Business Process Outsourcing: Examples, Benefits & the Best Way to Get the Most Out of It

Are you struggling with keeping up with the demands of your expanding business, leading to decreased efficiency and increased expenses? If yes, you’re not alone.

Many businesses, especially small and medium-sized ones, struggle to keep up with the escalating demands of their operations. But there’s a solution for you – business process outsourcing.

 By outsourcing, companies can also reduce operational costs by eliminating the need for additional staff, infrastructure and equipment. you can just easily search for (e.g., IT companies in Poland or IT companies in UK).

But this requires you to automate and streamline your processes to make your company productive and profitable and improve communication and coordination of your team; otherwise, you’ll end up being trapped in a never-ending list of tasks.

So, in this blog, we’ll discuss the benefits of outsourcing business processes and help you understand how you can save your hours and cut your expenses by streamlining them.

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Let’s dive in.

What is business process outsourcing (BPO)?

Outsourcing business processes to an external service provider is known as business process outsourcing (BPO). An example could be hiring a freelance writer to outsource content writing. Or, if you're a crypto startup, you can outsource your marketing campaigns to reliable crypto marketing agencies, as it allows you to focus on core innovation and development while entrusting the marketing aspects to dedicated experts.

BPO was historically utilized by manufacturing organizations, but it has recently spread to several industries. According to a Grand View Research, Inc. report, the global market for business process outsourcing was valued at $261.9 billion in 2022 and is projected to grow at a CAGR of 9.4 percent from 2023 to 2030. 

Meanwhile, Statista reports that 74 percent of businesses use business process outsourcing to provide information technology services as of 2021. Furthermore, 59 percent of companies use outsourcing services to cut costs, while 57 percent rely on BPO to concentrate on their most important issues, operations and activities.

Back-office or front-office services may be outsourced as part of business process outsourcing. Back office duties, such as accounting and human resources, don't involve interacting with customers. Outsourcing customer-facing tasks like sales or customer care is known as front-office BPO.

3 Major benefits of business process outsourcing

BPO comes with lots of benefits, but when we asked Russell Greenwald, Vice President at Insource Services, here’s what he said:

“Outsourcing business processes allows organizations to focus on their core competencies while delegating non-core functions to external providers specializing in those areas. 

This enables businesses to benefit from the expertise of the outsourcing provider and gain access to the latest technologies and techniques that might not be available in-house. By outsourcing, companies can also reduce operational costs by eliminating the need for additional staff, infrastructure and equipment. 

Additionally, outsourcing can help to improve the quality of services or products by leveraging the provider's specialized knowledge, experience and quality control systems. 

All these benefits of outsourcing business processes can help companies to improve their bottom line, increase customer satisfaction and gain a competitive edge in their industry.”

And everything boiled down to three main benefits:

1. Saves your hours

BPO companies provide specialized knowledge to organizations, saving them time. For instance, an organization might lack the internal skills to set up a new accounting system. 

They can take advantage of the BPO provider's skill and experience in that field by outsourcing their accounting tasks to them. Furthermore, new technology and systems are frequently used by BPO providers, which can help to streamline operations and increase efficiency. 

Businesses can cut down on time-consuming manual operations like data input, record keeping and report generating by employing supplier technology.

2. Reduces your expenses

Businesses can get cheaper labor while retaining the same level of quality because BPO providers are frequently found in nations with lower labor costs. This implies that companies can lower labor expenses without sacrificing quality.

BPO providers frequently provide flexible pricing structures that also assist firms in reducing costs. 

For instance, some BPO providers provide pay-per-use or per-project pricing, enabling organizations to pay only for the services they actively utilize. 

Compared to paying internal employees a fixed salary, this can be more cost-effective, particularly if the workload changes.

3. Increases your organization’s efficiency

Business operations can be made more effective by using BPO providers' 24/7 support. 

For instance, a business that outsources its customer care to a BPO provider operating in a different time zone can provide support around the clock, enabling clients to get help whenever needed. 

This will result in increased client loyalty and happiness, which will ultimately boost an organization's efficiency.

Business process outsourcing examples

There are so many ways BPO helps your business improve its efficiency. Here are three examples of them:

1. Finance & accounting industry

Many businesses hire third-party service providers to handle their financial and accounting operations. This helps them lower their operating expenses, increase the accuracy of their financial reporting and comply with regulations. 

Bookkeeping, payroll processing, tax preparation and financial analysis are a few of the services that BPO companies offer.

"The finance and accounting industry is all about numbers and this is why business process outsourcing is a great fit. There is so much data to be analyzed and reports to be produced, which can be time-consuming for in-house teams. Outsourcing these processes to an agency that has skilled accountants and data analysts can save a lot of time. Plus, outsourced teams tend to be much larger, so you can get more done with less effort." — Matthew Ramirez, Founder, Rephrasely

2. Customer service industry

Several businesses use BPO service providers to outsource their customer service operations. In addition to lowering their customer service expenses and increasing customer happiness, they can offer customer support 24/7. The BPO providers offer services like chat assistance, email help and phone support.

"The customer service sector can benefit from BPO by accessing knowledgeable customer service agents who can respond to questions, grievances and support requests. Businesses can offer their clients round-the-clock support by outsourcing customer care without adding more employees or spending more money on pricey technology." — Edlyn, B2B Marketing Research Specialist UpCity

3. Manufacturing industry

Many manufacturers contract with logistics service providers to handle their supply chain management functions. As a result, they are able to improve delivery times, save inventory costs and streamline their supply chain processes. 

Transportation, warehousing, inventory control and order fulfillment are just a few of the services that BPO companies offer.

"Outsourcing manufacturing leads to higher profit margins because you’re not spending as much on labor and other expenses. Business process outsourcing is a cost-effective alternative to operating your own manufacturing department, allowing you to focus on product development and marketing.

Outsourcing manufacturing improves efficiency and reduces expenses and errors. Find a manufacturer with a proven track record of delivering high-quality products and services on time and within budget and you’ll reap the benefits of higher profits." — Matthew Ramirez, Founder, Rephrasely

How can you streamline your business processes?

BPO has many benefits, but as we said, you need to streamline your business processes to get the most out of it. And for that, all you need is – process documentation. 

However, because most manual documentation processes need a lot of time and resources – obtaining permissions and manually managing modifications and edits – all add up to a full-time task that takes forever. 

Hence, your team cannot operate effectively if your processes are not documented. 

With strong documentation, your team is better equipped to:

• Perform duties without requesting assistance or clarification.
• Cut back on errors and time spent correcting them.
• Standardize procedures to consistently provide high-quality goods and services.

So, how do you streamline your processes effectively while saving your hours?

Here’s the solution – Scribe it!

With Scribe, you can automate process documentation and create practical, quick-reference and share-ready guides in seconds.

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Simply proceed through your routine by clicking on the desktop application or extension and Scribe will turn your process into a visual step-by-step manual incorporating screenshots and written instructions.

Here's one in action that took Lauren only 15 seconds to create:

Moreover, Scribe's feature Pages allow you to combine Scribes with other elements like videos and photos and make interactive, visual process documents that you can update, tweak and reuse over and over again.

Here’s a quick overview of everything you can do with Scribe Pages:

‎If you’re still unsure whether Scribe is worth your time, don’t go for our words because here’s one of our various case studies showing how Scribe helped Crexi solve its documentation issue.

Crexi, an active marketplace for commercial real estate listings that releases new product features every two weeks, was in trouble until Scribe came to the rescue. The customer success team was fighting to remain ahead due to the company's ongoing struggle to maintain its internal and external documentation updated.

Crexi's initial strategy was to produce videos to respond to client inquiries, but they soon realized that this method required too much time and couldn't keep up with the platform's rapid expansion. 

The internal process documentation was also becoming outdated, which presented the customer success team with another challenge.

At that time, Crexi chose to implement Scribe, a platform for process documentation that made it simple for the team to produce and distribute important documents. Scribe enabled Crexi's customer success managers to update internal training materials and promptly respond to client inquiries, all within three minutes.

With Scribe, Crexi's CSMs could quickly write up new procedures, share them with clients or upload them to their own Sharepoint, keeping all stakeholders informed at all times. 

We’re not done yet; here’s what our other users say:

‎Improve your business processes with Scribe!

Many organizations have experienced disruption and ground shaking due to the ongoing pandemic. Outsourcing business processes is, therefore, a key decision that will undoubtedly increase productivity and bring more profitability to your organization.

And to make BPO work efficiently – Let Scribe streamline business processes for you!

It provides several benefits, such as:

• Business process standardization.
• Increasing profitability.
• Expanding productivity.
• Reducing doc error rates.
• Improving the standard of the services.

Using Scribe makes it easy to communicate, store your business data securely and guarantee that your process documentation is always up to date.

So what are you waiting for? Sign up for free on Scribe today and start streamlining your business processes effortlessly.