Business Process Outsourcing, or BPO, is among the most developed and practiced concepts in the world economy today. BPO means that a company assigns some or all of its non-core activities to a third party service provider. The company gives that provides control over the non-core processes. This innovative approach allows the outsourcing partner to provide additional services, complementary manpower, and automation equipment to perform seemingly routine and manual duties. BPO is usually implemented as a cost-saving measure, but it is also employed for purposes of increasing capacity and improving productivity.
BPO is not new in the global economy, but it has undergone several evolutions. It started with the typical model of onshore outsourcing, which involved tasks such as document copying, scanning, microfilming, data entry, and other routine office tasks. Eventually, companies began experimenting with near-shore outsourcing and of course offshore outsourcing. Today, BPO is classified into two categories: the back-office operations, which include billing, purchasing, and database management and the front-office operations, which deal with customer-related services like marketing or technical support.
The BPO industry however helpful is found to struggle with the geographical differences between the clients and its BPO employees. The majority of these problems may include cultural barriers and language and accent differences. These factors can often hinder the productivity of BPO staff, particularly when there is a project manager or someone in the middle who may serve as the communication middle-man between the Client and the BPO provider.
Although BPO is widely practiced, the key to success in engaging in offshore outsourcing is to choose the best business model that will possibly optimize revenues and increase customer satisfaction and retention. The traditional BPO methodology as discussed above, hinder companies in managing their staff directly and may not realize the expected cost-saving and productivity levels. However, a new model to BPO has emerged recently, which involves the direct management of remote employees/staff. This process, also known as remote staff leasing, essentially provides businesses with the option to hire and manage their own dedicated offshore staff, without any of the headaches of the traditional BPO process. Furthermore, because this model involves dedicated full-time staff, productivity levels are much higher than in the traditional BPO model. But what makes this new approach much more appealing than the traditional model, is the fact that it offers all the benefits of full-time employees, without the administrative and legal headaches inherent with hiring full-time employees.
For more information about BPO and remote offshore staff leasing, visit Solvo Global.
