A Good, Quick Look at Business Process Outsourcing

Picture freeing up your internal team to focus on core activities while a dedicated (outsourced) expert handles your administrative tasks. That’s what is known as Business Process Outsourcing – or when a business offloads or subcontracts or simply assigns its operation to another organization.

While BPO agencies offer a wide range of services, their core areas of expertise may differ depending on their industry focus. Human resource management, financial and accounting management, marketing, and customer support are some examples of business process outsourcing services. These agencies leverage their expertise, technology, and economies of scale to deliver efficient, cost-effective, and scalable solutions.

Empower your decision to explore BPO services with the insights provided in this blog. Learn about different types and discover the compelling reasons to choose an experienced BPO agency.

Types of BPO Services and Agencies

BPO services are provided mainly in two ways: Front-office and Back-office operations.

Front-office operations consist of all those operations where the agents don’t need to make any kind of interaction with the customers.

Back-office support comprises all those operations where there is a need for virtual or physical interaction with the customers.

While back-office operations include accounting and financial-related services, front-office operations include customer service and sales.

When discussing the classifications of customer support operations, these can be sorted into three categories, as highlighted below:

1.     Onshore BPO agencies

Agencies that are located within the same country as your business are called onshore BPO agencies. Onshore outsourcing is pretty prevalent.  In the US alone, 66% of companies outsource at least one of their operations.

When talking about their benefits, they boast a vast array of advantages.

First, hiring a local BPO eradicates all the language barriers.

Second, there is complexity in the legal affairs of recruitment and hiring if these services are sourced from a local BPO.

Also, if you get finance and accounting services from an onshore BPO agency, they can handle taxes and financial matters smoothly because they understand the local currency and financial laws.

2.     Nearshore BPO

Nearshoring involves outsourcing to BPO agencies located in geographically close countries, like Mexico or Canada for US businesses.

For US businesses, nearshore BPO offers potential cost savings due to currency differences. Both Canadian and Mexican currencies are generally weaker than the US dollar, making labor costs in these countries more competitive.

1.     Offshore BPO

Outsourcing services from a BPO agency that is neither located in your country nor geographically near is called offshore outsourcing. Offshore BPO agencies operate in different regions. For example, it’s when your US-based firm acquires the services of a BPO agency located in Pakistan.

There are tons of benefits to offshoring. For instance, these services are acquired at extremely cost-effective rates due to currency differentiation. Also, it broadens the language outreach of a business. Communicating with clients and prospects that are located within that region becomes easy.

Advantages of BPO Services

Although there are several advantages to acquiring BPO services, below we’ve only listed the main ones – or scratched the surface of its treasure trove.

1.      Cost–effectiveness

One of the most prominent benefits of acquiring BPO services is their cost-effectiveness. In-house operational management, no doubt, is expensive. But if you plan to set up a tech department, acquiring hardware, and software, and hiring technical staff will come at a steep price. Now when you acquire these services from a BPO agency, there is no need to finance technical machinery and talent in-house.

2.      Greater language availability

If your business has foreign clients and prospects, there is a need to cater to their language to build a much more personalized connection and to coherently present your message aka business proposal. Let’s say your US-based business is expanding or has a huge customer base in Latin America. Then, acquiring services such as customer support and sales from a Mexican BPO would be perfect to bridge language barriers and exceed customer satisfaction.

3.      Extending Timing Availability

Operating round-the-clock to cater to prospects and clients from different time zones is impossible, but this issue can be resolved with outsourcing. Leveraging the expertise of BPO agencies that operate in different time zones ensures that your clients and prospects from different regions are served seamlessly without any hiccups. Let’s say your business operates in the Eastern time zone and you avail the services from an agency that operates in UTC or PST. This means the availability of your business would increase.

4.      Rapid Expansion

If your company is rapidly expanding, the need for BPO grows dramatically. Although the accelerated growth of a business is exciting, there are issues that arise in this situation. Problems such as the immediate need for bulk staffing, financing the machines, and software to cater to growing audiences are prevalent for those businesses that are at the top of the growth curve. Outsourcing can be a solution for your business if it’s experiencing rapid expansion.

Conclusion

BPO agencies present a potential array of advantages for businesses, but careful deliberation is essential before engaging their services. Examining factors such as service breadth, cultural fit, market reputation, and cost structure will ensure an informed decision and a fruitful BPO collaboration.

While looking for a BPO that provides cost viability that fits with your budget and provides supreme and diverse quality services at the same time, such agencies are hard to find. But don’t worry, we have what you’re looking for: the perfect BPO agency to partner with: SMB Services.

SMB Services is a renowned and reputable BPO agency that provides varied business solutions and services. More so, everything you should look for in a BPO, SMB Services presents. Whether it be competent technical staff, affordable service charges, or manifold services.