What is an Agent?
What is an agent?In the outsourcing industry, the definition of agents is a team of individuals who are tasked to provide customer services via different communication channels available in order to continuously provide a positive customer experience. Agents are deployed to do inbound and outbound functions; both are essential in keeping the relationship between the business and its customers healthy and productive. Processes may involve customer service support, back-office job support, advisory services, email management, virtual assistance services, website maintenance, marketing and promotional services, and the likes.
Agents are trained to render customer support that revolves around the company’s product or service. Ranging from office support to advisory services, agents are expected to provide the best possible alternative course of action for every problem and increase customer satisfaction by attending to their concerns being raised via different communication channels.
Outsourcing agentsAn agent of a BPO company earns an average of USD 4,000 per year in the Philippines, which is roughly USD 345 per month. Aside from that, agents can receive more through overtime pays and holiday pays. Labor laws in the Philippines require higher pay rates during these situations. In some cases, agents can work even with just a high school diploma, but applicants with college degrees have an advantage.
What is What is business process outsourcing??
What is business process outsourcing (BPO)?Business process outsourcing (BPO) is the practice of contracting a third-party provider to run a defined business function such as customer support, payroll, accounting, or IT helpdesk. The provider takes ownership of the people, process, and technology, and bills you on a per-seat, per-transaction, or fixed-fee basis.
BPO sits at the intersection of labour arbitrage and operational focus. You hand off a non-core function to a specialist that can run it cheaper, faster, or better, and your in-house team gets to concentrate on what actually moves the business.
The category covers everything from a 4-seat phone team in Cebu answering after-hours calls for a US plumbing firm, to a 5,000-seat captive in Manila handling global claims processing for a Fortune 500 insurer. Same idea, very different scale.
If you've used Apple support, ordered from Amazon, or paid with Wells Fargo, you've talked to a BPO provider — you just didn't know it.
How it worksA BPO engagement runs in three layers: contract, transition, and steady state. You scope the function, sign a service level agreement that locks in response times, quality thresholds, and pricing, then transition the work through documented playbooks and parallel runs before the provider takes the keys.
Pricing usually falls into one of four shapes:
Model
How you pay
Best for Per FTE (seat)
Fixed monthly rate per agent
Steady-volume work like inbound support Per transaction
Set fee per call, ticket, or invoice
Variable-volume back-office tasks Outcome-based
Tied to a KPI like CSAT or collections
Mature processes with clean metrics Hybrid
Base FTE rate plus variable bonus
Long-term partnershipsLocation choice drives most of the savings. Sending work to the Philippines or India (offshoring) typically cuts loaded labour cost by 50–70% versus a US in-house team. Sending it to Mexico or Colombia (nearshoring) trims 30–50% while keeping you in roughly the same timezone. Keeping it domestic (onshoring) protects timezone and language fit but barely moves the cost needle.
The provider absorbs the recruiting, training, real estate, tech stack, and compliance burden. You absorb the vendor-management overhead and the risk that comes with handing a function to an outsider.
ExamplesThe global BPO market hit roughly USD 347.95 billion in 2025 and is projected to grow at a 10.05% CAGR through 2035, according to Precedence Research. That growth is concentrated in a handful of hubs and a handful of named buyers.
Google has used Philippine and Indian BPO partners since 2016 for content moderation, ads review, and customer support — a quiet workforce that scales with each product launch. Meta contracts Accenture and TaskUs in Manila for content moderation; the work pulled enough scrutiny in the early 2020s that Meta eventually broadened its provider base across multiple regions. Wells Fargo has operated a Manila back-office hub since 2011, handling mortgage processing, AML checks, and treasury operations for the US parent. JPMorgan Chase runs large captive and outsourced operations in India and the Philippines for KYC, trade settlement, and analytics.The Philippines remains the standout English-language hub. According to the IT and Business Process Association of the Philippines, the country's IT-BPM sector generates roughly USD 40 billion in revenue and employs about 1.9 million people, with growth targets pushing past 2.5 million by 2028.
Related terms Outsourcing: the umbrella term; BPO is the back-office and front-office slice that runs whole processes rather than one-off projects. Offshoring: moving work to a distant country (e.g. US to Philippines). A location choice, not a contracting choice. Nearshoring: moving work to a nearby country (e.g. US to Mexico) to keep timezone and culture closer. Knowledge process outsourcing: KPO handles judgment-heavy work like legal research or equity analysis, not transactional tasks. Call center: one delivery format inside BPO, focused on inbound or outbound voice. Back office: the non-customer-facing operations layer that BPO most commonly absorbs. Service level agreement: the contract clause that defines what "good" looks like in a BPO deal. FAQ What is business process outsourcing in simple terms?BPO is paying another company to run a piece of your business for you, usually a repeatable function like answering support calls, processing invoices, or managing payroll. You keep the brand and the strategy; they run the operation.
What is the difference between BPO and outsourcing?Outsourcing is the broad category — anything you contract out, including one-off projects. BPO is the subset where a provider runs an ongoing, defined business process end-to-end, typically with its own staff, systems, and SLAs.
Is BPO only about cost savings?No. Cost is the entry argument, but mature buyers cite access to specialist talent, 24/7 coverage, faster scaling, and freeing in-house leaders to focus on growth as bigger long-term wins. See the directory of vetted providers on Clutch for how the market positions itself today.
What functions do companies outsource most often?Customer support, IT helpdesk, finance and accounting, payroll, HR administration, content moderation, and data entry top the list. Higher-judgment work like legal research, equity analysis, and medical coding has shifted to KPO providers over the last decade.
Which countries dominate the BPO industry?The Philippines leads voice and customer experience, India leads IT and analytics, and Latin America (Mexico, Colombia, Costa Rica) leads nearshore work for North American buyers. Eastern Europe serves Western European clients on similar terms.
How do I choose a BPO provider?Match scale to your volume, check for relevant compliance (ISO 27001, HIPAA, PCI DSS, SOC 2), ask for two reference clients in your industry, and pilot a small scope before committing to a multi-year contract. Walk away from any provider that won't share agent attrition data.
Ready to scope a BPO partner? Outsource Accelerator lists 4,000+ vetted providers across the top global hubs — use the directory to shortlist, compare pricing, and book intro calls without paying a referral fee.
What is Shared Services Centre?
What Is a Shared Services Centre (SSC)?A shared services centre (SSC) is an internal unit that consolidates repeatable back-office work, including finance, HR, IT, procurement, and payroll, from across a company into one team, run like a service provider to the rest of the business. The goal is fewer duplicated roles, standard processes, and cleaner data across every business unit.
Think of it as one accounting team serving twelve divisions instead of twelve mini accounting teams. The SSC charges those divisions through internal recoveries or service-level agreements, and its performance is measured the same way an external vendor's would be.
That distinction matters. An SSC sits inside the company, but it's structured to behave like an outsourcer — with KPIs, billing logic, and customer-style governance.
Most large multinationals operate at least one SSC today, and the model has evolved into a broader Global Business Services (GBS) approach — a hybrid that mixes captive centres with outsourced partners across multiple geographies.
How it worksAn SSC works by lifting a function out of every business unit, standardising the process, and running it once from a central location. The "service" piece is literal: the SSC publishes a catalogue, signs SLAs, tracks throughput, and reports back to its internal customers.
A typical SSC build runs through four phases:
Scope. Pick the functions to consolidate, usually transactional work like accounts payable, payroll, or IT helpdesk. Standardise. Rewrite each process to one global template before any move happens. Lifting chaos doesn't help. Locate. Choose a site based on talent, cost, language coverage, and time-zone fit. Manila, Kraków, Bengaluru, and San José top most shortlists. Govern. Set SLAs, pricing, and escalation rules. Run the SSC against productivity benchmarks like invoices-per-FTE or first-time-resolution rates.The functions most commonly consolidated map closely to Deloitte's Global Business Services Survey, which has tracked the model since the 1990s.
Function
Typical scope in an SSC Finance & accounting
Accounts payable, receivables, general ledger, tax filings Human resources
Payroll, onboarding, benefits admin, employee helpdesk IT
Helpdesk, infrastructure, identity and access Procurement
Source-to-pay, vendor master, contract admin Customer service
Tier-1 support, billing queries, complaints intakeA mature SSC then layers automation on top: RPA for invoice processing, chatbots for tier-1 HR queries, and analytics for spend visibility. From there, it starts pushing into judgment-heavy work like FP&A and reporting.
ExamplesReal SSCs aren't a thought experiment. Some of the world's largest brands run them as core infrastructure.
Procter & Gamble has operated its Global Business Services network since 1999, with hubs in Manila, San José (Costa Rica), and Newcastle (UK). It handles finance, HR, IT, and facilities for the entire P&G group.
Unilever runs Enterprise & Technology Solutions hubs in Bengaluru and Mexico City, consolidating finance and IT for more than 190 markets.
Shell built its first SSC in Kuala Lumpur in 2003 and now operates five global centres covering finance, HR, contracting, and customer ops. The Manila and Chennai sites alone employ over 10,000 staff between them.
Microsoft opened a Manila operations hub in 2014 that handles licensing, billing, and partner support for the Asia-Pacific region.
Smaller mid-market firms typically skip the captive SSC and go straight to outsourcing — the fixed cost of running a centre rarely pays back below roughly 500 transactional FTEs.
Related terms Business process outsourcing: contracting an external vendor to run a function; an SSC keeps it in-house. Global business services: the broader operating model that blends SSCs with outsourced partners and centres of excellence. Captive centre: a wholly-owned offshore unit, often the foundation of a regional SSC. Centre of excellence: a specialist team focused on judgment-heavy work, often sitting alongside an SSC. Back office: the administrative functions an SSC typically consolidates. Offshoring: relocating work to a lower-cost country, the most common SSC location strategy. Service-level agreement: the contract that defines how the SSC delivers to its internal customers. FAQ What's the difference between a shared services centre and outsourcing?An SSC stays inside the company, with employees on the parent payroll. Outsourcing hands the same work to a third-party vendor. Both standardise and centralise work, but ownership, risk, and margins sit in different places.
Is an SSC the same as a BPO?No. A BPO provider sells shared services to many client companies. An SSC serves only one company, its parent, even when it sits in the same building as a BPO down the street.
Where do most shared services centres get built?Manila, Bengaluru, Kraków, Mumbai, Hyderabad, and San José (Costa Rica) host the bulk of global SSC capacity, according to the Shared Services & Outsourcing Network. Talent depth, English fluency, and time-zone reach drive location choice more than raw labour cost.
How big does a company need to be to run an SSC?A captive SSC typically needs at least 300 to 500 transactional roles to justify its setup costs. Below that threshold, hybrid models or pure outsourcing usually deliver better economics.
What are the biggest risks in running an SSC?Process variation across business units kills the savings case; weak governance creates silent service failures; and over-centralising judgment work can starve business units of finance and HR support. Strong SLAs and clear escalation paths usually fix all three.
Are shared services centres still relevant in the age of automation?Yes, but the shape is changing. Routine transactions are increasingly automated, so modern SSCs are pivoting toward analytics, controls, and advisory work — the things automation still can't do unsupervised.
Thinking about whether an SSC or an outsourcing partner fits your operation better? Talk to Outsource Accelerator for an independent take.
What is a Team Leader?
What is a team leader?Team leaders within the outsourcing industry are in charge of handling agents or employees, reporting the team’s progress to higher management, coordinating efforts and division of tasks, and resolving interpersonal concerns.
As opposed to a manager, a team leader does not have the authority to hire or fire employees. However, they will often be called for their input in such decisions.
A good team leader will have excellent communication skills and empathy, as the creativity and organizational skills to create an environment where team members have clear goals and a clear division of labor.
Depending on the team, some may define their goals and divide their labor collaboratively. Oftentimes the team leader will be the one to set both with input from the team.
In both cases, a team leader must create an environment where each team member has bought into the tasks at hand.
Call center team leaderIn the Philippines, a team leader can earn somewhere between $7,000 – $10,000 per annum. In a typical call center environment, they are expected to handle anywhere between 5 to 15 agents at any given project.
Outsource Accelerator provides you with the best customer service outsourcing companies in the Philippines, where you can save up to 70% on staffing costs. We have over 3,000 articles, 200+ podcast episodes, and a comprehensive directory with 700+ BPOs… all designed to make it easier for clients to learn about, and engage with, outsourcing.
What does a call center team leader do?A call center team leader is in charge of supervising and monitoring a group of call center staff. Their role is to give training and feedback to the team, as well as to guarantee that the team’s goals are accomplished and to analyze each member’s performance.
Discussing objectives with the call center manager and delivering them to the staff are also part of the team leader’s responsibilities.
Leadership abilities, customer service experience, observational awareness, and the ability to communicate effectively over the phone are all required for this position.
Call center team leader duties and responsibilitiesLower-level managers at call centers are called team leaders, and their goal is to get the best performance out of those under their supervision. A customer service director or call center manager is usually their supervisor.
Successful leaders of a call center team usually possess leadership skills and other characteristics they need to handle their responsibilities.
Here are some primary duties of call center team leaders to maximize productivity and quality customer care:
Handling day-to-day operationsLeaders of call center teams are hands-on leaders. They ensure that proper processes are followed and offer regular instructions to their employees on what to do and how to improve.
When a customer service representative requires assistance, call center team leaders may engage, give advice, or request a specific adjustment. One of their responsibilities is to schedule personnel to guarantee appropriate coverage.
Motivating team membersResponding to client complaints might be difficult at times. Team leaders motivate each team member to take their jobs seriously and to work hard to develop good customer relationships.
They create targets and goals for them to accomplish to motivate them and assess their performance. At the same time, they create a work environment that conducts good team communication and collaboration.
Hiring and training staffCall center team leaders may be in charge of recruiting, interviewing, and hiring employees if they have a good understanding of what their organization needs from its customer service team.
They are then responsible for training team members on their responsibilities and expectations in the company.
Evaluating performanceTeam leaders should monitor how each team member doing. They need to consider how they can boost efficiency and customer satisfaction. Written reports to senior management may be used to document their observations of the company.
Key points for effective team leadership in a call centerHere are some effective key points for becoming an effective team leader:
Be responsible and adaptableAnyone who takes on leadership duties in a call center should be adaptable in every aspect. Having a senior position does not mean they are in charge of the whole process in the call center.
Good team leaders are willing to acknowledge mistakes and make improvements. Through continuing quality assurance, management may be able to inform them of their errors, which may come as news to them.
A good leader possesses the emotional intelligence to take any criticism, figure out how to adjust, and incorporate feedback into their work style.
Conduct regular coaching and trainingWhen QA analysts conduct quality assurance in your call center, they will find issues at all levels of working procedures. Before a QA system detects problems, agents, team leaders, and supervisors can all contribute to poor customer service.
Based on the data obtained throughout the quality assurance process, team leaders must give coaching and training to service agents. Strong communication skills are essential in this situation, as this helps them connect with team members and guarantees that they understand how to develop.
Improve team experienceListening to customer service agents’ concerns, resolving their demands, and presenting management with their feedback may all help the entire team feel more appreciated.
A good team leader makes an effort to improve their job experience. They work with management to propose positive improvements in working practices, such as flexible hours, casual attire, and conduct training.
Further, reward programs are an excellent method to motivate employees and increase their passion for their professions.
Independent
