BPO involves contracting third-party vendors to provide specific business functions. Although at first BPO solely applied to manufacturing entities, it now applies to the outsourcing of services as well.
Usually, companies and firms outsource to third-party firms in foreign countries with lower labor rates to save costs. But now you can outsource as an individual or professional either to firms in your own country, or to independent freelancers as opposed to companies.
There are two main types of BPO services: the back office and the front office. Back office services include jobs with no customer interaction such as billing, maintaining records, and accounting.
Front office services, on the other hand, include customer-facing jobs like customer service, sales, and tech support.
Outsourcing non-core business functions allows your company to be far more flexible. Firstly, you don’t have to invest in fixed assets and can convert them to variable costs. It also increases your flexibility as far as managing your resources is concerned, and helps you adapt faster to industry changes.
Outsourcing some of your business processes can be very cost-effective. You can save from investing in fixed assets and fixed costs. You can also redirect these funds for your core business functions.
BPO firms significantly increase the speed of your business processes. They offer fast response time, thus giving you more time to focus on the core functions of your business. This division of tasks speeds up the whole process which proves vital in business functions such as customer service.
Hiring a BPO firm also means outsourcing the expertise and exemplary services of its manpower. So, if you outsource your accounting tasks, rest assured that only expert CPAs and bookkeepers will handle your financial statements.
Communication problems between your company and the outsourcing firm may happen due to various reasons which may include language barriers. Misunderstandings and missed messages can happen, too. Both of you may also follow a different set of standards that may cause a conflict of ideas.
Aside from the language issues, differing time zones can also be a downside in hiring a BPO firm. It is hard to communicate anytime you want. Emails may go back and forth, leaving all work pending until everything is sorted out. It is usually the outsourcing company that adjusts their shifts to match your office hours.
Since you’re outsourcing tasks, you may lose control over the monitoring of how the outsourced staff performs the tasks in real time. But if you know and trust the BPO firm, this shouldn’t be a huge issue.
Common outsourcing tasks include human resource management, accounting, customer support and service, content writing, marketing, and web and graphic design.
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