Outsourcing or the practice of engaging external firms to deal with business functions that are normally performed within the company has been seeing significant growth since the market downturn emerged in 2008. A lot of businesses have benefited from outsourcing, especially in terms of saving costs, increasing profits, restructuring the organization, and improving business efficiency.
In order to make use of the limited resources available such as people, time, and infrastructure, companies can consider outsourcing some of their business functions that are considered secondary to the services they provide. Areas that can be outsourced range from human resources, recruitment, accounting, finance, engineering, IT to customer support such as call center.
Outsourcing enables companies to save time, effort and costs and allows them to focus on the central business as non-core tasks are carried out by business process outsourcing (BPO) firms that offer more proficient and specialized services. For example, huge companies can outsource customer care services to call centers instead of hiring and training staff to handle their customer service operations. This will not only enable these companies to save on training costs since they need not invest on manpower, but will also ensure that they provide their customers quality services since BPO firms have a large pool of experts and skilled people to handle the job delegated to them.
The first step in outsourcing is deciding what particular aspects of the business should be outsourced. This involves evaluating and weighing the advantages against the costs of outsourcing the identified functions or tasks.
The next stage is choosing the right BPO firm that can provide the services needed. A tendering process can be done to allow the evaluation of all potential providers in terms of cost and quality of services, track record, approach or strategy and other added value.
After appointing a BPO firm, it is important to agree on the terms of the partnership through a written contract. The contract must contain the conditions of provision, standards that must be followed, the pricing of services, as well as the duration of the partnership. It must also be devised in a way that flexibility for changes is taken into account.
Managing the transition is the next step. In this stage, employees of both the company-outsourcer and the BPO firm should be informed about the set-up and the changes that will take place in the business. It is important that both parties are oriented about the business arrangement so that the transition is done smoothly in the least possible time and for a positive, open relationship to be maintained.
Lastly, it is important that the company-outsourcer and the BPO firm keep a constant communication to ensure that the job is being done appropriately. There is a need to assess and evaluate performance in order to address problems, improve business operations and set targets. Regular meetings, where day-to-day concerns and problems can be discussed, must also be conducted. This will also help nurture the partnership and ensure that both parties are satisfied.
Tags: accounting, BPO, business process outsourcing, call center, contact center, engineering, finance, human resources, IT, outsourcing, recruitment, support
Latin America is booming with call centers right now. Why? Same time zone, cheaper prices, easily integrated western culture, etc etc. In Buenos Aires, there is a huge amount of people from all over the world for many different reasons - but they all share one thing in common, they need a job! Call centers attract them because often they can speak to clients / customers in their own language. Companies like 5CA are owned by people from the netherlands but headquartered in Buenos Aires.