Cross-Sell

What is Business Process Outsourcing (BPO)?

Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) is the engagement of services from a third-party provider. BPO uses various technology-enabled services to hasten the delivery of services. The business activities could be back-office such as, but not limited to, payroll, accounting, human resources, or front office jobs like customer service, sales, and marketing, etc. In the case of content providers, these business activities could mean hiring writers, remote editors, or virtual assistants.

BPO speeds up processes and enhances efficiency. Companies that outsource some of their business activities use their time on core services and competencies. With this shift in focus, companies improve their current processes that may result in improved customer satisfaction. BPO helps companies divert their resources to more critical business strategies. Often, companies find it impractical to hire a full-time position in-house because of the cost associated with doing so.

When a business engages an external specialist to manage and operate some of its internal processes, it's referred to as business process outsourcing. Such ‘processes’ include customer service, accounting and finance, or sales. It is different from hiring an agency to do specific tasks, as the outsourcing provider (BPO) is more concerned with the ongoing production of labour-intensive tasks, instead of the higher-level strategy and guidance.

Now, business process outsourcing has broadened and is more akin to staff augmentation, or staff leasing.

There are many benefits to outsourcing, as well as some downsides and risks. The common benefits include:

The business process outsourcing sector is a vast industry, generating over $200bn annually, and employing many millions of people worldwide. Some examples include:

Facebook and Uber outsource many of their operational functions, including content moderation for Facebook, and customer service for Uber

A medium business with 50-500 staff might outsource the labour-intensive accounting and finance functions to a team in the Philippines.

It is common for small business owners to have a Virtual Assistant (VA) working for hem full time, remotely from the Philippines.

The type of business process outsourcing can be characterised by their specialisation, location, and size.

Business process outsourcing is in the human resources and professional services sector. However, their services extend across all industries. The majority of BPOs are generalist, in that they offer a full range of professional services, although some specialise in certain verticals (ie accounting, or animation).

Business process outsourcing typically operates form developing nations such as the Philippines, India, and Colombia. They typically have cheaper cost-of-living and bigger populations. Different locations offer different advantages.

The bigger BPOs employ more than 250,000 people. They are huge, global operations. Medium-sized BPOs range from 500-5,000 staff and offer a full range of services. The smaller BPOs might have 1-500 people.

Collectively, business process outsourcing provides any kind of staffing solution. Common functions of BPO include:

Outsource Accelerator is the most trusted source for independent information & advisory for Business Process Outsourcing (BPO). We have over 4,000 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, business process outsourcing.

What is Lead Generation Virtual Assistant?

A business cannot survive without customers, and customers were all leads once. A lead generation virtual assistant assures that you’ll get a continuous stream of leads that your sales agents can reach out to. They also filter consumer and business prospects via outbound telemarketing, and help streamline your company’s sales processes.

The lead generation virtual assistant does the hard work of researching for leads and other pre-sales business administration duties so your sales agents can focus on selling, and so upper management can focus on their core responsibilities. 

Lead generation virtual assistants are very beneficial for a sales team, especially in the long run. Here’s what they can do for you:

What is Order Processing?

Order processing is the sequence of steps to gather a customer's data, encode their order, and pass it on to another department for fulfillment. Depending on the industry, fulfillment can take the form of shipping or bookings and rentals.

Depending on the scale of the business, business owners can choose to leverage technology to speed up order processing and use data science techniques to better understand their customer base and predict inventory and sales trends. Some business owners, however, op to use more traditional pen and paper processes for their lower upfront and maintenance costs.

Thanks to advances in telecommunications technology and cloud-based storage, order processing can be digitized much more cheaply. And thanks to outsourcing, finding the expertise to leverage the data from digital order processing is a much more economical option for small business owners.

Outsource Accelerator provides you access to great order processing specialists that you can outsource from the Philippines starting from $6 per hour, where you can save up-to 70% on staffing cost. We make it easier for clients to learn about, and engage with back-office outsourcing.

What is Sales?

Sales is a process where the ownership of a property or the performance of a service is exchanged for a price. Typically, the sales process involves acquaintance, assessment, persuasion, and closing. The process is distinct from marketing in that a sales transaction is typically conducted on a person to person basis, where a marketing campaign is tailored to target groups.

A good sales team knows how to manage the process. They invest in creating a good first impression, understand a customer's needs and wants, and then tailor their talking points to address how the product or service addresses the customer's requirements. 

They also help manage the process of transferring custody of the product or service to the customer. Such a process requires skills in empathy, communication, creativity, and thoroughness, and the expertise in applying those skills to specific products or services.

In BPO teams, the sales process starts with targeting and generating leads for the business. These leads will then be contacted by the sales representatives to see their needs and tailor fit the services of the company to them. They will then present an offer for each customer they can freely accept or decline. 

The presentation part may be a tricky one since not everyone will accept each offer. In this case, they need to handle rejections from several leads. Then, they can close the sales deal and restart the process.

As with any skilled professional team, great sales teams require consistent training, excellent management protocols, and clear goals. As such, some businesses opt to farm out their sales teams to outsourcing companies who will handle the management, talent, and training. Other times, some businesses need help with crafting a sales strategy that works for their business environment and attracts their ideal customer.

Outsource Accelerator specializes in helping small & medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), with 2-500 employees, typically based in the high-cost English-speaking world. We are the experts in transforming these businesses with sales outsourcing.