BUSINESS OUTSOURCING AND ADVANTAGES

“Do what you do best. Outsource the rest”

PETER DRUKER

Ever wondered how the total revenue of Business Process Outsourcing industry reached $23.6 billion in 2018?

Not only this, but the Global market calculates and aims to reach $262.2 billion in the coming 2 years.

Quite fascinating right?

BPO is having a huge impact on the employment of people by making available the jobs for millions of people globally. The BPO sector provides straight employment to more than millions of people and has created indirect employment opportunities to 8 million people.

This facts and figures will definitely draw your attention towards knowing what exactly is Business process Outsourcing and diving more and more into the depth of this topic.

Business process outsourcing is basically a subset of outsourcing. But, what is outsourcing? In simple words, it is a business practice for a process to hire a party outside the firm to create goods and perform services which were previously performed inhouse by the employees in the company itself. It is done primarily with the aim of cost-cutting measures.

Huge number of companies nowadays across the world is selecting the Outsourcing approach. Outsourcing helps in start-ups or an established Enterprise to gain an edge over competitors and its rivals.

Now, BPO is transferring non core business practices to external service provider or third party service providers. This is mainly used to outsource corporate processing service to an external firm. It is the changing of in-house facilities with others from external firms. One organisation hires another company to perform a procedure or a task that is required for hiring organisation for its own business to run successfully. In Outsourcing, business processes are repeated and a long-term agreement is used.

BENEFITS OF OUTSOURCING-

But, why a company will choose to outsource even if it has its own internal resources and assets?

Nevertheless, Outsourcing has benefited numerous start-ups and businesses over the years particularly in terms of providing reliable talents and decreasing the costs.

1. Cost reduction-

Keeping in point, the current scenario where most of the youths aim of opening their own start-ups. Here, outsourcing helps them a lot in reducing cost both in manpower and overhead. It makes the venture a cost-effective one by providing them the workers, highly specialised equipments, space, support and HR.

2. Access to more talents-

Outsourcing holds much importance in western foreign countries especially where the Talent shortage is experienced.It gives companies access to talents from various countries and regions especially when the firms require it.

3. Flexibilty-

Outsource provides flexibility. It mainly considers the duration of the project and the team size required for the task with the help of reliable Outsourcing companies they hire and the expertise they want at the time when need it.

4. Speedy hiring process-

Instead of company hiring full-time workers, outsourcing introduces the hiring company which is significantly faster in a very less span of 1 to 2 weeks. Clients can find an outsourced worker or a team which is ready to work with them and also be ready to start working instantly on the project. This saves a lot of time for the company especially who are looking to develop a product which follows a strict deadline.

5. Fresh Perspectives-

Outsource workers or team are treated as collaborators and not merely order takers. So it leads companies to work with a fresh perspective from various regions of the world. This helps in giving the company or firm, a competitive advantage and as a result giving them new ideas.

SOME FACTS ABOUT OUTSOURCING-

India has become a top site/location for abroad companies to outsource business processes.

The BPO and IT industries in India hadcombined a massive revenue of $154 billion in the year of 2019 according to a report by NASSCOM.

In 2018 and 2019, India was also considered as the best country for setting up an offshore development centre because of its access to capable professionals and low-cost services.

In United States, more than 3 lakhs jobs are outsourced annually.

THE RISKS OF OUTSOURCING A BUSINESS PROCESS-

Outsourcing may seem quite difficult at the beginning, but if you outsource for a specific job it will become easy as you have to choose the right candidate for the right job for completing a task. But, if you try to outsource a business process it may seem difficult because you will be dependent on company you will be hiring for the outsource for many important operations. The reason behind this can be some of those mentioned below:

1. Risks regarding security-

You can’t merely trust a person only by studying his or her educational background and it may not be possible that the partner in your company might not be good as you think. Security is a very major factor. So you have to be very careful about what the processes and privileges you are giving to the one you have hired and at most care should be taken regarding the money issues.

2. Depending on a new or a foreign company-

Once you decide to outsource a company or a person they become an important aspect of the processes carried out in your firm. They should be able to match the Expectations with what you hire them. As you build a bond with the company, it is difficult sometimes to cut the that bond with the outsourced company and if an employee or a worker doesn’t performs well, you will face some issues after firing them off.

3. Language barriers-

Companies should make sure that the company or employee they are going to outsource should be fluent in the language the hiring company deals with or carries out process in.

4. Deviation from the actual goal-

Things may go wrong when the hired company or employee doesn’t match the requirements of your company and as a result this may seem in the wastage of your time and money.

THE IMPACT ON BPOs AFTER THE COVID-19-

Theindustry that will be affected more than others is the business process outsourcing (BPO) sector. BPO primarily consist of large number of employees which are hired that is outsourced. It can be possible that they work from exact same location of company or any other location according to the convenience or restrictions. They may be made to work or answer any type of calls which are required. As the current scenario is concerned, locations and people are hugely affected by the pandemic.BPOs have to cope up with the rapid,unconsistent and dynamic world. This will either shape the BPO industry or even break it. The BPO market is aiming to grow by USD 76.9 billion during the upcoming for years this pandemic has created numerous opportunities according to Technavio. The increased outsourcing of business processing will have a positive impact and contributed to its growth.