming popular that BPOs and startups have become more mutually dependent.

Startups are dependent on business process outsourcing to provide talent at lower costs and complete tedious tasks such as trading and recruitment. And in turn, it helps outsourced businesses to improve their quality of work and produces higher revenue by utilizing the most recent technologies.

Trend 4 – Increased Transparency

You might know that previously, only large multinational BPO companies were an active part of this industry.

But I will let you know how smaller companies can increase their transparency by hiring a vendor through this BPO overview.

Transparency can build better partnerships between clients and suppliers. Which leads to business innovation and better investment options.

Most clients were unfamiliar with technical terms such as technology stacks, challenges areas, plans and other processes. So, it was challenging to update the policies and the contracts during that time.

Besides, the providers were not fully informed about their capabilities, organizational structure and investment areas.

In that situation, the smaller companies urged the business process outsourcing companies to increase transparency and share their policies, prices and contracts.

You will agree that to maintain trust between the hirer and vendors, a high level of transparency is required.

Moreover, many organizations sometimes have to adjust their policies to keep their contracts with trust and transparency to more trustworthy organizations. Which saves them from losing their business with the big companies.

Trend 5 – Politics to Affect Investments

The fifth trend that I am adding to this BPO solutions is politics.

Politics directly impact trade, agreements, regulations, tax policies and visas. 

Sometimes the government takes initiatives to improve the country’s overall trading system, including outsourcing. To do this, they can start a campaign like the US President Trump. The slogan was “Buy American, Hire American.”

Entering into a new market of a new country also reflects on the processing of new economic zones and infrastructure. 

Trend 6 – Continued Growth in Top Outsourcing Countries

Now in trend 6 of my BPO guide, I will include the outsourcing countries with continuous growth.

It is hoped that established outsourcing destinations will continue to grow in 2022, coupled with a few challenges. These countries are:

  • Bangladesh
  • India
  • The Philippines
  • Malaysia

Bangladesh has also proved its improved knowledge and workforce in the BPO industry, including cybersecurity, mobile app development, social media, data science, and mobile app development.

Though RPA (Robotic Process Automation) has been taken to the place of doing simple jobs, Bangladeshi BPO solutions are also ready to re-skill their workforce in playing new job roles like Contact Center Services, Customer Support Services, Virtual Assistant Services, IT Enabled Services (ITES), Content Moderation Services, Data Services, eCommerce Support Services, Photo Editing Services, Software Quality Assurance Services and Web Research Services.

Trend 7 – New Outsourcing Destinations to Emerge in 2022

By this time, new uprising countries are participating in this industry and rising up as new outsourcing destinations. I am adding these destinations to the BPO solutions.

These destinations are:

  • Bulgaria
  • Romania
  • Egypt
  • Mexico

The fastest internet connection among EU countries, government tax incentives, political and economic stability and booming infrastructure have built a great opportunity for these countries.

Business Process Outsourcing Cost?

Hiring a vendor cost is not fixed.

It depends on the tasks, deadlines, quality and other relevant things.

If you are willing to contract with a provider, you should know the determining factors that affect how much you will cost for the contract.

The cost-determining factors of business process outsourcing are:

  • Type of Work
  • Level of Support Required
  • Location of Service Provider
  • Level of Experience of Employees
  • Length of Contract

Type of Work

Not only this sector, but before starting any job or activity, we always try to know the type of work, right?

So, it is natural that more complex tasks will cost you more. It will come with a higher price tag. For example, if you hire a virtual assistant or call center operations, it will cost you less than outsourcing legal or financial services.

Level of Support Required

Another thing that works as an element of fixing the cost of a business outsourcing is the level of support you require.

I am adding three types of levels of support in my BPO guide. These are:

  • Daily
  • Once per week
  • 24/7

So, what level of support you want and the availability will play a role in determining the cost.

Location of Service Provider

You can easily understand this factor.

The price of a specific service in a third-world country will not be the same as in a first-world country. Different locations refer to different living, lifestyles, employment costs and other related issues. So, these will be counted into BPO services costs.

Level of Experience of BPO Employees

Experience always plays an important role in all kinds of work. We always prioritize an expert over a newcomer. That means the experience will cost you extra. So, hiring an experienced back-end software development team will cost you far more than a low-skilled one.

Length of Contract

The final factor is the length of the contract. That means for how long you want to hire a BPO company. As mentioned above, the contracts are two types:

  • Time and materials contracts
  • Fixed-price contracts

So, the length of the engagement will decide your cost for hiring.

What is BPO Software?

You might know that for providing BPO process services like Contact Center or Technical Support Services, there is a lot of softwares. You will be more benefited if you might choose to integrate your system with business process management software. So, I am adding my BPO solutions with this softwares.

Most renowned BPO softwares are:

  • Kissflow
  • Pipefy
  • Appian

This softwares helps companies streamline their workflows and define, deploy and manage automated business processes.

But, while you are evaluating BPO software, you have to consider some Must Have Features (MVP).

These are:

  • Automation
  • Integrations
  • Workflow views
  • Scalability

Automation

BPO software must disable your company from doing repetitive tasks. For this, it should include automation. That will increase workflow speed and accuracy, which ultimately will help to improve quality.

Integrations

Business apps and databases are growing day by day. You need integration to offer a seamless experience for employees and customers to keep pace with the growing business apps and databases.

Workflow views

Who doesn’t want to keep track of his company’s progress? Outsourcing business processes can create security issues. To control and visit your company’s progress, you need workflow views.

Scalability

You must need scalability to adapt to your workflow. From time to time, your business will grow or change. BPO software will allow you to accommodate the changes.

What are the Goals of BPO Software?

Goals of Business Outsourcing Software
Figure 10: Goals of BPO Software

If you think that, why do I need BPO software? Then, the goals of BPO software will make it clear to you.

The goals of BPO software implementation are:

  • Making outsourcing easier 
  • Managing while creating a constant
  • Keeping a stable system for internal and external business parties.

When CRM Works in BPO?

Sometimes you may find a relationship with CRM. But you may be confused about it.

No worries. In my BPO overview, I will provide you with direction about when it works.

CRM means Customer Relationship Management.

It is one of the main tasks performed by outsourced companies. Most popular BPO services like call centers or virtual assistants use CRM to build strong relationships with their customers. Customer Relationship Management enables companies to attract and convert them into leads. It helps retain customers and provides better services through business process outsourcing. 

You can organize workflows and processes in customer service while saving costs and resources.

Where is the Complexity of BPO Relationships?

If you are contracting with a BPO vendor for your BPO process, you must know the complexity of BPO relationships.

The BPO relationship refers to the fact that before signing any contract or a draft with a BPO provider, it’s good to analyze the characteristics of the partnership you are going to agree with.

These are:

  • Independence
  • Complexity
  • Strategic Information

These considerations will help you understand the relationship you are building for the specific job you are hiring the vendors.

There are two kinds of BPO relationships:

  • Strategic relationships
  • Hands-off relationships

Strategic BPO Relationships

The strategic relationships maintain a mutual adaptation for developing a service project or manufacturing a product.

Working with strategic BPO agencies develops a rich interaction around a non-trivial business function.

This kind of relationship is related to high complexity. So, you must maintain a strategic BPO relationship carefully from both sides.

You should interact with the providers focusing on coordinating activities such as process development and planning.

Hands-off BPO Relationships

You do not have to coordinate with the BPO provider within the outsourcing partnership in this process.

The main communication and managerial priorities are the cost, delivery dates and quality standards fixed by negotiating.

The relationship stays at an arms-length distance. That costs you less and gives your vendors more independence at work. You do not require a good cultural fit with the BPO provider in a hands-off relationship.

Conclusion

In conclusion of this BPO overview, I can say that business process outsourcing is a process to send your headache to experts who can solve it easily. That does not mean that you are not capable of doing that function. BPO solutions refer to the fact that if you drive to directly solve all the functions by yourself or by hiring in-house employees, that will cost you more, not only money but also other facilities. To run your businesses with less pressure, business process outsourcing serves for. Let me know your opinion about this BPO overview, whether you benefited from this BPO guide or not, in the comment section.

BPO Guide FAQs:

There are some questions always asked for BPO solutions, like how much it costs or how to choose business process outsourcing companies. You can get the answers to your questions here in the BPO overview and these are:

What are the Basics of BPO?

BPO means Business Process Outsourcing. The basics of BPO is to outsource any specific process of your business. In a business, there are a lot of processes to perform. But, if anybody does not want to perform any specific process or processes in business, they can contract with BPO companies to perform that specific job. This is called BPO.

What are the Steps in BPO?

There are five steps in the BPO process. These are:
1. Identify needs
2. Weigh the costs and benefits of outsourcing
3. Evaluate options
4. Choose a vendor
5. Manage the relationship

What are the 5 BPO Services?

BPO solutions offer so many BPO services. The most demanding 5 BPO services are:
1. Contact Center Services
2. Customer Support Services
3. Virtual Assistant Services
4. IT Enabled Services (ITES)
5. Content Moderation Services

Is BPO a call center?

Basically, the call center is one kind of BPO. For example, a manufacturing company can hire a call center to outsource its customer service.
But business process outsourcing is a vast area. Not only the customer service or call centers but also accounting, payroll or similar administrative tasks can be outsourced under BPO.

What does BPO mean?

BPO means Business Process Outsourcing. The basic meaning of BPO is to outsource any specific business process. In a business, there are a lot of processes to perform. But, if anybody does not want to perform any specific process or processes in business, they can contract with BPO companies to perform that specific job. This is called BPO.

What are the Departments in BPO

BPO solutions offer so many BPO services. The most demanding 5 BPO services are:
1. Contact Center Services
2. Customer Support Services
3. Virtual Assistant Services
4. IT Enabled Services (ITES)
5. Content Moderation Services

Further, some other demanding departments are:
6. HR (Human Resources)
7. Accounts
8. Marketing
9. Sales

Should You Use BPO Services?

If you have any business process that you do not want to perform, you should contact BPO services without any hesitation. It will help you to:
1. Decrease costs
2. Expand global presence
3. Become more flexible
4. Enhance speed and efficiency
5. Focus on core competencies.

What Type of Work is BPO?

Business Process Outsourcing is a process where any business organization can contract with an external service to perform a specific process of that business.
This can be two types:
1. Front-office operations
2. Back-office operations

What Are the Types of BPO Companies?

There are three kinds of BPO companies depending on their location from the client company. They are: 
1. Offshore
2. Onshore/ Domestic
3. Nearshore

This page was last edited on 27 February 2024, at 2:20 pm