Business Process Outsourcing
Business process outsourcing is perhaps the single best illustration of using expert resources to outsource certain elements of business, so as to enable a company to focus on its own internal core competencies. Business processing outsourcing or BPO for short is a large and growing category category; here we tightly define business process outsourcing as non-voice interactions that support back-end activities within a call center.
Some of the more common business process outsourcing applications that we find today are order processing, and include order or data entry, fax processing, literature and/or product fulfillment and e-mail response handling. Other broader functions include labor intensive activities that involve high touch demands such as human resources administration, accounting, payroll, medical transcription and insurance claims processing.
Among the key drivers of business process outsourcing, cost has long played a pivotal role. As salaries in the U.S. continue to rise, it becomes more cost effective to move business process outsourcing activities offshore, to locations such as the Philippines where salaries are far lower than in the U.S. Another strategic benefit is the average 12 hour time zone difference offers access to round the clock or “follow the sun” multi-lingual coverage 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
As in any outsourcing relationship, there exists some element of risk associated with business process outsourcing. Letting go of any part of your operation to a third party demands specific requirements and expectations be set when deciding who to choose to handle your business process outsourcing. Selecting a U.S.-based company that supports offshore operations with all technology resident in the U.S. can mitigate much of that risk. This combined with constant monitoring, easy access to a U.S.-based client services team, performance and expectation measurement compared against goals and a high level of control over the business process outsourcing arrangement will all help ensure long-term success.
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Greg Galitzine is editorial director for Internet Telephony Magazine. To see more articles, please visit Greg Galitzine’s columnist page
