BPO: A Brave New World

BPO: A BRAVE NEW WORLD

I get up close and personal in understanding the nuances of business process outsourcing, otherwise known as BPO to all you acronym-loving CEO/COO/CFO/VP/EVP/CKO-types out there.

My theory is that BPO has solidified itself as a huge, resourceful, practical tool in today’s small business market for three reasons.

First – and perhaps most obvious – it’s an extremely cost-effective solution in today’s economic climate. Small businesses are always scrambling to pull themselves up by their bootstraps, and constantly scramble to continue growing and increasing revenues. As a result, they’re looking for cost-efficient, realistic, functional, outside-the-box alternatives to do so. An obvious alternative is outsourcing some of the day-to-day business processes.

Second, and maybe as a result of reason #1, organizations are seeing that outsourcing is simply an efficient tool in general to integrate into their overall business strategy … of any sized organization.

Third – and this is especially true in today’s economy – finding and hiring skilled experts to become a permanent part of your staff is becoming harder and harder thanks to opportunities provided by the gig economy, low unemployment, and the changing expectations of the next generation of employees.

Why create an entire IT department when you can outsource some (if not all) of your tech needs to an already-established expert? Do you need to bring in an HR manager, when there are human resource consultants available on-call when you need them? And, my personal favorite, why hire an on-staff marketing coordinator or executive assistant to handle the processes surrounding your marketing or operational needs, when there’s one right here who can do all the same things without the stress, cost, and commitment of bringing on a permanent employee?

Every day I’m amazed at the new technologies that are easily and readily available for us in the BPO arena … tools that not only make our jobs easier, but those of our clients. Need to have a quick, few-sentence conversation? Click your instant messenger and see if your service provider is online. Have a large file that needs to be sent? FTP and “drop” sites take seconds to set up and even less time to use. Want to have a quick meeting with your virtual team? There’s no shortage of easy, free Web-based tele-video-conferencing apps. Want someone else to be able to access files directly from your computer? Take your pick from several remote access tools.

The parameters and definitions of what constitutes BPO changes almost as much as the technology itself.

At first, “outsourcing” conjured up images of larger-than-life corporations sending production lines offshore to other countries. Then there was the assumption that only big companies could afford or knew how to outsource large-scale business services.

But, the truth is, business process outsourcing is simply contracting out the operations and responsibilities of a specific business process to a third-party service provider.

Today, the one-person consulting firm down the street outsources her bookkeeping to a bookkeeper, sends her marketing materials and newsletter copy to her virtual assistant firm to produce, and her list of prospects to an off-site appointment-setter. What does she get in return for outsourcing some of her business processes? The equivalent of a three-person staff working for her, and the time to focus on what she does best – consult with her clients and grow her business.

Before embracing the world of BPO, a little due diligence is always in order. But, you’ll find any BPO-related service provider is just as interested in making sure you understand the benefits and potential challenges as you are in discovering how to make it a workable solution for you.