With the ever-changing business environments, businesses have to look for ways to stay afloat. Organizations have spared no sweat in seeking ways of cutting costs while focusing more on their core operations. They have to look for mechanisms of improving the quality of their products to remain competitive in the market. Organizations have turned to business process outsourcing to achieve the goals above. It has proved to be an effective tool for various executives because it delivers results in no time. That is why business process outsourcing has been in an exponential growth in popularity.
Business process outsourcing is not as straightforward a process as it sounds. Some businesses find it easy, while others struggle with the considerations to ensure high performance and cost savings. This post will consider the best practices that will ensure the business process outsourcing makes a difference in your organization.
When looking at business growth and the prospect of outsourcing certain elements to others, you need to be sure that you’re doing whats right. Not just for you, but for your workforce and the prospects of the business long term. It can be really tough making difficult decisions, especially when they’re decisions that dictate whether your business will grow further or not. You can use certain things to help you make the right decision such as a decision matrix template or by trying to list all the pros and cons for each solution. Try not to make the decision on your own. Speak to your workforce, especially to the people who will be impacted by the decision. You want to make sure that the final choice is as informed as it can possibly be so that you can approach it with a certain level of confidence.
Tips to Grow your Business using Business process outsourcing
Centralization and consolidation of the infrastructure
Organizations should try centralizing and consolidating their business process outsourcing efforts. Most times, we outsource to save costs. However, doing so may end up fragmenting and displacing vital processes, tools, and people. Such arises from the search for an “ideal” combination of countries that a company should outsource its services to get the lowest cost.
Unlike outsourcing business processes like call centers to an expanded collection of locations, the company should consolidate and centralize the support services. By doing so, it can understand the increased quality, efficiency, and decreased costs. Thus, the company can thoroughly maintain the business processes streamlined. It is crucial in ensuring profits for the business.
Your performance level is only as good as your employees
Your employees are the most critical factor in business process outsourcing. Begin by identifying the responsibilities and roles of each resource. Also, evaluate the requirements in terms of skills for the BPO company’s employees. For instance, if a travel company decides to outsource its call center operations because of its global expansion, its employees must be multilingual. It eases the communications with their customers worldwide.
Organizations should consider leveraging an outsourcing partner who uses W-2 (only badge) resources versus subcontractor or temporary labor. It should also hire Business process outsourcing partners who use dedicated support over those that use the shared support model.
Organizations that hire and recruit W-2 personnel on dedicated support have better customer satisfaction and retention rates than organizations that do not use the dedicated support model. Organizations should look for experienced BPO companies that offer continuous training. It enables their employees to stay abreast with the changes in technology and customer environment. The outsourcing company should train its employees continuously. The comprehensive training enables them to be more consistent performance-wise. Ultimately, this results in better delivery of services to its customers.
Look for the right and best solutions for your organization
Technology has many emerging trends. It is growing at a very high rate nowadays. Organizations can use various customized solutions that allow outsourcing initiatives. Enterprises can use such initiatives to transition seamlessly within the client’s existing infrastructure. The most critical factor to consider is whether the outsourced company adheres to a specific security compliance standard. It would be best to consider whether the outsourced company understands the certifications that they need to be involved in business within an industry. For example, hospitality and retail companies have to meet the security standard for Payment Card Industry Data. These requirements ensure that the company’s processing, storing, or transmitting credit card data maintain and have a secure environment.
A successful business process outsourcing enhances the efficiency of the processes by allowing complete visibility with product management, knowledge management, and incident management workflows. A web-based ticketing system, operated and managed from call centers that are centrally located, does this.
Understand your growth plan
It is imperative to align the strategic goals to the long-term financial and business plans before embarking on outsourcing. Pinpoint the business process outsourcing companies that have a global presence that your organization is considering. For instance, for a logistics company that anticipates expanding and growing in western Europe in the next couple of years, having a local call center in western Europe may prove the best strategy. It ensures a seamless delivery of services based on language and infrastructure.
Track your KPIs (Key Performance Indicators)
For any business process outsourcing, SLM (service Level Measurement) plays a critical role. There are several performance metrics that an organization has to maintain when deciding to implement a business process outsourcing. Such metrics include consistent efficiency, quality, and productivity to its end-users and customers. Based on the industry, tracking the KPIs can give you the following key results;
- Increased productivity of the end-users
- Increased rates of customer satisfaction
- Reduced desk-side support (Tier 3) incidences
- There is a reduction in IT-related errors, and
- Increased revenues
For your organization to realize the value of Key Performance Indicators and make the necessary adjustments, it needs to implement a high-quality management process. This helps it monitor the SLMs and KPIs on a monthly or weekly basis.
Having seen how you can grow your business with BPO, what benefits accrue from business process outsourcing? Is it worth the effort?
Benefits of Business Process outsourcing
The following are the benefits that an organization gets from outsourcing its business processes;
- Outsourcing is cheaper compared to recruiting and hiring in-house employees.
- Business process outsourcing allows an organization to focus on its core competencies
- Outsourcing can increase or promote productivity in an organization
- Business process outsourcing guarantees expertise in all departments or fields
- Outsourcing helps in integrating technologies into an organization’s business processes
Conclusion
As we have seen above, Business process outsourcing can help your business grow to new heights. By following the tips above, your company can manufacture quality products that ensure an increased profit. It also gives you a competitive edge over your rivals. Business environments are constantly changing, and the business must stay abreast with technology to remain in the market. There are many benefits of business process outsourcing. However, business process outsourcing also has its disadvantages. Therefore, be keen when selecting a BPO company to avoid making losses.
