Startup companies start with minimal resources and full effort during their first years. Entrepreneurs and small teams work extensive hours to keep up with their goals and objectives and get their business going.
This may be normal at first. However, they may face a hard time growing their companies with increasing tasks and duties at hand.
Business process outsourcing helps them avoid this. They can manage their tasks and scale their manpower easily. It also allows them to expand their business and enter a new market with its offshore team.
Why outsourcing
Startups outsource their services due to different reasons.
Limited resources
Majority of entrepreneurs start their businesses at home. This saves them costs and requirements in renting out an office space since they can do their tasks online. With this, startups don’t have the capacity to hire in-house employees. They’d rather outsource or hire a freelancer for their manpower needs.
Limited finances
Startups have limited sources of their funding. 77% of them rely on personal savings and less than 1% try venture capital. With this, they need to carefully budget and monitor their expenses especially during their first years. Outsourcing helps them save on labour and operational costs while receiving high-quality services, giving good value to their money.
More focus
Solopreneurs usually have difficulties in managing their business when they multitask. Outsourcing gives them more focus on their strengths and core responsibilities. This allows them to improve the services they offer and think of strategies to grow and expand their business over time.
Competitive strategy
Tech startups outsource to have an edge to their competition. It gives them access to the best talents and the latest technology to operate even at a low cost. This gives them the advantage to strategise and level their business with the current cut-throat competition.
What industries outsource the most
More and more startups outsource their services to their advantage. Some sectors that benefit from it include:
Financial services
FinTech startups outsource software development to improve their products and produce a better version of it in the market. Aside from this, they can also provide better customer service through offshoring to a call centre.
Real estate
An emerging industry in the outsourcing market, real estate agencies take advantage of outsourcing to focus on managing and selling their properties. This also helps them scale their manpower through hiring top real estate professionals at a lower cost.
Healthcare
Lead generation and sales teams help healthcare companies attract more customers and increase their sales, especially with insurance companies. Medical transcriptionists, meanwhile, help them transcribe and interpret medical data they can use for further research.
Top outsourced services
Below are some of the usual services that startups outsource.
Administrative
Entrepreneurs need assistance for administrative services, such as appointment setting, document preparation, and even event coordination. Hiring a virtual assistant allows them to ease their burden from these tasks and focus more on closing deals with their partners.
Contact centre
Startups should also improve their efforts in reaching out to their customers. Setting up an offshore contact centre allows them to have an omnichannel approach by extending customer support to social media and other messaging platforms.
Human resources
PEOs and BPO companies can also manage their human resource and recruitment efforts for their operations. They can assure that they only screen and hire the best talents for their teams and keep their employees satisfied.
Payroll services
Lastly, a growing business should also be able to manage their payroll. Outsourcing this helps them relieve the burden of this task. This also keeps them from creating errors and delays in paying their employees and offer them better benefits.
Top BPO companies for startups
Some of the best BPO companies are found in India and the Philippines, two of the most popular outsourcing countries. Aside from low-cost services, they also provide expert employees in different fields such as software development and IT.
Outsource Accelerator lists over 700 BPO companies with a wide range of services. They also have educational resources such as articles, guides, whitepapers, podcast episodes, and videos about outsourcing and managing remote employees. To learn more, check out the Top 40 BPO companies guide.